,
they have long abounded. They have rendered accessible an enormous
body of inedited or unknown material for history, archaeology, and
biography; and after all deductions for indiscretion and dilettantism,
they may be pronounced the medium for having shed new and precious
light on well-nigh all branches of human science. To the
book-collector they appeal less in a possessory sense than as works of
reference. Where they enter into his plan is in the practice, which
some of them have followed, of striking off on vellum or other special
substance half a dozen copies, which from their _presqu' uniquity_
(this is as good a phrase as _rarissime_) have ere now bred
unchristian sentiments among competitors for the _bijoux_ in the
_belles lettres_. The book-hunter's motto is _Pulchra quae difficilia_;
he reverses the common saying.

There is so far no exhaustive Guide to the Club literature, but the
supplementary volume to Bohn's _Lowndes_ contains a fairly complete
view of it down to 1869. The additions since that date have been
incessant and almost innumerable. The British Museum General Catalogue
registers them all under the mediaeval heading of _Academies_.

It is right and necessary that the inexperienced collector should be
put on his guard against the reprehensible and dishonest practice of
some professional vendors in advertising or offering for disposal
books of which the leaves are not entirely genuine, which are
deficient in supplemental matter recognised as part of the work, or
whose bindings are sophisticated in a manner only capable of detection
by a connoisseur or a specialist. There are wily persons who
systematically and habitually insert in their catalogues items which
they have acquired with the distinct proviso that they were defective,
and have naturally acquired at a proportionate price. The forms of
deception are infinitely various; but the leading points demanding
attention and verification are apt to be:--

The Frontispiece.
The Portrait.
The Half-title.
The Errata.
Supplement or Postscript.
Starred pages.
Extra sheets inserted.
Plates.
Extra Plates.

The intending purchaser must take care to satisfy himself that there
are no facsimile or reprinted leaves, no catchword erased to cancel a
deficiency, no mixture of editions, and no wrong or re-engraved
portrait or frontispiece, or false date inserted or inconvenient one
erased; and that the copy has not been unskilfully cleaned. It is
_caveat