In nearly every library for scholars is to be found a row of plump little books that never fail to catch the eye of the sightseer. If the visitor does not know beforehand what they are, he is little enlightened on being told that they are "Elzevirs," and the attendant must needs supply the information that the Elzevirs were a family of Dutch printers who flourished during the century that closed with the arrival of William III in England, and that these tiny volumes represent their most popular productions. Says George Haven Putnam in his "Books and their Makers during the Middle Ages": "The Elzevirs, following the example set a century and a half earlier by Aldus, but since that time very generally lost sight of by the later publishers, initiated a number of series of books in small and convenient forms, twelvemo and sixteenmo, which were offered to book buyers at prices considerably lower than those they had been in the habit of paying for similar material printed in folio, quarto, or octavo.... These well-edited, carefully printed, and low-priced editions of the classics won for the Elzevirs the cordial appreciation of scholars and of students throughout Europe."
Among the authors who acknowledged their indebtedness to the Elzevirs may be mentioned Galileo, the elder Balzac, and the poet Ménage. I have before me more than six feet of shelving filled with these tiny books. They are nearly all bound in vellum, and thus retain their antique appearance without as well as within. Their subject-matter is in the fields of literature, ancient and contemporary, and the history, geography, and political constitution of the principal countries. The books of the latter division are known as "Respublicæ Variæ." It is impossible to resist the conclusion that this book form was chosen not more to supply cheap books which could be sold to impecunious scholars than to provide portable volumes for travelers. The Elzevir "Commonwealths" were the predecessors of our "satchel guides," and the literary publications in this form were evidently designed to be pocket editions. It was to such books that Dr. Johnson referred when he advised his friends "never to go out without some little book or other in their pocket. Much time is lost by waiting, by travelling, etc., and this may be prevented by making use of every possible opportunity for improvement." When the positive doctor, on his journey to the Hebrides, paid his tribute to George Buchanan at St. Andrews, his acquaintance with the Latin poetry of the Scotch professor may well have arisen from his having thus made a pocket piece of one of the several Elzevir editions of the poet.