urbed by the strictures of his step-sire. As
a bookseller he prospered, and profiting by the atmosphere of learning in
which his paths lay, he found time between the hours of business to
produce several valuable works upon such diverse subjects as
Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Engraving, Botany, Physic, and
Antiquities!

Fabert, the bookseller of Metz and author of 'Notes sur la Coutume de
Lorraine,' which he published in folio in 1657, was esteemed so highly
both for his learning and abilities, that his son Abraham Fabert was
thought not unworthy of being educated with the Duc d'Epernon. Abraham
rose to be Marshal of France: but in spite of his great talents and still
greater attainments, the bookseller's son ever retained that natural
modesty inherent only in great minds. Offered the Order of the Holy Ghost
by Louis XIV. he refused it on the ground that it should be worn only by
the ancient nobility. Whereupon the King wrote to him 'No person to whom
I may give this Order will ever receive more honour from it than you have
gained by your noble refusal, proceeding from so generous a principle.'
One can only meditate _O si sic omnes_!

There are two reference-books that will be of use to you if you are
interested in this subject. Both were published by the Bibliographical
Society. The first, by Mr. Gordon Duff, is entitled 'A Century of the
English Book Trade,' and is a list of early English stationers. It
appeared in 1905. The other, compiled by nine members of the Society
under the editorship of Mr. R. B. McKerrow, was published in 1910, and is
called 'A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers in England, Scotland,
and Ireland, and of Foreign Printers of English Books, 1557-1640.'

* * * * *

To the collector all catalogues are interesting, and although one may not
readily come across publishers' catalogues of the sixteenth century, yet
seventeenth-century ones are not so rare, and those of the eighteenth
century comparatively common. What interesting reading these old
catalogues provide! Often it is worth while purchasing the flotsam of the
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from the penny tub merely for
the sake of the catalogues which one frequently comes across bound at the
end of such volumes. The desecration of a book is anathema to the
bibliophile; but provided always that when you have paid your penny the
volume proves to be but common trash and of no value whateve