Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 1, 1893

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
189
A BOOK-HUNTER'S GAME-BAG.
By Bey. Donald Masson, M.D.,
Author of '* Vestigia Celtica."
II. (Concluded.)
§F corbies never pick out corbies' e'en, so
neither does the book-hunter envy 0] grieve
— at the good fortune of hisneighbour. Never-
theless I must confess that I should have rejoiced
to have stood in my correspondent's shoes on
that memorable morning when, in Denmark
of all places in the world, he "bagged" that
beautifully hound copy of Dr. Kenneth Mac-
Lea;) s '• Memoirs of Bob Boy" — "the original
edition of 1818." Andyet this magnificent stroke
of good luck is not at all unprecedented. My
own copy of Alexander Macdonald's Poems,
the first original work ever printed in Scotch
Gaelic, was picked out of a heap of waste
paper, just arrived from Rotterdam, at Mr.
Luke's paper mills, near Denny. If not thus
snatched as a brand from the burning, it would,
to use the more befitting metaphor, have next
minute disappeared in the jaws of that terrible
machine, known equally to the manufacturers
of paper and of shoddy as the " devil." And not
so long ago the "quays" of Paris, with miles
of continuous bookstalls lining the north bank
of the Seme, might be regarded as the world s
best hunting -ground for the bibliomaniac.
Many's the prize I might have netted there in
days gone by, but for the stern necessity of
rigidly binding myself by the rule, " nothing
but Celtic, or having at least some distinct
Celtic affinity." Once only I remember break-
ing this rule ; and it was not for a " prize." It
was only for " Tracts " — a series of volumes in
which were neatly bound an endless array i •!'
those simple pious booklets which formed the
spiritual food and the heart's delight of the
grandmothers of this very dissimilar genera-
tion. The tracts had evidently been carefully-
read and tenderly cared for. And they bore,
stamped on every one of them, a name ami
family crest which connected them closely with
a sad, sad story of family ruin and disgrace not
yet forgotten in some old Midlothian mansions.
The head of what would then be regarded as
one of the newer county families, yielding to a
temptation common to all men, sought wickedh ,
because deliberately, to hide his disgrace by
a cool act of villainy which brought him under
the ban of the law. He lied the country, and
his fair young wife hid herself away in the exile
and seclusion of a quiet Parisian suburb.
There for many years she lived, and there she
died, known to few except the poor around her.
To them she was a saint from heaven. And
these pretty volumes of pious English tracts
were hers. Do you wonder that I bought
them, book-hunter as I am ? If you press me
hard I have an answer that should suffice even
for you. One of the tracts tells the story of
that young and pious Chief of the Chisholms
whose simple monument, encircled by ancient
trees at Erchless, commemorates the virtues
and the early death, at twenty eight, of a rarely-
gifted Highlander and a young Highland chief-
tain greatly beloved. One word more. The
fruit of that foolish yielding to unholy impulse,
leading up to a criminal act, and driving into
life-long exile the crushed heart of a pure and
gentle woman, now tills worthily and usefully
one of the highest ecclesiastical positions in
Scotland.
But there are other things and higher game
than tracts, even when they embalm a tragedy,
to reward the labours of the book-hunter on
the quays of Paris. Once I there stalked a
line copy of "Ossian" in French, but, unfor-
tunately, I was not alert enough, or nimble
enough, to put salt on its tail. It was a fine
copy, unbound, but uncut, clean, perfect, and
having tine large margins of pure white paper.
The price was only three francs. In the usual
way 1 ottered two. The man m charge of the
stall took the book across the street to the
bookshop with which, as appeared, the stall
\\;is connected. I saw the shopkeeper come to
the door to take stock of me. He evidently
"smelled the blood of an Englishman," and
sent back the message that the price of the book
was thirteen francs ! We did not do business.
But not far away I spotted a tine copy of the
pirated French edition of •■Ossian" in English.
When this edition was printed, a French font
of types knew nothing of the letter w — a letter
still unknown in spoken French. In my copy,
for I risked not again by higgling a repetition
of my disaster, the main characteristic accord-
ingly is that the w is represented by the make-
shift of two v's in apposition. Among other
valuable works of which I thus secured tine
uncut copies at moderate prices may be men-
tioned the Baron Belloguet's " Types Gaulois
et CeltoBretons," and his " Le Genie Gaulois."
Of old books in the Breton tongue I never was
so fortunate as to hunt up one solitary speci-
men, though I searched as for hidden treasure.
To taste the dainties of such morning worms
the bird must not only get up early, but he
must have chipped the shell before the birth
of the Celtic Benaissance. The nearest ap-
proach to such a rarity that ever came my way
\\;is a copy of Le Brigant's curious grammar,
"De La Langue Des Celtes-Gomerites, ou
Bretons," published at Brest in the year seven
— of the Bepublie. The title-page forms a
significant menu of the line confused feeding