e paper and print are the least significant; we are to approach
and touch it reverently, as if the individual to whom it appertained
were standing by, to reprove an ungentle hand and take back the
legacy.

It would be barely possible, were it of essential use, to schedule all
the existing presentation or annotated copies of books in our own and
other literatures, but we shall here make an effort to offer a general
view of what is intended, and what may in some instances become
attainable by watching opportunities:--

Monastic or collegiate literature.
Editions of the Bible.
Editions of the New Testament.
Editions of the Prayer-Book.
Royal Books:--
(i) With autograph notes by the owner.
(ii) With inscription by the giver.
(iii) With both.
(iv) In binding identifiable with a royal personage.
Books which possess the signatures of noble or illustrious
individuals, politicians, statesmen, soldiers.
The same categories apply.
Books with literary inscriptions:--
(i) Presentation copies with author's inscription.
(ii) With his inscription and additional matter by him.
(iii) With inscription by recipient.
(iv) With autographs and MSS. notes by both.
Foreign books:--
Monastic and mediaeval.
With MS. matter of historical or genealogical interest.
Books from royal or noble libraries.
Books of literary interest.

Monastic inscriptions are generally limited in their interest to
casual light shed by them on personages connected with the institution
or on some local circumstance.

Of royal books, genuine and otherwise, the number has had a tendency
to increase through the successive dispersion of old libraries
everywhere, combined with the additional facilities for gaining access
to those which still remain intact. The Henry VIII. _Prayer-Book_ on
vellum is the only copy known in any state of the edition of 1544, and
may not have been publicly issued with this date.

Some of the royal memoranda are of signal interest and curiosity. On
the back of the title, under the royal arms, the king himself says:
"Remember thys wrighter wen you doo pray for he ys yours noon can saye
naye. Henry R." At the passage: "I have not done penance for my
malice," the same hand inserts in the margin: "trewe repentance is the
best penance;" and farther on he makes a second marginal note on the
sentence: "thou hast promysed forgyveness," . . . "repentance beste
penance." This was a sort of family common-p