d at celebrated sales,
which are quoted in all the papers, that books are constantly advancing in
price. Although many have gone up, many others have gone down, and at no
time probably were good and useful books to be bought so cheap as now. If
we look at old sale catalogues we shall find early printed books,
specimens of old English poetry and the drama, fetching merely a fraction
of what would have to be given for them now; but, on the other hand, we
shall find pounds then given for standard books which would not now
realize the same number of shillings; this is specially the case with
classics.

The following passage from Hearne's _Diaries_ on the fluctuations in
prices is of interest in this connection:--"The editions of Classicks of
the first print (commonly called _editones principes_) that used to go at
prodigious prices are now strangely lowered; occasioned in good measure
by Mr. Thomas Rawlinson, my friend, being forced to sell many of his
books, in whose auction these books went cheap, tho' English history and
antiquities went dear: and yet this gentleman was the chief man that
raised many curious and classical books so high, by his generous and
courageous way of bidding."[14]

These first editions, however, realize large prices at the present time,
as has been seen at the sale of the Sunderland Library. It is experience
only that will give the necessary knowledge to the book buyer, and no
rules laid down in books can be of any real practical value in this case.
Persons who know nothing of books are too apt to suppose that what they
are inclined to consider exorbitant prices are matters of caprice, but
this is not so. There is generally a very good reason for the high price.

We must remember that year by year old and curious books become scarcer,
and the number of libraries where they are locked up increase; thus while
the demand is greater, the supply diminishes, and the price naturally
becomes higher. A unique first edition of a great author is surely a
possession to be proud of, and it is no ignoble ambition to wish to obtain
it.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] _Libraries and Founders of Libraries_, 1864, p. 404.

[14] _Reliquiae Hearnianae_, 1869, vol. ii. p. 158.

CHAPTER III.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

Libraries may broadly be divided into Public and Private, and as private
libraries will vary according to the special idiosyncrasies of their
owners, so still more will public libraries vary in character ac