e Bibliotheque at
Paris is a copy on largest paper bound for Marie Antoinette with
original decorations by Oudry himself on the covers; it is only a
single book out of thousands which they have there, yet it might make
a day's sale, and a remunerative one, in Wellington Street in the
Strand! Boccaccio, 5 vols. 8vo, 1757, with plates by Eisen, Gravelot,
and others, enters into this series; it is not an uncommon book, and
is found with a French and an Italian text, of which the former is
generally preferred. It is necessary to secure a copy in all respects
faultless. But far more important and relatively costly are the
_Baisers_ of Dorat, 1770, printed on _grand papier de Hollande_, with
the title in red and black, and, above all, Laborde's _Choix de
Chansons_, 1773, always a dear publication when the state is right,
and excessively difficult to obtain with proof plates; the Magniac
copy was bought by Mr. Quaritch at Phillips's a few years since for
upwards of L200, and sold by him, we believe, to Lord Carnarvon.
Another copy, with the plates in unlettered proof state, is marked
L250 in Pearson & Co.'s Catalogue, 1897-98. _La Folle Journee_, by
Beaumarchais, with engravings of the same period and character, is
also a charming production, and commands a good price.

The minutiae into which the enthusiasts for the graphic French
literature produced in the closing years of the ancient regime permit
themselves to enter is rather bewildering to a novice or an outsider,
and certainly asks as much study as it can well be worth. The
cultivation of the pursuit has naturally brought into existence a
small library of monographs, of which that by Cohen is one of the best
known and the most frequently quoted. There is an equal degree of
difference between the pictorial features of books produced in England
and on the Continent during the past and the present centuries. In
France there still reigns the spirit of enterprise conducive to the
execution of high-class work; but among ourselves it is painful to
contemplate the decline, not of power, but of encouragement, and the
unhealthy tendency to a style of illustration which will not probably
be very creditable to the country in retrospect. A collection of
modern illustrated works of mixed origin may well dispense, except by
way of sample and contrast, with much of the fantastic and
preposterous creations of some of the latter-day masters.

The _Edition de Luxe_, the _Large_, _Larger_