The Final Owner: Francis Douce

the president of the Mercurii; and a fourth page, on which is affixed a card with what appears to be the scribblings of a child. It is not clear what this assemblage was intended to be. Whether this book ever passed through Raphael’s library, or if he simply handed off a paper to his friend Olivia, is a mystery. What we do know, however, is that the book was no longer owned by either Serres or Smith in 1829.

The Final Owner: Francis Douce The catalogue of the bookseller John Cochran of June 15, 1829, was the first work of its kind to feature illustrations. Among its 650 items, including many manuscripts within a broad range of topics and languages, appears the following text (with no accompanying illustration):

413 Magic and Astrology. —A Volume of Magical Incantations and Charms. Manuscript, of the seventeenth century, with very numerous diagrams, small folio, containing upwards of 400 pages closely written, 2l. 12s. 6d.

A volume full of strange recipes how “to bind a spirit—to bring the thief again—to attract a female familiar—to make men appear in horns—to obtain your love—to make your enemy love you—to find the virtue of mandrakes— to keep fruit from birds and your enemy in prison—to have your desire in all things,” and many other wonders. There is also a treatise on Animal Magnetism, and “A Hymn by the Princess Olive,” in whose possession it appears recently to have been.106

This is a fair list of items from the book, and it is clinched by the insertion in pencil of the catalogue number and price in the manuscript’s inner back cover. From the last comment, it seems that even Cochran was unclear about what the chain of ownership between Serres and the auctioneer had been. Nonetheless, the book was picked up in this sale and made its way to its last private owner: Francis Douce.

Douce was born on July 13, 1757, the fourth and youngest child of Ellen and Francis Douce. His father was an attorney at the Six Clerks Office and expected Francis to follow him in the same profession. His son wished to pursue a life of learning and antiquarian collection instead. Although he was not permitted to attend university, he succeeded in joining the Society of Antiquaries and was permitted to read at the British Museum.107

106. Cochran, A Catalogue of Manuscripts in Different Languages, 122–23. 107. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, vii–viii.

Seeking employment to maintain his collecting habit, Douce became employed at the British Museum’s Department of Manuscripts, working to catalogue the Lansdowne and Harleian manuscript collections.108 He chafed at the various aspects of the job, however, and resigned upon being forced to report on the activities of an employee hired against his recommendation. He resigned on April 6, 1811, listing fourteen reasons, ranging from the freezing building to the endless reports to the pompous and ineffectual committees—complaints one might still hear from librarians today.109 Despite the trustees’ efforts to bring him back, Douce remained steadfast in his decision.110

As it happens, Douce’s lack of collecting funds might have pushed him into areas in which others did not collect, creating materials of deep value to later scholars. His house contained all manner of items, including images of the Feast of Fools, children’s schoolbooks, tarot decks, nursery rhyme pamphlets, and mummies. One of his interests was the sublime, a literary mood of reaching beyond everyday consciousness that encompassed both horror and religious awe.111 He became one of the few people to recognise the genius of William Blake during that artist’s lifetime, purchasing his works and possibly even attending one of his sparsely attended exhibitions.112 He also collected drawings of Fuseli, depictions of the mandrake, and substantial material on witchcraft and demonology—although Douce MS. 116 would be his only book-length acquisition dealing with magic itself.113

There is no exact entry in his notebook of acquisitions for June 1829 that indicates he received the manuscript, especially given his decision not to list individual titles in most acquisitions. The manuscript is noted in the Bodleian’s manuscript catalogue as “An alchymical work of incantations, charms, tables of the planets, etc., illustrated with figures intitled Cornelius Agrippa’s fourth book.”114

Douce was childless, and speculation arose about where he might leave his collection after his death. The British Museum was a logical choice, but his history with that institution made such a gift unlikely. The matter was decided when he made a visit to the Bodleian in 1831, in the company of his friend Isaac D’Israeli. Douce was

108. Topper, “Francis Douce and His Collection,” 10. 109. Bodleian Library, Douce e. 28, 2–3. 110. The Douce Legacy, ix–x. 111. Topper, “Francis Douce and His Collection,” 35–6. 112. Stemmler, “‘Undisturbed Above Once in a Lustre,’” 12. 113. Topper, “Francis Douce and His Collection,” 42–5. 114. Bodleian Library, Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts Bequeathed by Francis Douce,

Esq. to the Bodleian Library, pt. 2:18.

particularly happy that the collections others had left to the library had remained together as distinct units.115

Douce was not an easy person to get along with. Upon receiving a single poor review of his first book Illustrations of Shakespeare (1807) in the Edinburgh Review, Douce decided not to publish any other books for decades.116 The Reverend Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a friend of Douce’s for over a quarter century, referred after his death to “the capricious lights and shades of his character: - those crotchetty impulses, and immoveable prejudices…which peculiarly distinguished him.”117 He nonetheless did have some lifelong friends, often fellow collectors such as the sculptor and miser Joseph Nollekens, whose bequest to his friend allowed Douce, late in life, to acquire at a prodigious level.118 He was not devoid of a brand of humour, including sarcastic labels in his scrapbooks, and Dibdin notes how Douce would “chuckle aloud” at an illustration of monstrous demons.119

Douce passed away on Easter March 30, 1834. In his will, he asked his friend Sir Arthur Carlisle “either to sever my head or extract the heart from my body, so as to prevent any possibility of the return of vitality” before he was laid at St. Pancras.120 This was not necessarily an unreasonable precaution in that period, given the dangers of premature burial. In his will, he made numerous bequests, favouring his fellow collectors more than members of his family. As he had promised, he donated his extensive collection of nineteen thousand printed books and over four hundred manuscripts, prints, drawings, coins, and medals to the Bodleian. To the British Library he left a Dürer work that Nollekens left him, his impressions of monumental brasses, two annotated works, and a mysterious box that his will stated should be kept closed until 1900.121 Official sources differ about what was inside that box, ranging from trash to an uninteresting series of materials still useful for contextualizing the collection. The box is still at the British Library, while its brass plate and contents joined the more substantive part of the collection at the Bodleian.122

Even though Douce’s collection no longer occupies its own nook along the walls, the Bodleian has fulfilled its promise to keep the treasures of his collection alive for future generations.

115. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, 11–12. 116. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, xi. 117. Dibdin, Reminiscences, 2:777. 118. Mann, “Francis Douce as a Collector,” 361. 119. Dibdin, Reminiscences, 2:769. 120. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, 13. 121. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, 13–14. 122. Bodleian Library, The Douce Legacy, 17; Topper, “Francis Douce and His Collection,” 61.