CHAPTER IX

AUTOGRAPHS OF MUSIC, THE DRAMA, AND ART

Illustrated letters

On December 17, 1907, four-and-twenty letters of Ludwig van Beethoven were sold at Sotheby's for £660, notwithstanding the fact that the autographs of musicians, artists, and actors, are not even mentioned by the chronicler of prices in 1827! For the solitary letter of Beethoven in my collection I paid M. NoËl Charavay £10, and it was at the same outlay I acquired in England an interesting letter of Joseph Haydn's. In extra-illustrating the "History of the Festivals of the Three Choirs," of which my ancestor, William Hayes, Mus. Doc. (1707-1777), was one of the founders and subsequently a conductor, I acquired considerable experience in the market prices of all sorts of musical MSS.

In this particular class of autographs "album specimens" have often considerable value, for musicians have always been the target of the autograph-hunter, especially so of those of the fair sex.[58] It is no uncommon sight after a "star" concert to see the tired-out central attraction in a state of autograph siege, either for inscriptions in albums or signatures to photographs. The plaintive autograph letter of Franz Liszt tells the tale of the request made on behalf of the owner of a Royal Album to the exigencies of which he gracefully surrendered. A few bars of music written and signed by Handel would now be worth quite £20 or £25; and some day the musical autographs of Edward Elgar will fetch very high prices. William and Philip Hayes rank in the first class of English composers of Church music, although the father was overshadowed by his loyal friendship for Handel, and the latter by his admiration for Haydn. I have acquired (with one or two trifling exceptions) the MSS. of their compositions, several of which have never been published. Like most musicians, the Hayeses were humourists. They wrote anthems and chants, but they won fame in their generation by catches, canons, glees, madrigals, and fugitive pieces of all sorts. The tuneful airs of Philip Hayes [1738-1797] re-echoed amidst the glades of Blenheim, and were often heard at Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and "Marybone."[59] Musical autographs have risen considerably in price during the past thirty years, as shown at the comparatively recent Taphouse Sale. A very fine letter of Chopin's was offered for sale at 250 francs last year by Madame Veuve Gabriel Charavay. Letters of Mendelssohn and Wagner are in great request. The former vary in price from £3 to £10. Although Richard Wagner was a prolific letter-writer, any letter of his is worth £5 or thereabouts, and many have sold at from £20 to £50. I have never seen an A.L.S. of Handel's in the sale-rooms. A good one will probably fetch £50. A fragment of one of his compositions, once in the possession of William Hayes, lately realised £100. Much of his music seems to have been written out by Smart.

In 1876 Mr. Waller offered a letter of Beethoven's for sale at £3 10s.; one by Dr. Blow for £1 and 2 pp. of one of William Boyce's compositions for 7s. 6d.! The latter would certainly fetch 40s. to-day, but thirty years ago autographs of Catalani, Bishop, Cooke, Holmes, Hummel, Michael Kelly, Lablache, Loder, Meyerbeer, Offenbach, Louisa Pyne, Rossini, Rudersdorff, Tamburini, and Samuel Wesley averaged about 3s.! I lately gave £3 3s. for the signed MS. of Wesley's "Ode on the Death of Boyce," the bicentenary of whose birth occurs this year (1910), in which also the centenary of the birth of Wesley's musical son, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, might appropriately be celebrated at Gloucester. Amongst Mr. Frank Sabin's autographic rariora is the MS. of the original score of Thomas Moore's "Last Rose of Summer." There is a great demand in America just now for Moore MSS. of this sort, although ordinary letters rarely fetch high prices. Charles Burney's letters (of which I have many) are to my mind always interesting, although they only bring from 15s. to 30s. in the sale-rooms.

For some collectors the Drama offers a peculiar fascination. I have already described the letter of William Wilson of the "Fortune" Theatre, with whom Shakespeare possibly played.[60] The great dramatist himself, from the autograph point of view, has been alluded to. In turning over the catalogues of 1876-86 one is struck with the high prices of letters of David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Garrick rarely wrote a dull letter. When Paul Sandby asked for a box he replied—

D Garrick

Here are some examples of Garrick's letters to Mrs. Montagu not generally known:—

Mr. Garrick to Mrs. Montagu.

David Garrick to Mrs. Montagu.

I have in my collection a Drury Lane box-ticket dated and signed by Mrs. Garrick a few days before her death. In the last decade of the nineteenth century the late Mr. Thomas Knox Holmes told me he had danced with Mrs. Garrick in her drawing-room at the Adelphi when she was past ninety. She was actually engaged in inspecting her dress for the theatre when Death once more "eclipsed the gaiety" of the brilliant little cÔterie in which Garrick's widow moved.

The letters of Sarah Siddons fetched quite as much or even more in the "eighteen-seventies" than they do now. As a matter of fact, the charming letter to Mrs. Piozzi, now reproduced, exchanged hands in 1876 at £2 2s. more than I gave for it in 1910.

Mrs. Siddons to Mrs. Piozzi, Westbourne Farm, Paddington, January 29, 1809.

Fine letters from Mrs. Siddons fetch from £10 to £20. A specimen may be obtained for £5 or even less, for I note an invitation "to dine at pretty Westbourne" has just been sold (February 28, 1910) for £2 14s. The letters of the brother of the great actress, J. P. Kemble, sell at from £1 to £3 each. He evidently (according to one of the specimens in my collection) moved in very high circles. This letter is addressed to Sir Thomas Lawrence, whose fatal relations with the Siddons family circle have already been alluded to:—

The most curious letters of that mysterious personage the Chevalier d'Éon in my collection relate to two public exhibitions of his skill as a fencer, given in Bath during the year 1796. While staying in his native Tonnerre the ex-chargÉ d'affaires gave a supper in honour of Prince Henry of Prussia. In a bundle of his MSS. I bought in France I found the bill for the historic feast. It was not expensive, and must surely have been enjoyed tÊte-À-tÊte.

The letters of artists do not as a rule command large prices, but there are many exceptions. I have never seen a letter from Sir A. Vandyke or Sir P. Lely, but Mr. W. V. Daniell prices the following letter of William Hogarth to his wife in Dorset at £35:—

Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, and George Morland always fetch from £3 to £10 or more. I gave £7 7s. for the letter of Reynolds to Crabbe, covering Dr. Johnson's criticism of the poem submitted to him. The examples of Romney and Morland I possess are placed behind the frontispieces of standard works on their Art. The letter of poor Morland is melancholy reading, and suggestive of the squalor in which he moved and died:—

George Morland to Mr. Graham.

In May, 1810, George Cruikshank, born in 1792, was in the thick of the fight which the caricaturists waged against Napoleon. It was seventy years later than the date of Morland's grotesque scrawl that there appeared in The Times (December 30, 1871) a letter from "Glorious George" claiming to be the originator of the idea of "Oliver Twist." On the following day Charles Manby, a mutual friend of the writer and the artist, thus writes to the latter:—

On January 2, 1872, Cruikshank replies as follows:—

I often wonder that some zealous collector does not confine his attention solely to letters illustrated by the writers. I have already mentioned the achievements in this connection of Thackeray[62] and Sir Frank Lockwood. I have come across illustrated letters in the correspondence of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mrs. Piozzi; Mrs. Norton embellished her letters with admirable sketches of a humorous character, and so did John Leech, Hablot K. Browne, Frederick Barnard, and, of course, George Cruikshank. In my three grangerised volumes relating to the history of Punch are letters illustrated by Sir Francis Burnand (who delighted his friends with this kind of jeu d'esprit before he left Cambridge), Mr. G. A. Sala, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. H. Furniss, Mr. Phil May, and Mr. E. T. Reed. One of the most curious illustrated letters in my possession is a rough sketch of a projected bath at Windsor, made by King George III. for the benefit of Wyatt, the architect. Napoleon often added sketch-plans of battles and movements of troops to his letters, and Louis Philippe was fond of making quaint drawings, which are sometimes to be found even on the official documents which passed through his hands. It was from a rough sketch in a letter of Mr. Cobden, now in possession of Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, that we find the genesis of the idea of the "big" and "little loaf," which has achieved something very like political immortality.