ries, and some pamphlets on the subject have come down to
us; but we hear nothing more about it. This was in 1699-1702, just
when the indefatigable John Dunton was sending from the press his
multifarious periodical news-books for the benefit of the more
literary sort in South Britain.

The Circulating Library in the United Kingdom in its inception was
intended more particularly for the better-to-do class, and even to-day
its tariff is hardly compatible with very narrow resources. Perhaps
the earliest effort to bring literature within the reach of the
working-man was Charles Knight's scheme of "Book-Clubs for all
Readers," mentioned in a letter to him of 1844 from Dickens.

A remarkable change in the fortunes and tactics of the collector has
arisen from one in our social institutions. The book-hunter of times
past, if he was a resident in the provinces, and worked on a more or less
systematic and ambitious scale--nay, if he merely picked up articles from
year to year which struck his fancy, relied, as he was able to do, on
his country town. Thither gravitated, as a rule, the products of public
and private sales from the surrounding neighbourhood within a fairly wide
radius. If a library was placed in the market, the sale took place on the
premises or at the nearest centre; there was no thought of sending
anything short of a known collection up to London. The transit in the
absence of railways was too inconvenient and costly. These conditions,
which long survived better possibilities, naturally made certain
headquarters throughout the kingdom a perfect Eldorado and Elysium, first
of all for local enthusiasts miles round, and later on for metropolitan
bargain-seekers, who made periodical tours in certain localities at
present as barren as Arabia Petraea.

The principal points appear, so far as existing information goes, to
have been in the North: Newcastle, York, Sheffield, Leeds; in the
Midlands: Birmingham and Manchester; in the West: Plymouth, Exeter,
and Bristol; in the South: Chichester; in the East: Norwich, Yarmouth,
Colchester, Bury, and Ipswich. It was at Chichester that the poet
Collins brought together a certain number of early books, some of the
first rarity; his name is found, too, in the sale catalogues of the
last century as a buyer of such; and the strange and regrettable fact
is, that two or three items, which Thomas Warton actually saw in his
hands, and of which there are no known duplicates, have not s