ured by his posterity must have a
certain bouquet and vogue. He must be a Shakespeare, a Jonson, a
Herrick, a Burton, a Defoe, a Bunyan, a Burns, or (if we cross the
sea) a Moliere, a Montaigne, or a Cervantes.

With the first edition in some bibliographical schemes is associated
the Best One. The possessor of both may pride himself on being able to
show the earliest and latest state of the writer's mind, what he
originally conceived, and what he decided to leave behind him as his
_ultimum vale_. For the most part, however, first thoughts are treated
as better than second, and it may actually be the case that, alike in
ancient and modern books, the too fastidious and wavering ancient
poet, or playwright, or essayist has done himself in maturer years an
injustice by blotting the fresh impulses of his noviciate. It is a
case, perhaps, where the public is entitled to intervene, and taking
the two readings, deliver its award--always supposing that the text is
that of a man worth the pains, and, again, that both versions are the
language of the author, not that of the editor. It is obvious that, as
a matter of literary and scientific or technical completeness, the
last edition of a work is the most desirable; but it is particularly
the case with volumes endeared by personal associations, such as
Gilbert White's _Selborne_, that one prefers the text as the author
left it, even if one has to be at the pains to consult a second
publication for up-to-date knowledge. The present point is one to
which I have adverted in an earlier place.

Apart from the collector, the first and the best impressions of
writers of importance, whose texts underwent at their own hands more
or less material changes, are necessarily an object of research to the
editor or specialist who has dedicated his attention to such or such a
study; and he is apt to pursue the matter still further than the
amateur, who does not, as a rule, esteem the intermediate issues. It
is this feeling and need which have led, since critical and
comparative editions came into fashion, to the accumulation by their
superintendents of an exhaustive array of titles and dates, with hints
of the most remarkable various readings; and the cause of
bibliography has gained, whether, in drawing together the series, the
book-hunter or the literary worker be the pioneer. From the editorial
and bibliographical points of view a complete sequence of the writings
of our more distinguished and