t offer an opinion on the selling values, nor does he always
render the titles correctly. One signal fault distinguishes the
undertaking from what may be regarded as a commercial point of view;
and it is the refusal or failure to recognise the momentous changes in
the bibliographical rank of a number of books through the discovery
between 1837 and 1865 of additional copies. Like most of us when we
are advanced in life, he thought more of what was true when he was
young, than of what was so at the time of writing.

The _Collectanea Anglo-Poetica_ of the Rev. Thomas Corser, in eleven
parts, of which some were posthumous, constitutes a very proud
monument to the memory of an accomplished clergyman of limited
resources, who during the best part of his life devoted his thought
and surplus money to the acquisition of one of the richest assemblages
of Early English Poetry ever formed by any one, as he succeeded in
obtaining many works in this extensive series not comprised even in
the Heber Catalogue. Mr. Corser bought much privately; but he was
largely indebted for his bibliographical good fortune to such sales as
those of Jolley, Chalmers, Bright, and Wolfreston (1844-56). Of his
catalogue as an authority and guide the value is unequal; the portions
edited by himself are excellent and exhaustive, but it is not so with
those which Mr. James Crossley superintended. A complete copy of the
sale catalogue is a _desideratum_ for the follower in this gentleman's
footsteps; but he would have to spend more money than Mr. Corser did
by some thousands.

Of the Huth Catalogue, 1880, we can only say that it is a splendid
gathering in a comparatively short period of various classes of books
obtained from the sales in London and elsewhere, and from private
sources, and selected on account of condition and interest rather than
with a view to completeness. In its character it is emphatically
miscellaneous; but is very strong in Early English literature, owing
to the opportunities which the founder enjoyed through the dispersion
in his time of so many fine libraries of that class, especially those
of Daniel and Corser, and perhaps we may add of George Smith the
distiller. But there was scarcely any sale here or on the Continent
from which Mr. Huth was not enabled to add to his stores. He was a
very rich man; but he was not a book-hunter, and he was both
inconsistent and capricious. He had, in fact, no definite plan, and
took each purchase o