cular literature of Scotland and
to the parent press of Edinburgh; and not a whisper has been raised to
suggest the existence of a second copy of any of them, which is to be
regretted so far, as some are imperfect. During years on years, the
authorities at the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, kept this
inestimable relic in a cupboard under the stairs. In the find at
Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, thirty or forty years since, there
were items upon items utterly unknown. It was the same at the
Wolfreston sale in 1856. It goes without saying that among the Heber
stores the uniques were barely numerable; and many yet preserve their
reputation as such. Mr. Caldecott, Mr. Jolley, and Mr. Corser were
lucky in falling in with scores of tracts of the first order of
rarity. No one has beheld the double of the _Jests of the Widow
Edith_, purchased by Lord Fitzwilliam for L3 10s. at West's sale in
1773, and formerly Lord Oxford's; and the citation of the last name
prompts the remark that many a book in the Harleian Library still
awaits recovery, assuming the description in the catalogue to be
correct. On the contrary, there are serious warnings to enthusiasts
not to rely too implicitly on the reputation of a volume for
uniqueness or high rarity in view of such phenomena as the occurrence
within a short period of each other at the same mart in 1896 of two
copies of the first edition of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, printed
by Caxton. Here was a case where the publicity afforded to these
matters brought out a second example, which the owner found to be
worth a small estate.

The writer's publication, _Fugitive Tracts_, 1493-1700, 2 vols., 1875,
very aptly and powerfully illustrates the present bearings of our
subject. Of the sixty pieces there reproduced, two-thirds appear to be
unique, and only four are traceable in the Heber Catalogue. Yet many
of the items are of historical or biographical importance, and were,
in fact, selected from a much larger number with that view; which
seems to be tantamount to a recognition of the truth, that, enormous
as is the total surviving body of early English and Scotish
Literature, it represents in some sections or classes only a salvage
of what was once in type, or, to speak more by the card, of what we
have so far been able to recover.

There are rare books which, paradoxical as it may seem, are not rare.
Take, for example, Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, 1621; the first
folio Shakespeare, 16