s gives him an interest in every sale catalogue, whether of
bookseller or of auctioneer. He is led on by the perennial hope that he
may find one or more of the long-wished for and waited-for _desiderata_
in the thin pamphlet whose solid columns bristle with book-titles in
every variety of abbreviation and arrangement. It is a good plan, if one
can possibly command the time, to read every catalogue of the book
auctions, and of the second-hand book dealers, which comes to hand. You
will thus find a world of books chronicled and offered which you do not
want, because you have got them already: you will find many, also, which
you want, but which you know you cannot have; and you may find some of
the very volumes which you have sought through many years in vain. In any
case, you will have acquired valuable information--whether you acquire
any books or not; since there is hardly a priced catalogue, of any
considerable extent, from which you cannot reap knowledge of some
kind--knowledge of editions, knowledge of prices, and knowledge of the
comparative scarcity or full supply of many books, with a glimpse of
titles which you may never have met before. The value of the study of
catalogues as an education in bibliography can never be over-estimated.

The large number of active and discriminating book-buyers from America
has for years past awakened the interest and jealousy of collectors
abroad, where it has very largely enhanced the price of all first-class
editions, and rare works.

No longer, as in the early days of Dibdin and Heber, is the competition
for the curiosities of old English literature confined to a half-score of
native amateurs. True, we have no such omnivorous gatherers of literary
rubbish as that magnificent _helluo librorum_, Richard Heber, who amassed
what was claimed to be the largest collection of books ever formed by a
single individual. Endowed with a princely fortune, and an undying
passion for the possession of books, he spent nearly a million dollars in
their acquisition. His library, variously stated at from 105,000 volumes
(by Dr. Dibdin) to 146,000 volumes (by Dr. Allibone) was brought to the
hammer in 1834. The catalogue filled 13 octavo volumes, and the sale
occupied 216 days. The insatiable owner (who was a brother of Reginald
Heber, Bishop of Calcutta) died while still collecting, at the age of
sixty, leaving his enormous library, which no single house of ordinary
size could hold, scattered in ha