the Frankfort Fairs, by Mr.
G. Smith, in 'The Library,' 1900, pp. 167-179.

[67] This was one of the five publications on account of which Curll was
set in the pillory in 1725.

[68] L'Advocat: Dict. Histor.

[69] The italics are NOT mine.

[70] Beckmann, _op. cit._

[71] Like many of these _rarissima_ it has been reprinted in
facsimile--crown 8vo, 100 copies only, 1898.

[72] The various editions and impressions of this book have given rise to
confused accounts respecting them. The British Museum Catalogue gives
five distinct impressions of the third edition and five of the fourth
edition. Of the fourth edition, some large-paper copies were issued; they
are scarce and worth thirty shillings or more. The first edition is
undated, but the paper is water-marked '1805'. A copy of this last, in
the original boards uncut, realised 205 dollars in New York in March,
1920. It usually fetches about L5 in England.

[73] The three copies which were sold between Dec. 1919 and June 1920,
however, fetched 2,200 dollars, L410, and L600. The last was in the
original sheepskin.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII

A PLEA FOR SPECIALISM

'The road lies plain before me; 'tis a theme
Single and of determined bounds.'--WORDSWORTH.

MOST book-collectors embark upon their life-long hobby without any
clearly defined scheme of collecting, buying just those books which take
their fancy, and in many cases not realising that they have caught the
dread contagion of bibliomania until they suddenly find that more
shelf-room is required for their books, and that the expenditure upon
their hobby is growing out of all proportion to their means. It is then
generally too late to stop, and although they may avoid the book-stalls
for some days, nay even weeks, the passion of collecting is only dormant,
and will break out with renewed vigour either upon a sudden (though
perhaps only temporary) condition of affluence, or upon the
receipt of that most insidious of all temptations, a bookseller's
catalogue--especially if it be a 'clearance' one.

This passion for collecting books resolves itself at length into two
categories. Either the patient grows rapidly worse and plunges headlong
into the vortex of auctions, catalogues, and bibliographies, amassing
during the process a vast nondescript collection of books; or else he
improves slowly but surely, growing daily shrewder in his purchases. So
that at length, having completely recov