The Countryman. "You know how much, for some time past, the
editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancy for them
has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted with a man
there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake of collecting
into a library (where other books are scarce enough) as many little
Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying of hunger, and
his consolation is to be able to say, 'I have all the poets whom the
Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each of them, all with red
letters, and all of the right date.' This, no doubt, is a craze,
for, good as the books are, if he kept them to read them, one
example of each would be enough."

The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have
advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which
these booksellers published, even editions 'of the right date,' as
you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the
type and the paper. Your friend would have done better to use the
editions of Gryphius or Estienne."

This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from 'Entretiens
sur les Contes de Fees,' a book which contains more of old talk
about books and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The
'Entretiens' were published in 1699, about sixteen years after the
Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment is valuable: first,
because it shows us how early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was
fully developed, and, secondly, because it contains very sound
criticism of the mania. Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers