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Grolier Club Publications part 6

In this summary list of these several catalogues, I could not of course refer to two other publications made in the past five years. One of them was an original essay by Mr. Moncure D. Conway on "The Barons of the Potomack and the Rappahannock," of which three hundred and sixty copies were printed in 1892. The other was a facsimile of Bradford's "Laws and Acts of the General Assembly for their Majesties Province of New York. Originally printed in 1694, it was reprinted by the club in an edition of three hundred and twelve copies just two centuries after the laws had been enacted.

Two other of the publications of the Grolier Club must be mentioned here, - if publications they can fairly be called. The first was a bronze medallion portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne, made for the club by M. Ringel d'Illzach in 1892; and the second was an etching by M. Francois Flameng of the picture of " Aldus in his Printing Establishment at Venice, showing Grolier some Bookbindings," the original having been painted by M. Francois Flameng and presented to the club by Mr. S. P. Avery - to whom, indeed, the library of the Grolier (like that of the Players) is indebted for many benefactions.
The membership of the Grolier Club was at first limited to one hundred (it has now been enlarged to allow of two hundred and fifty resident members), but the editions of its publications have generally somewhat exceeded the smaller number, and the unfortunate outsider has sometimes been able to acquire these treasures by the aid of a friend at court. This liberality is in proper accord with the spirit of the inscription stamped on Grolier's own books, Io. Grolierii et amicorum, setting forth that they belonged to Grolier and his friends. Surely an altruism like this is as rare as the selfishness of Scaliger, who bade his friends buy books for themselves.

To grant or to withhold, the question is equally difficult aque difficulter. When all book owners shall freely lend and send their most precious tomes with ungrudging speed, then will be the book lover's millennium, which the founding of the Grolier Club here in New York may haply help to bring to pass. And in the meanwhile its members may pine for that book man's Paradise:

There treasures bound for Longepierre
Keep brilliant their morocco blue,
There Hookes' "Amanda" is not rare,
Nor early tracts upon Peru!
Racine is common as Rotrou,
No Shakspere Quarto search defies,
And Caxtons grew as blossoms grew,
Within that Book-man's Paradise.

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