s, like
the old eighteenth-century work. But as they emerge from the workshop,
and stand upon the shelves or in the case, their aspect is decidedly
agreeable, while half a roomful of them are to be had for the price of
a Clovis Eve or even a first-rate Padeloup. Very much, on the
contrary, we are apt to conceive a dislike for that unwieldy imperial
_format_ which some of the Parisian _libraires editeurs_ affect, and
which perhaps occupy the same place in French literature of the day as
our detestable English _editions de luxe_.

CHAPTER XIV

Aids to the formation of a library: (i.) Personal observation;
(ii.) Works of reference--Rarity of taste and
judgment--Dependence of some booksellers on want of knowledge in
their clients--Trade catalogues--Principal modern books of
reference criticised--Those for the (i.) Bibliography; (ii.) for
the Prices--Unsatisfactory execution of _Book Prices Current_,
&c.--The British Museum Catalogue of Early English
books--Obsolete authorities--Their unequal demerit--British
Museum _General Catalogue_ and Mr. Quaritch's _New General
Catalogue_--The former not implicitly trustworthy--Source of the
value of the latter--The labours of Sir Egerton Brydges, Joseph
Haslewood, and others--Tribute to their worth--_Bibliotheca
Anglo-Poetica_--The Heber Catalogue--Its magnitude and immense
value and interest--Where Heber obtained his treasures--His
library the most splendid ever formed in any country--Its
absorption of all preceding collections--And the vital
obligations of every succeeding collection to it--The Grenville
Catalogue--George Daniel--His fly-leaf _canards_--Collier's
_Bibliographical Catalogue_--Corser's _Collectanea_--Unequal
value of the posthumous parts--The Huth Catalogue--Testimony to
its character--Several monographs--Lord Crawford's
Broadsides--Lists of the College libraries at Oxford and
Cambridge--Catalogues of the Dyce and Forster Bequests to South
Kensington--Halliwell-Phillipps's _Shakespeariana_--Blades's
_Caxton_--Botfield's _Cathedral Libraries_--A new catalogue of
the Althorp-Rylands books in preparation--Mr. Wheatley's scheme
for cataloguing a library--Redundant cataloguing
exemplified--Differences in copies of the same book and
edition--French books of reference--Brunet, Cohen, Gay--Special
treatises on Playing-