ginal morocco. As a text it is of no account.

Coming lower down, we may specify or emphasise a few _chefs
d'oeuvre_, such as Hogarth's Prints in the first or best states,
Turner's _Liber Studiorum_, Sir Joshua Reynolds' Graphic Works, and
Lodge's _Portraits_. But we are neither so wealthy nor so advanced as
our French and German neighbours in this direction, and the former may
be affirmed to stand alone in the possession of a class of books with
engravings germane to the national genius and to the feeling and
spirit of the time which produced such masterpieces in their way. Of
works illustrated by copper-plates, that by Roeslin on Midwifery,
1540, above-named, seems to be the first in chronological order; but
both this and the Gemini of 1545 probably owed their embellishments to
foreign sources.

Our own country is probably weakest in this department; many of the
engravings in our early literature are direct copies from the German,
Dutch, or French masters; the names of some of our leading artists are
those of foreigners; and we have comparatively little to show of
strictly original work till the last quarter of the eighteenth
century, when we may place our national efforts side by side with
uninterrupted Continental series from the middle of the fifteenth. We
are also poorly provided with books of reference enabling amateurs to
form an idea of the extent of the field and of the relative
practicability and costliness of given classes or lines, whereas the
foreign collector enjoys the advantage of many excellent and fairly
trustworthy manuals. We want a General Guide to English Illustrated
Literature, which should exhibit its sources and inspiration, and the
epochs and schools into which it is divisible.

Of course, it stands with the present description of literary
monuments as it does with the normal book. An enterprise which should
aim at being exhaustive would prove excessively serious in point of
outlay, and would hardly be so satisfactory as one either on a
miscellaneous or a special principle.

Meanwhile, it is desirable that statements offered in catalogues of
various kinds should aim at accuracy as far as possible. It is
singular what a vitality resides in errors when they have been pointed
out by experts, and ought to be recognised. The auctioneers seem to
keep the type of certain notes standing, as they are repeated in
catalogue after catalogue without any other gain than that of
misleading such as know