r so easy to come by as now. A
fine library can be gathered by any one with very moderate means,
supplemented by a fair amount of sagacity and common sense. The buyer
with a carefully digested list of books wanted will find that to buy them
wisely takes more time and less money than he had anticipated. The time
is required to acquaint himself with the many competing editions, with
their respective merits and demerits. This involves a comparison of type,
paper, and binding, as well as the comparative prices of various dealers
for the same books. No one who is himself gifted with good perceptions
and good taste, should trust to other hands the selection of his library.
His enjoyment of it will be proportioned to the extent to which it is his
own creation. The passion for nobly written books, handsomely printed,
and clothed in a fitting garb, when it has once dawned, is not to be
defrauded of its satisfaction by hiring a commission merchant to appease
it. What we do for ourselves, in the acquirement of any knowledge, is apt
to be well done: what is done for us by others is of little value.

We have heard of some uninformed _parvenus_, grown suddenly rich, who
have first ordered a magnificent library room fitted with rose-wood,
marble and gilded trappings, and then ordered it to be filled with
splendidly bound volumes at so much per volume. And it is an authentic
fact, that a bookseller to the Czar of Russia one Klostermann, actually
sold books at fifty to one hundred roubles by the yard, according to the
binding. The force of folly could no farther go, to debase the aims and
degrade the intellect of man.

In the chapter upon rare books, the reader will find instances in great
variety of the causes that contribute to the scarcity and enhancement of
prices of certain books, without at all affecting their intrinsic value,
which may be of the smallest.

CHAPTER 3.

THE ART OF BOOK BINDING.

In these suggestions upon the important question of the binding of books,
I shall have nothing to say of the history of the art, and very little of
its aesthetics. The plainest and most practical hints will be aimed at,
and if my experience shall prove of value to any, I shall be well
rewarded for giving it here. For other matters readers will naturally
consult some of the numerous manuals of book-binding in English, French
and German. The sumptuous bindings executed in the sixteenth century,
under the patronage and the eyes of