l have fine
musical instruments! Your costly bindings are only a source of vexation,
and you are continually discharging your librarians for not preserving
them from the silent invasion of the worms, and the nibbling triumphs of
the rats!

Such _collectors_ will contemptuously smile at the _collection_ of the
amiable Melancthon. He possessed in his library only four
authors,--Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Ptolemy the geographer.

Ancillon was a great collector of curious books, and dexterously
defended himself when accused of the _Bibliomania_. He gave a good
reason for buying the most elegant editions; which he did not consider
merely as a literary luxury.[12] The less the eyes are fatigued in
reading a work, the more liberty the mind feels to judge of it: and as
we perceive more clearly the excellences and defects of a printed book
than when in MS.; so we see them more plainly in good paper and clear
type, than when the impression and paper are both bad. He always
purchased _first editions_, and never waited for second ones; though it
is the opinion of some that a first edition is only to be considered as
an imperfect essay, which the author proposes to finish after he has
tried the sentiments of the literary world. Bayle approves of Ancillon's
plan. Those who wait for a book till it is reprinted, show plainly that
they prefer the saving of a pistole to the acquisition of knowledge.
With one of these persons, who waited for a second edition, which never
appeared, a literary man argued, that it was better to have two editions
of a book rather than to deprive himself of the advantage which the
reading of the first might procure him. It has frequently happened,
besides, that in second editions, the author omits, as well as adds, or
makes alterations from prudential reasons; the displeasing truths which
he _corrects_, as he might call them, are so many losses incurred by
Truth itself. There is an advantage in comparing the first and
subsequent editions; among other things, we feel great satisfaction in
tracing the variations of a work after its revision. There are also
other secrets, well known to the intelligent curious, who are versed in
affairs relating to books. Many first editions are not to be purchased
for the treble value of later ones. The collector we have noticed
frequently said, as is related of Virgil, "I collect gold from Ennius's
dung." I find, in some neglected authors, particular things, not
elsewhere to