From his hands it passed into those of
John Bowyer Nichols, the antiquary. Percy's notes are little more than
references to other authorities, memoranda for one of his own useful
compilations, yet it is pleasant to have even a slight personal relic
of so admirable a man. Mr. Riviere has bound the volume for me, and
I suppose that poor rejected Winstanley exists nowhere else in so
elegant a shape.

THE ROMANCE OF A DICTIONARY

HISTOIRE DE L'ACADEMIE FRANCOISE: _avec un Abrege des Vies du Cardinal
de Richelieu, Vaugelas, Corneille, Ablancourt, Mezerai, Voiture,
Patru, la Fontaine, Boileau, Racine Et autres Illustres Academiciens
qui la Composent_.

_A La Haye, MDCLXXXVIII_.

It is not often, in these days, when the pastime of bibliography is
reduced to a science, that one is rewarded, as one so often was a
quarter of a century ago, by picking up an unregarded treasure on the
bookstalls. But the other day I really had a pleasant little "find,"
and it was the reward of virtue. It came of having a tender heart.
My eye caught what Mr. Austin Dobson would call "a dear and dumpy
twelve," lying open upon other books, face downward, in the most
ignominious posture. I saw at a glance, from the tooling on its faded
and half-broken back, that it was French and of the seventeenth
century, and that somebody had prized it once. I could read the
lettering _Academ. Franc_., and I gave the pence which were wanted
for it. It proved a most rewarding little volume. It was published
at The Hague in 1688, and it was a new edition of the _Histoire de
l'Academie Francaise_. A preface says that "for the honour of our
nation" (the French, presumably, not the Dutch), the publisher has
thought it proper to issue an edition "more correct and more elegant"
than has hitherto been seen, brought down to date with many new and
curious pieces. Among other things, the said publisher thinks that
"the English will not be displeased to see the Panegyric" of King
Louis XIV. "admirably rendered in their language by a Person of their
Nation." But what immediately caught my attention, and filled me with
delight, was an absolutely contemporary account, written specially for
this 1688 edition, of the great quarrel between the French Academy and
the Abbe Furetiere. Of this I propose to speak to-day.

We live in an age of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, which we look
upon as universal panaceas for culture. There was a similar rage for
dictionaries in F