everything worth having. These agents quite spoil the sport of the
amateur. They keep a strict watch on every country dealer's
catalogue, snap up all he has worth selling, and sell it over again,
charging pounds in place of shillings. But M. de Resbecq vows that
he once picked up a copy of the first edition of La Rochefoucauld's
"Maxims" out of a box which two booksellers had just searched. The
same collector got together very promptly all the original editions
of La Bruyere, and he even found a copy of the Elzevir "Pastissier
Francais," at the humble price of six sous. Now the " Pastissier
Francais," an ill-printed little cookery-book of the Elzevirs, has
lately fetched 600 pounds at a sale. The Antiquary's story of
Snuffy Davy and the "Game of Chess," is dwarfed by the luck of M. de
Resbecq. Not one amateur in a thousand can expect such good
fortune. There is, however, a recent instance of a Rugby boy, who
picked up, on a stall, a few fluttering leaves hanging together on a
flimsy thread. The old woman who kept the stall could hardly be
induced to accept the large sum of a shilling for an original quarto
of Shakespeare's "King John." These stories are told that none may
despair. That none may be over confident, an author may recount his
own experience. The only odd trouvaille that ever fell to me was a
clean copy of "La Journee Chretienne," with the name of Leon
Gambetta, 1844, on its catholic fly-leaf. Rare books grow rarer
every day, and often 'tis only Hope that remains at the bottom of
the fourpenny boxes. Yet the Paris book-hunters cleave to the game.
August is their favourite season; for in August there is least
competition. Very few people are, as a rule, in Paris, and these
are not tempted to loiter. The bookseller is drowsy, and glad not
to have the trouble of chaffering. The English go past, and do not
tarry beside a row of dusty boxes of books. The heat threatens the
amateur with sunstroke. Then, says M. Octave Uzanne, in a prose