Caxton. The "Boke of St. Albans," by Wynkyn de Worde, cost 1
pounds: 1s., and this was the highest sum paid for any one of two
hundred rare pieces of early English literature. In 1764, a copy of
the "Hypnerotomachia" was sold for two shillings, "A Pettie Pallace
of Pettie his Pleasures," (ah, what a thought for the amateur!) went
for three shillings, while "Palmerin of England" (1602), attained no
more than the paltry sum of fourteen shillings. When Osborne sold
the Harley collection, the scarcest old English books fetched but
three or four shillings. If the wandering Jew had been a collector
in the last century he might have turned a pretty profit by selling
his old English books in this age of ours. In old French, too,
Ahasuerus would have done a good stroke of business, for the prices
brought by old Villons, Romances of the Rose, "Les Marguerites de
Marguerite," and so forth, at the M'Carthy sale, were truly
pitiable. A hundred years hence the original editions of Thackeray,
or of Miss Greenaway's Christmas books, or "Modern Painters," may be
the ruling passion, and Aldines and Elzevirs, black letter and
French vignettes may all be despised. A book which is commonplace
in our century is curious in the next, and disregarded in that which
follows. Old books of a heretical character were treasures once,
rare unholy possessions. Now we have seen so many heretics that the
world is indifferent to the audacities of Bruno, and the veiled
impieties of Vanini.

The last of our categories of books much sought by the collector
includes all volumes valued for their ancient bindings, for the mark
and stamp of famous amateurs. The French, who have supplied the
world with so many eminent binders,--as Eve, Padeloup, Duseuil, Le
Gascon, Derome, Simier, Bozerian, Thouvenin, Trautz-Bauzonnet, and
Lortic--are the chief patrons of books in historical bindings. In