ditions are more authentic, or convincing, than
modern reprints. It is evident that these cover a vast field, and that
the collector in taking possession of any corner of it is at once the
servant and rival of historical students. Lord Crawford's vast
collections of English, Scottish and Irish proclamations and of papal
bulls may be cited as capital instances of the work which a collector
may do for the promotion of historical research, and the philological
library brought together by Prince Lucien Bonaparte (_An Attempt at a
Catalogue_ by V. Collins, published 1894) and the Foxwell collection of
early books on political economy (presented to the university of London
by the Goldsmiths' Company) are two other instances of recent date. Much
collecting of this kind is now being carried on by the libraries of
institutes and societies connected with special professions and studies,
but there is ample room also for private collectors to work on these
lines.

Of books which appeal to a collector's imagination the most obvious
examples are those which can be associated with some famous person or
event. A book which has belonged to a king or queen (more especially one
who, like Mary queen of Scots, has appealed to popular sympathies), or
to a great statesman, soldier or poet, which bears any mark of having
been valued by him, or of being connected with any striking incident in
his life, has an interest which defies analysis. Collectors themselves
have a natural tenderness for their predecessors, and a copy of a famous
work is all the more regarded if its pedigree can be traced through a
long series of book-loving owners. Hence the production of such works as
_Great Book-Collectors_ by Charles and Mary Elton (1893), _English
Book-Collectors_ by W.Y. Fletcher (1902) and Guigard's _Nouvel armorial
du bibliophile_ (1890). Books condemned to be burnt, or which have
caused the persecution of their authors, have an imaginative interest of
another kind, though one which seems to have appealed more to writers of
books than to collectors. As has already been noted, most of the books
specially valued by collectors make a double or triple appeal to the
collecting instinct, and the desire to possess first editions may be
accounted for partly by their positive superiority over reprints for
purposes of study, partly by the associations which they can be proved
to possess or which imagination creates for them. The value set on them
is at least