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compliments with you. The old dead writers receive praise and offer no equivalent. During a series of years there was a notorious run, which, as usual, became indiscriminate, on first editions of the writings of Dickens, Thackeray, and other foremost men of the period, eclipsing, as it seemed, even the demand for the earlier English classics, till the auctioneers and booksellers in their catalogues underlined at a venture every _editio princeps_, though it might be the last as well as the first, and, whether or no, a book of no mark. But the enthusiasm has at last contracted itself within narrower and more intelligent limits, and is restricted to productions which rank as masterpieces or are special favourites, and then all postulates have to be satisfied, all bibliographical minutiae have to be studied. It is impossible to foresee how far this latest compromise may last; but whatever it is, there must always be some novelty to keep the market going, and bring grist to the mill. The world of fashion comprehends books as well as bonnets and dresses; but the literary section is a humble one by comparison, and is in few hands. Every fresh _mode_ has somewhere its starter, and it usually prevails long enough to suit the purposes of the trade, when it makes way for its successor. If one had the ordering of these strategical devices, one would imagine that the true policy was to buy up a given class of books, procure the insertion of a clever article or two in the press, extolling their merits and lamenting the public ignorance and neglect, and then launch a Jesuitically constructed catalogue devoted to such undeservedly disregarded treasures. But we may have been forestalled. Who knows? The less current and every-day literary ware appeals to a more or less narrow constituency. There is a proverb, "The wool-seller knows the wool-buyer;" and it has to be so in books. There are volumes which, if they do not from their character or price suit one of a circle of half-a-dozen collectors, with whose means and wants the whole trade is generally familiar, are exceedingly likely to suit nobody outside the public libraries at public library prices. So much is this the case, that many booksellers do not think it worth their while to publish catalogues, and content themselves with reporting to the most probable purchaser fresh acquisitions. With certain very special and costly rarities _two_ often make a market. Time will perfo
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