University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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THE ARIEL, 1907 13 Of the first work named above, but two other copies have found their way to the United States, of the Second, one other, of the third and fourth, our copies are believed to be the only ones in America. A rare item, to use a bookseller'S word, is a copy of the first English translation of Rabelais, by S. T. U. Cf dated 1653. The donor's note on a Hy-leaf says that it is the only copy seen or heard of, as offered for sale in forty-three years of book-collecting. ln 1898 Gen. Hawkins gave the University his entire collection of books on the Civil War, the gathering of which had begun long before the struggle was ended. The original 1,450 volumes fnow increased by additional gifts to I,688j includes histories, general and special, biog- raphies, military criticism, rosters, general orders, poetry, lampoons, stories, etc. The Confederate Statutes, reports and orders are here 5 also specimens of the Southern School-books and novels of the time. Many rarities are comprised in the collection. Some graduate from our De- partment of History, it is hoped will some day make the Hawkins Col- lection his workshop, and send out a substantial contribution to our knowledge of that great coniiict. General Hawkins has been a book hunter all his life. Not many years ago fin I887D his accumulations demanded So much space that he Sent 5,000 volumes to the auction room. The- range, and the results, of his bibliographical investigations are best indicated in a quarto volume issued by him in 1884, the title of which we copy in full: TITLES OF THE FIRST BooIcS FROM THE EARLIEST PRESSES, ESTABLISHED IN DIFFERENT CITIES, TowNS AND MONASTERIES IN EUROPE BEFORE THE END OF THE FIFTEENTI-I CENTURY, WIITH BRIEF NOTES UPON THEIR PRINTERS. ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF EARLY TYPES AND FIRST ENGRAVINGS OF THE PRINTING PRESS. BY RUSH C. HAWRINS. New York and London: MDCCCLXXXIV.

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12' THE ARIEL, 1907 General 1Rusb GZ. 1bavohins, ELTLE. E DEDICATE this issue of the ARIEL to a stanch friend of the University, a Vermonter of Vermonters, a gallant defender of the Union during the Civil War, and a good fighter always for the rights of man, and for the ideas on which the' fathers originally founded the government under which we live. The first time the writer of this sketch met General Hawkins, he was in Burlington with the hope to find in one of the University builde ings the right place in which to hang a large painting for which the walls of his own house nowhere gave sufficient room 3 but unfortunately, a suitable position could not be discovered. One painting in the library, his gift, must be familiar to many who have no suspicion whence it came, the admirable portrait of George P. Marsh, by Thomas VV. VVood, the well-known artist of Montpelier and New York. -- A few volumes of exceeding rarity and value were given to the library in 1897. These came originally from the Ambrosian Library in Milan. One is a photo-lithographic reproduction of the Ambrosian codex of the Old Testament, the Syra Peshito of the 6th century, once regarded by the Roman Catholic church as the most ancient of the complete manu- scripts of the Old Testament. The work is in two volumes, imperial folio, and appeared in 1876-83. A second work is a like edition of the Syra Hexaplaris, a Syriac reproduction of the famous Hexaplar Greek text of the Old Testament, a codex found in the East and taken to Milan in the 17th century. A third work is an ancient liturgy written in the 9th century by an archbishop of Ravenna, of which sixty copies only were made. A fourth imperial folio contains passages and pictures reproduced from an old vellum Iliad, along with some scholia on the Odyssey, and is one of the most beautiful books ever produced by the art preserva- tive.

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14 THE ARIEL, 1907 The Introduction covers the vexed question of the invention of printing, and favors Gutenberg as best entitled to that distinction. The author modestly represents himself as a compiler, but the book gives proof of much careful inquiry, and verification of the statements of others. The value of the work to collectors and librarians is greatly enhanced by twenty-five fczcsifmile illustrations, generally showing the colophon in addition to a full page, The practical value of these accurately dated specimens of early typography is obvious. Previous writers on early books had given lists of places in which presses were set up before the end of the fifteenth century. One makes it 196, another, I52, others, writing between ISOS and 1853, 207, 209, 218, 221. This volume describes 236 books believed to be the earliest issued by the first printers in the towns named. The reproductions in the volume the present writer believes to be in every case from examples in Gen. Hawkinsfs own collection. He remembers seeing in the Cfeneral's study a plain case,,about ten feet long by seven high, filled with these incunabula. It took long years of patient research to assemble these volumes, and more thousands of dollars than one would venture to name. There is no similar collection in the United States, that is equally comprehensive, while in certain respects it is surpassed by butilive or six in Europe. This treasure is to be enshrined at last, we have heard, in a fire-proof building specially designed for it, in Provi- dence, R. I., to be called the Ann Mary Brown Memorial. In addition there will be a room of Old Masters, another of Modern Paintings, and a room for family relics. The whole in honor of his wife, who was a granddaughter of Nicholas Brown, the founder of Brown University,- and to perpetuate her memory. Rush Christopher Hawkins was born in Pomfret, Vt., September 14, 1831. His father was Lorenzo Dorr Hawkins, a son of Dexter Hawkins, who served in a R. I. Regiment in the Revolutionary 'VVar. His mother was a great granddaughter of Rev. Aaron Hutchinson, a graduate of Yale College in I747, who, after a pastorate in Grafton, Mass., came to Pomfret in 1776, and was for a time the sole bishop C Congregationalj of Pomfret, Hartford, and VVoodstock. His discourse at Wiiiclsor before the Vermont Convention of Iuly, 1777.-at which