the purchase proving
pecuniarily unprofitable. Yet at the same time outlay on a library is
a relative term, and one individual may account himself as frugal in
expending L30,000 in the course of a lifetime, as another may do in
expending L300. The late Earl of Ashburnham bought in chief measure
during the forties and fifties, when the reaction from the bibliomania
still more or less sensibly prevailed, and considering his Lordship's
position and resources, he was not much more lavish than the
above-mentioned Mr. Pyne, or indeed any other amateur of average
calibre, while he was to the full extent as genuine a follower of the
pursuit for its mere sake as anybody whom we could name--as the Duke
of Roxburghe, Mr. Heber, Mr. Corser, or Mr. Crossley.

In my _Rolls of Collectors_ I specify a type under the designation of
_Book-Recipients_, and I instance such cases as Dickens and Thackeray;
but in fact there are many who would never go in pursuit of anything
of the kind beyond a work of reference, and whose utmost exploit is
the payment of a friendly subscription. The only title to admittance
into my category of such doubtful enthusiasts is the sentimental
enhancement of value arising from the transformation of the margins of
a common-place volume into a repository for manuscript remarks or
graphic embellishments, which may send it back into the market some
day a three-figure item in a catalogue.

In attempting to indicate in a sort of tentative manner the
publications to which a private collection might be advantageously and
comfortably limited, one does not contemplate the shelf or so of mere
works of reference, which have to be obtained even by such as are not
amateurs in this direction, and, moreover, there is an obvious
difficulty in prescribing for persons of infinitely varied ideas and
prepossessions. Now, as to volumes for reference, the class and extent
of course depend on individual requirements, and the books outside
this radius are apt to be subject in their selection to local
circumstances, since a man associated with a district or county
naturally contracts a sympathy with its special history or its
archaeological transactions, as well as any miscellaneous monographs
relating to particular places or celebrated persons. With such
specialities and preferences we cannot presume to interfere; but, as a
rule, the aggregate body comprised in them need not be large or very
expensive, and in catholic or general liter