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exterior form is inviting. A nobler book cannot grace the shelves of any collection.'"

Or better still:-" MENTELIN'S PRESS, 1465.— Conradi de Alemania, Concordantiæ Bibliorum, thick roy. folio, first edition, black letter, the first page surrounded with a broad illuminated border in gold and colours, and illuminated throughout. A most superb copy of this early monument of typography in its infancy, printed by one of the secret workmen of Guttenberg, handsome copy, bound in hogskin, gold and blind tooling on back and sides, from the Syston Park Collection, of the greatest rarity, fourteen guineas. Strasburg, J. Mentelin, 1465. First edition and the first Bible Concordance ever printed. Cost Sir John Thorold £30, 10s., bought of Payne and Foss, 1829. See also his MS. note, not in the Spencer Collection, ascribed by Panzer to the press of Mentelin. The birthplace of printing has been hotly disputed: there are partisans who have endeavoured to prove that Strasburg was the original seat of the invention, and assert Mentelin the real inventor of the art, and describe Guttenberg as the robber of his priceless secret, &c. See a long account of this famous printer in Humphrey's History of Printing. Any one wishing to possess a fine and beautiful specimen of early typography could not require a more desirable book than the above. In fact, a more noble volume could not grace the shelves of the finest collection."

Who would not be attracted by this glowing language? The praise of this book is like the taste of rich ripe fruit in the mouth. For this doubtful

treasure £24 was asked. Yet at a sale in 1827, Herbert's copy sold for £1, 135.

Most of these men can tell us curious and interesting

incidents of their experience of buyers in the olden days. So Mr. Stibbs, in an allusion to Charles Lamb, will relate how he had many of his folios"huge armfuls"-the "midnight darlings" he bewailed, passing through his hands. He noted what ragged veterans they were, how soiled, thumbed, and generally dirty. His confrère, Wilson, has had Cobbett, Leigh Hunt, and others of the time, dropping in. Many of these men have been writers themselves, such as Hindley, who has worked on Catnach literature-street cries, ballads, &c. One of the most interesting of this class was an old and rather wizened man, who, when dealing, invariably pointed his speech with a succession of short grunts, increasing in intensity as he grew obdurate, disappearing wholly when the bargain was a very good one for him. He lived in a little den of books, and was usually interrupted when pursuing "his literary avocations." He was easy to sell, but terrible to the peripatetic vendor of a stray volume, whom he greeted with a sort of ferocity. Yet this man was amiable, had a simplicity worthy of Goldsmithwrote in a charming, easy, unaffected style; indeed, he had once been a schoolmaster. He collected folk-lore, and at last made a collection of stories of fairies, &c., which he had picked up himself, and which was published with much success. He signed himself quaintly "Philomath." He had never been in London or the great cities, and once wrote to me that he "could picture me sitting of some fine summer's evening with a book under the trees in Trafalgar Square."

Foremost among them is the now celebrated Mr. Quaritch of London, the very Napoleon of booksellers. His enterprise and daring has really had a

momentous influence in stimulating prices. He suggests one of those great financiers who rule the market with a nod. He has brought books, as it were, "within the range of practical politics." No one who passes his rather dark and unpretending place of business at No. 15 Piccadilly could guess at the vast character of his transactions; neither would any one who sees at some great sale his plain figure, somewhat of Jewish cast, with the ancient felt hat to which his friends attach a sort of mysterious and superstitious power, donned on great occasions, suppose that this was the careless bidder of hundreds and thousands of pounds. In that repository of his Lately inter

are stored away priceless volumes.*

* "Mr. Quaritch is by no means an easy man to get at, unless you wish to see him on business. He was in his sanctum, a small, dark room, almost filled with the table, a few chairs, and two or three bookcases, containing several thousand pounds' worth of rare volumes, protected from the dust by glass doors. He discoursed in a pessimistic strain of the decadence of the general buyer and collector, a sign of the materialistic age we live in.' Book buying and book collecting in its proper sense has gradually declined since 1830. It was before that time that the great libraries were formed. 'At the Hamilton sale I spent £40,000, and at the Sunderland sale £33,000; and most of my purchases are now in the house here. I have known well most of the collectors of my time; three Dukes of Hamilton, for instance; and there you see the portrait of one of my best customers the late Earl of Crawford, whose body was stolen. But, as I have said, the fashion has changed now-a-days. Collectors go in for first editions of Keats, Shelley, Thackeray, Dickens, and for the engravings of Cruikshank and Phiz. Then sporting literature is greatly in demand. Another very good customer is the country gentleman, who generally aspires to have in his library the best books on his county history. But I cannot enumerate the demands and crazes. Show me a man's library, and I will tell you his character and his attainments.' He began business in Castle Street some forty years ago—never mind how old he is now. No one having talked five minutes to the Bismarck of the book trade could fail to see that he had to do with a keen trader, up to every move on the board, and to every trick of the trade. His hunting-grounds are all over the face of the

viewed by an agent of the Pall Mall Gazette, he communicated some very interesting information.

The great book dealer made the careless remark, "Most of my purchases "—made in the great sales two and three years ago-" are in the house here;" these costly things lying there, as it were, at interest, which the buyer may have to pay. But the market for the greater books is scarcely in London. are the grand collectors abroad, such as the Duke of Aumale and Rothschild, makers of grand and costly libraries.

There

Mr.

earth; he gathers his harvest from the five continents, and stores it up in Piccadilly. 'Now will you come with me, and I will show you a few of the rooms here.' And as we went, my guide pointed with pride to this case and that, to this pile and that. Here was a bundle of Eastern manuscripts worth thousands, there a case full of Mexican manuscripts written at the time of the conquest; here was the 'pigsty,' as he calls one of the rooms, full of musty tomes and books as yet uncatalogued. Quaritch proceeded to expatiate upon his morocco bindings, his russia leather, his rare editions, his illuminated missals, his black letters, his manuscripts, his breviaries and psalters. He declares that he sells everything, and never refuses an order. Each of these rooms contains priceless treasures, the value of which is known only to the great man himself, for he marks the price of each book. It is impossible to deceive Mr. Quaritch by any flimsy pretence to book-learning, 'If I hear any one talk

ing about Elzevirs and Aldines, I know he is an ignorant ass.' Mr. Quaritch speaks plainly, and this outburst was, I must confess, apropos of an unfortunate remark of my own concerning Elzevirs. Elzevirs and Aldines, indeed! a pack of ignoramuses!' 'I suppose you like the excitement of a great sale?' 'No, sir; there is nothing I abominate so heartily as the dreary hours I have to sit in those dreary auction-rooms. Once or twice one gets excited, and one's blood is up like the blood of a gambler; but how often? No. I am happiest here.'"'

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The little intolerance as to the man who talks about Elzevirs and Aldines being an ignorant ass is characteristic enough. Many of this class are probably good customers. I fancy talking about Elzevirs and Aldines betokens a taste for rare things, and an amiable, well-meaning fancy to learn more. It was intended, no doubt, in the sense of the rebuke to those who "talked of Coreggios and stuff.”

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§ DE the Mazarin Bible.

HEN we think of our modern press, that of books there is now no end, being stacked away by the million in the libraries, it is surely with a feeling almost of awe and reverence that one calls up the earliest of the kind-the primeval Adam and Eve. And then to take in one's hand the first of the "race" of books-to think of its age and its necessary vicissitudes; this leaves a strange mysterious feeling. On the eve of the famous Syston Park sale there were seen in the Sothebys' modest auction-room half-a-dozen volumes, laid out on the table under glass, on which one of the "old" booksellers made this speculation, not without point :-" It would be a curious thing," he said, "to bring some of these country-folk who are up for the cattle-show, and show 'em these, and then put this question to 'em, 'What now would you fancy was the value of these half-dozen plain-looking volumes, and what are they likely to fetch ?"" The rustics might think they were going ridiculously high if they named £5; but how dumfounded they would be if assured that £10,000 would probably be, and almost was, the figure realised! - the Mazarin Bible, its successor the " Codex," and some others fetching near that sum. It was a strange feeling to

B

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