collection of materials for criticism, are the useful functions,
then, of book-collecting. But it is not to be denied that the
sentimental side of the pursuit gives it most of its charm. Old
books are often literary relics, and as dear and sacred to the lover
of literature as are relics of another sort to the religious
devotee. The amateur likes to see the book in its form as the
author knew it. He takes a pious pleasure in the first edition of
"Les Precieuses Ridicules," (M.DC.LX.) just as Moliere saw it, when
he was fresh in the business of authorship, and wrote "Mon Dieu,
qu'un Autheur est neuf, la premiere fois qu'on l'imprime." All
editions published during a great man's life have this attraction,
and seem to bring us closer to his spirit. Other volumes are
relics, as we shall see later, of some famed collector, and there is
a certain piety in the care we give to books once dear to
Longepierre, or Harley, or d'Hoym, or Buckle, to Madame de
Maintenon, or Walpole, to Grolier, or Askew, or De Thou, or Heber.
Such copies should be handed down from worthy owners to owners not
unworthy; such servants of literature should never have careless
masters. A man may prefer to read for pleasure in a good clear
reprint. M. Charpentier's "Montaigne" serves the turn, but it is
natural to treasure more "Les Essais de Michel Seigneur de
Montaigne," that were printed by Francoise le Febre, of Lyon, in
1595. It is not a beautiful book; the type is small, and rather
blunt, but William Drummond of Hawthornden has written on the title-
page his name and his device, Cipresso e Palma. There are a dozen
modern editions of Moliere more easily read than the four little
volumes of Wetstein (Amsterdam, 1698), but these contain reduced
copies of the original illustrations, and here you see Arnolphe and
Agnes in their habits as they lived, Moliere and Mdlle. de Brie as
the public of Paris beheld them more than two hundred years ago.