NO SOURCE Nov

Chicago Morning Times, July 21, 1886. William H. Dorsey Scrapbook Collection, 250.47 Rare Books in Chicago. Ancient art and literature. Old tomes on the shelves of Chicago Historical Society, the Law Institute, and the Public Library—quaint dedication. The libraries of the Chicago Historical society, the Law Institute, and the public library contain many very valuable and interesting old tomes that have come down through the centuries from the time when Shakespeare wrote and played and Europe was entering upon the literary and art glories of the renaissance. These antiquities in literature are excellent illustrations of the good, honest work in printing and binding done by the men who worked in the shops of “Fletestrete” in London, Venice, Leipzig, Lyons, or other publishing centers in the early days of the art. Their type remains as clear, the paper as good, the engravings as fresh and distinct, and the binding, in some cases, as perfect as when the volumes were first published. The works cover a wide range of subjects, relating to political and social economy, jurisprudence under the common and civil law, and social life and humor in the olden times. Many of the most interesting books are either given or loaned by generous bibliophilists in this city, including Messrs. Julius Rosenthal, Charles Harpel, Daniel J. Avery, and John Gindele, and the late Mrs. Pond of Petersham, Mass. An interesting picture of the social condition of women in England in the early part of the seventeenth century is given in a book published in 1632 in London, in which the author devotes a chapter to the subject that “the baron may beat his wife.” “The rest followeth,” he says, “for Justice Brooke, in a report of the twelfth year of Henry VIII’s reign, affirmeth plainly that if a man beat an outlaw, a traitor, a pagan, a villain, or his wife it is dispunishable, because by law common these persons can have no action. God send gentle women better sport of better compagnie., that it seemeth to be true that there is some kind of castigation which the law permits a husband to use * * * that which appertains to the office of a husband for lawful and reasonable correction,. So the actionless woman beaten by her husband hat retaliation left to beate him againe, for if he dare to come to the chancery or justice of the peace in the country against her, her recognizance alone will hardly be taken, he were best be bound for her, and then if he beat her a second time let him know the price of it in God’s name.” Chapters follow on the twin subjects, “That which the husband hath is his owne,” and “That which a wife hath is her husband’s,” the last description including horses, sheep, corn, wool, money, plate, jewels, and all manner of movable property. It is by reason of this want of property right that her own recognizances are not available. In the year 1729 the Rev. John Disnet promuigated a blast against immorality and profanes, founding it upon a view of the ancient laws relative to those two offenses. On the subject of plays and players the reverend writer out-Herods and Herod in the Chicago pulpit, and supports his statements by the wise saws and instances of ancient law givers. One of the most amusing of the old books in the public library is entitled “Dissertation Ludicrarium,” published in 1638, which professes to be the orations and debates given in a theatre or audience room by various speakers. The character of the contents may be judged from the fact that the orations include one on the advantages of blindness, by Jacobi Gutherii; another on the benefits resulting from being a slanderer, by M. Ant. Majoraghi; and of being by nature a fool, by Joan Papseratii. After an illustration of the war among grammarians, by Anderae Salernii, there is a laudatory oration by Julius Caesaris Scaligeri on the subject of “Geese,” a favorite bird with the Romans. Others follow on the subject of the gout, and of vermin and like subjects. Thomas Brown, “doctor of physick,” in 1669 published some inquiries into very many received tenets and commonly presumed truths, under the title of “Pseudodoxia Epidemia,” and there was added discourses by the same author, one on “Urn Burial, or Sepulchral Urns Lately Found in Norfolk,” and the other on “The Garden of Cyrus, or Network Plantations of the Ancients.” The “Theasaurus Exoticorum,” being a collection of foreign curiosities and stories, also covers a wide field of life and manners on the continents of Europe, Asia, among the Hottentots, and on the Magellan islands. It was published in Hamburg in 1688, the author being Everhardo Guernero Happelo. In 1624 John Speed published “A History of Great Britain,” showing the manners, habits, wars, coins, and seals and the successions, lines and acts and issues of the English monarchies from Julius Caesar to James I, which the title page announced would be on sale by George Hunable at the Whip-Horse in Pope’s Head alley. The dedication to King James was couched in the laudatory style usual in that time. A well preserved history of the world by Sir Walter Raleigh, printed in London in 1676, is found in the Law institute. The preface is considered a fine specimen of English prose. “Presented to the library by our English friends,” says the little inscription on the inside cover of a very old history of the world. Written by the famous author, C. Plinius Secundus, and published in 1635. It was dedicated to Prince Vespasian. The book treats everything, from the composition of the elements to beasts, fishes, and man, and then the history of the known world including “Affricke,” and the habits, manners, and religions of the several countries. Another interesting historical work is a large folio volume, published in Nurnberg in 1685, containing the most important treaties of peace entered into by European powers, published by Wolfgang Moritz Endters. Among the treaties given in parallel columns in the languages of the two contracting countries are those of Sweden and Russia, 1661; of Portugal and the United Netherlands, 1662; the treaty of Westminster, 1667; of Fontaineable 1679, and between the sultan Mahomet IV, emperor of Turkey, and the “high mightiest” republic of Venice, 1669. A history of the states, empires, and principalities of the world, with descriptions of the countries, manners, and customs of the inhabitants, the armies, governments, religions, and princes who have governed each state, with the origin of all the religions and chivalric and military orders, was written by Mr. Davity, gentleman of the order “De la Chambre du Roy.” The frontispiece shows the different people of the continents, America being represented by a beautiful woman who wears a tightly fitting cap on her head, flowers in her hair, and a bracelet just below the knee. The drawing and book were published in 1530 at Rouen by Jaques Caillove, holding his shop in the Court du Palais. The public library is also in possession, by gift from Mr. Julius Rosenthal, of a rare volume on manners, printed in 1656, entitled “Finnetti Philoxenis, some choice observations of Sir John Finnett, knight, and master of ceremonies to the two last kings, touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the puntillios and contests of foreign ambassadors in England,” with an appropriate motto, “Legati ligant mundum.” The book is dedicated by Sir Knight James Howell, the Boswell of Sir Knight Finnet, to Viscount Lisle, in whom he says he has discovered “a true Sidneyan Soule, which by a peculiar Noble Genius is observed to be extraordinarily inclined to the theory and speculative part of virtue, as well as to the practical part.” The book recites how the precedences, quarrels, plots, and discontents of ambassadors are settled. The learned Dr. Henrico Spelmanno published in London in 1686 a “Glossarium Archaiologicum.” It is a large folio volume of nearly six hundred pages, in which this antiquarian Webster explains the new and obsolete meanings of words found in the vocabularies of the Goths, Vandals, in ecclesiastical and profane writings, and in characters, etc. A book on architectures by Seb Serlii, published in Basel in 1608, contains practical instructions in geometry and perspective, and also illustrations of the plans used in the building of the baths in Diocletian, Vespasian, and Antony. The Roman bridges, pyramids, theaters, are also treated, all illustrating the Corinthian, Ionic, Doric, Tuscan, and composite architecture. A very fine old atlas, published by John Senex in 1712 and kindly loaned to the Chicago Historical society by Mr. Charles Harpel, contains, besides a series of excellent maps, an elaborate geographical and historical account of the world, with the natural history and trade of each country. Among other maps is one of Louisiana, at that time a part of the French possessions of America, generally known as Canada or New France. The map shows the chain of lakes and Niagara Falls, and upon the present location of this city is marked “Chicagon,” and two huts denote probably the location of a town, for in many other cases places are noted with but a single hut. In the neighborhood about the Chicagon are located the Mascoutens, or nation of fire. The river is also shown with two branches. The Iroquois tribe dwelt at that time in the territory south of the lake, and it is recorded on the map that in that early day the Iroquois were such fighters for spoils that they had destroyed their opponents, the Indian nation of Du Chat. Lake Michigan is also described in the book as having been called “Illinovecks,” “Illinese,” or “Lake Dauphin.” It is given as being 500 leagues in circumference, its banks being covered with beautiful vines and other fruit trees. The Law institute of this city has also many treasures of legal lore. Among them is one of the oldest of the standard abridgements of law, “La Grannde Abridgment,” published in 1577. The book is written by a celebrated judge, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, and the title page bears the French quotation—the whole being in French, then the language of the courts—“Ne moy reprouve sauns cause aux mon entent est de bone amoure.” The book bears the imprint: “At London in Fletestrete, within Temple barre, at the signe of the Hand and Starre, by Rycharde Tottel the 20 day of august, Anno 1577. Cum privilegio.” Another interesting book, both for its three centuries of age and its quaint lore and spelling, is “A collection in English of the statutes now in force continued from the Magna Charta, made in the 9 yeere of the reigne of King H. 3 untill the ende of the session of parliament holden in the 23 yeere of the reigne of our gracious Queene Elizabeth.” The preface is addressed to “Yee genteel reader.” In 1607, after the publication of the statutes, Dr. John Cowell published a dictionary, which caused much political excitement. It was entitled: The Interpreter, or Booke containing the signification of words, wherein is set fourth the true meaning of all or the most part of such words and terms as are mentioned in the law writers or statutes of this victorious and renowned kingdome, requiring and exposition or interpretation,. A worke not onely profitable, but necessary for such desire thoroughly to be instructed in the knowledge of our lawes, statutes, or other antiquities. Collected by John Cowell, doctor, sometime the king’s majesties professeur of the civill law in the Univerisitie of Cambridge. Adding the motto, “In Legum obscuritate captio.” The first edition, issued in 1607, was not only censured by parliament, but, at the instance of the house of commons, King James instantly and peremptorily suppressed the entire edition, the reason being that opinions were expressed by the author subversive of and inconsistent with the privileges of the house of parliament. The copy in the library is of the edition of 1637. The managers of the law library were able by chance to secure a work published in 1648 of which it is said there is not another copy in existence, at least not in this country. The book contains special and select law cases concerning persons and estates of all men whatsoever, gathered from the reports and year books of the common law of England. One of the oldest of the books in the Law institute, and yet in excellent preservation, is a folio volume published by William Rastle in London in 1596, giving a collection of entries of the pleadings in common law proceedings. By its side stands an original copy of a familiar book to lawyers, “Rolle’s Abridgement,” published 1668, with an excellent engraving of the learned sergeant at law. Among the other old law books in the Law institute are a small duodecimo entitled “A profitable Booke of master John Perkins, Fellowe of the Inner Temple, Treating of the Lawes of Englande,” published in London in 1586, and treating entirely the deeds relating to interests in land. Valuable treatises and commentaries upon the civil code and notes of cases arising under its rules which are enforced in chancery courts in this country were being published by leading jurisconsults on the continent of Europe during the same period. As early as the year 1570 a celebrated jurist, Father Sylvestro, published in Venice a commentary on the civil law of Rome, which was followed in 1602 by a work on the like subject, with also a consideration of the principles of statecraft, by Sciopio Gentilis. Four years later another jurisconsult, Jacobi Cuiacii, completed in two large folio volumes a digest of cases and general commentary of the Roman civil law. In 1648 Sigismundi Scacciae, a leading jurist in the Roman courts, published an exhaustive treatise upon commercial law, including trading at business exchanges, banking, money changing, discounting mercantile bills, and the sale of personal property. The existence at the time of publication, and long before, of institutions such as boards of trade and stock exchanges is shown by illustration of such an assembly of groups of spectators gathered in a large rotunda or court talking at each other, and each apparently making memoranda of his trades. Another engraving represents a scene not altogether unfamiliar today. It shows a large room where a member of such board, who apparently has committed some offense against the rules of the organization, is before a dignified looking board of directors. In another the absorbing rush for wealth even then existing is represented by a gaunt skeleton madly galloping on a fiery steed after the phantom figure of a charming woman bearing the legend “Fugiturum argentum.” As early as 1701 William Watson, LL. D., late dean of Battel, published a large folio volume on “The Clergy-Man’s Law, or the Complete Incumbent.” Another very interesting book on the subject in the law library is a work written by David Wilkins, and published in 1721, treating upon the ecclesiastical and civil law of the Anglo-Saxon dynasties, from the departure of the Romans to the reign of Henry III. The old Huss bible, printed in 1564, has, in commemoration of the martyrdom of John Huss, its title page printed half in black and half in red, and the first illustration is an engraving showing him at the stake, printed in like manner. This work is full of good engravings and is in its original bindings. A volume of sermons on temporal and holy subjects, including discourses on baptism, indulgences, belief in saints, published by Guilbermi in 1492, is found in this library. Scotchmen will also be interested in a work in the law library, published in Edinburgh in 1774 by Sir John Skene of Curriehill, “clerk of the sovereign lord register, counsell, and rolls,” entitled “Regiam Majestatem,” and which gives the “auld lawes and constitutions of Scotland, faithfullie collected furth of the register, and other auld authentick Bukes, fra the Dayes of King Malcome II until the time of James I of gude memorie, and trewlie corrected in sundrie faults and errours, commited by ignorant writers. And translated out of Latine in Scottish language, to the use and knowledge of all the subjects within the realm. Quhereto are adjoined, twa Treatises, the aul anent the Order of process observed before the lords counsell and session, the other of crimes and judges in criminal cases.” The Swedish people in the city will look with pleasure at the heavy folio tomes which tell of the life and deed of their glorious hero, King Charles XII. The edition in the public library, published in 1745, contains a full and interesting record of his reign, illustrated with many line portraits and engravings of sieges, battles and cities.