t recur for sale, or this class of books is rising; but
that is a _facon de parler_, nothing more. We are apt to sigh over the
times when unique Caxtons could be had--ay, in our grandsires'
time--for less than L20. In the sixteenth century twenty pence paid
for them. But let us recollect that our estimation of an article
depends on its cost so largely. What we acquire cheaply we hold
cheaply. Should we have heard of many of our great modern collectors
had old quotations survived? We have known personally one or two who
would not dream of taking a volume at a low price; you had, as it
were, to adjust it to their meridian. They failed to perceive how
anything could be worth having if it was to be secured for a song. A
hundred-dollar author might be barely admissible; a dollar man would
be a disgrace to the collection.

As regards the strange vicissitudes of the tariff for second-hand
books prices, there is an illustrative note from Robert Scott, the
celebrated dealer, to Pepys, dated June 30, 1688, where he offers his
customer four books for 34s., namely:--

Campion and Others' "History of Ireland" 12 0
Harding's "Chronicle" 6 0
Sir John Pryce's "Defensio Hist. Brit." 8 0
Barclay's "Ship of Fools" [1570] 8 0

The value set on the second and fourth items would now, if they were
poor copies, be vastly in excess of the figures named by Scott; but
for the other two a bookseller of the present day might not expect
much more than Pepys was asked more than two hundred years ago.

The anecdotes of bargains picked up from day to day at the present
time are plentiful, and (except for the fortunate finder) exasperating
enough. But if we go back to a period when there were no auctions, no
organised book depots, no newspapers, no railways and other such
facilities, and men lived practically in separate communities, there
can be no feeling of astonishment that our own early literature, like
that of all other countries, has descended to us in an almost
inconceivably shrunk volume. Books, and more especially pamphlets and
broadsheets, were acquired, and, after perusal, flung away. There were
not only no booksellers, in our sense, but down to the seventeenth
century no systematic book-buyers. The library, as we understand the
term and the thing, is a comparatively modern institution. Even the
products of the Caxton press, very early in the next century, had sunk
in commercial