book-stalls and dingy purlieus, in Gabriel Naude. In 1664, Naude,
who was a learned and ingenious writer, the apologist for "great men
suspected of magic," published the second edition of his 'Avis pour
dresser une Bibliotheque,' and proved himself to be a true lover of
the chase, a mighty hunter (of books) before the Lord. Naude's
advice to the collector is rather amusing. He pretends not to care
much for bindings, and quotes Seneca's rebuke of the Roman
bibliomaniacs, Quos voluminum suorum frontes maxime placent
titulique,--who chiefly care for the backs and lettering of their
volumes. The fact is that Naude had the wealth of Mazarin at his
back, and we know very well, from the remains of the Cardinal's
library which exist, that he liked as well as any man to see his
cardinal's hat glittering on red or olive morocco in the midst of
the beautiful tooling of the early seventeenth century. When once
he got a book, he would not spare to give it a worthy jacket.
Naude's ideas about buying were peculiar. Perhaps he sailed rather
nearer the wind than even Monkbarns would have cared to do. His
favourite plan was to buy up whole libraries in the gross,
"speculative lots" as the dealers call them. In the second place,
he advised the book-lover to haunt the retreats of Libraires
fripiers, et les vieux fonds et magasins. Here he truly observes
that you may find rare books, broches,--that is, unbound and uncut,-
-just as Mr. Symonds bought two uncut copies of 'Laon and Cythna' in
a Bristol stall for a crown. "You may get things for four or five
crowns that would cost you forty or fifty elsewhere," says Naude.
Thus a few years ago M. Paul Lacroix bought for two francs, in a
Paris shop, the very copy of 'Tartuffe' which had belonged to Louis
XIV. The example may now be worth perhaps 200 pounds. But we are
digressing into the pleasures of the modern sportsman.