ated twice, as we
have elsewhere noted, within three months in 1896 in the case of two
incomplete copies of the first edition by Caxton of Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_. But for the defective copy of a common book some
find an apology and a home: they cannot afford a better, or they
require it for a special purpose. The upshot is, that for every old
volume there is a customer, who is pleased with his acquisition
according to his light; and we have met with such as seemed disposed
to view the missing of damaged leaves as negative evidence of
antiquity and genuineness.

The bystander who has had the benefit of as long an innings as the
present writer, witnesses perpetual changes and vicissitudes of
sentiment; and from one point of view, at all events, the minute
details, into which the too generally despised bibliographer enters,
are valuable, because they present to us, in lists of editions of
authors and books published from age to age, the astonishing evidence
of mutable popularity or acceptability. There is a feature, which is
almost amusing, in the ideas and estimates expressed of many works by
our earlier antiquaries, when we look to-day at their position and
rank. If we turn over the pages of Hearne's _Diary_, for instance, we
constantly meet with accounts of literary curiosities and rarities,
which we regard with different eyes by virtue of our enlarged
information, while thousands of really valuable items--valuable on
some score or other--go there unnoted, although copies of them must
have passed through the sales, even more frequently than at present.
The close of the nineteenth century has brought these matters to a
truer level. We are better able to gauge the survival of books and
editions.

Even in the sometimes tedious enumeration of editions of early books
bibliography confers a sort of benefit, for it demonstrates the
longevity in public estimation and demand of a host of books now
neglected, yet objects of interest and utility to many successive
ages.

We have seen so many cranks and fancies successively take possession
of the public. Early typography; early poetry and romances; books of
hours; books of emblems; Roman Catholic literature; liturgies; Bewick;
Bartolozzi; the first edition (which was sometimes equally the last);
books on vellum, on India-paper, or on yellow or some other bizarre
colour or material, debarring perusal of the publication; copies with
remarkable blunders or with some of the