ctor, discovering that he had bought a book
considerably cheaper than an example had been sold at Sotheby's, and L2
less than Mr. Quaritch had asked for a similar copy, sent his bookseller
a present of a parcel of books to make up the difference in the two
amounts.

With these few introductory and perhaps desultory pages, the reader is
invited to the more solid feast provided for his delectation in the
following pages.

FOOTNOTES:

[xxix-A] Mr. Stainforth's collection ranged over 300 years, and, amid
much utter rubbish, there were a few things of considerable rarity,
notably one of only three complete copies known of T. Bentley's
'Monument of Matrones,' 1582, formerly in the libraries of Herbert,
Woodhouse, Heber and Bliss. It included two autograph letters of the
Right Hon. T. Grenville, and realized L63; Anne Bradstreet's 'Tenth Muse
lately sprung up in America,' 1650, L12 10s.; and a copy of Dame Juliana
Berners' 'Booke of Hauking,' etc., L13. Nearly fifty items appear under
the name of Aphra Behn; whilst there are twenty-one editions of Jane
Porter's 'Poems,' which realized the grand total of 14s. The library
comprised 3,076 lots (representing, perhaps, twenty times that number of
volumes), and realized the total of L792 5s.

[Illustration]

THE BOOK-HUNTER IN LONDON

EARLY BOOK-HUNTING.

THOSE who have studied the earlier phases of English history will
readily understand that the terms book-hunting in England and
book-hunting in London are by no means synonymous. The passion for books
had manifested itself in various and remote parts of this country long
before London had developed into a place of importance; when, indeed, it
was battling from without and within with conflicts which seemed to
predict complete annihilation. But the growth of London is essentially
typical of the growth of the nation, and of the formation of the
national character. When it was laying the foundation of its future
greatness London had no thought of intellectual pursuits, even if
Londoners themselves had any conception of an intellectual life. For any
trace of such unthought-of, and perhaps, indeed, unheard-of, articles as
books, we must go to localities far remote from London--to spots where,
happily, the strife and din of savage warfare scarcely made themselves
heard. The monasteries were the sole repositories of literature; to the
monk alone had the written book any kind of intelligence, any species of
pleasu