day that Sir John Fenn's copy of Breton's _Works of a Young
Wit_, 1577, recorded by Herbert in his _Typographical Antiquities_,
and the only perfect one known, occurred at an auction and fetched
L81! A fine book it was, too, with the blank leaf at end. Doubtless,
the reason for the evanescence of Breton's literary labours is to be
sought in their estimation by many, besides the letter-writer above
quoted, as barely more than waste paper. Verily, their substantial
worth is barely tangible.

Speaking from a connoisseur's rather than from a reader's point of
view, when we leave behind us the pre-Restoration writers of Great
Britain and Ireland, we do not encounter much difficulty in a
commercial sense, if we consider the length of time and the almost
innumerable names, excepting Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, Swift's
_Gulliver_, Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_, Goldsmith's _Vicar of
Wakefield_, and a few early Byrons and Shelleys, unless the buyer
schedules among his _desiderata_ the earlier Anglo-American
literature. For as we draw nearer to our own day, items which were
thought to be superlatively uncommon, including sundry pieces by
Tennyson and Browning, have failed to maintain their reputation for
scarcity, as any one might have foreseen that they would do. The
preposterous prices paid for some copies have brought out others, and
the ultimate supply will probably exceed the demand.

Even where an English collection may not enter the Continental lines,
but preserves its national character, there are numerous classes of
books of foreign origin and from foreign presses, which are fairly
entitled to consideration and admittance. These publications embrace
not merely religious and controversial literature, but a large and
important body of material for English and Scotish biography and
history, and for the elucidation of Irish affairs. Every season brings
to light some new features in this immense series, which is, of
course, susceptible of a classifying process, and may be ranged under
such sections as we have above indicated, besides a considerable
residue which falls under the head of poetry and typography, the
latter constituting a branch of the History of English Printing, and
the former being worthy of notice as embracing some of the rarest
metrical productions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which
owed their issue from presses in Germany and the Low Countries to
various agencies, but chiefly to the exigencie