cting certain
works from the press of Thomas Berthelet, at the foot of the
title-pages of which we find the date 1534; but the latter forms part
of the woodcut in which the letterpress is enclosed, and was retained
in publications posterior to the year named, and the same is, to a
slighter extent, the case with Robinson's _Reward of Wickedness_,
where the figures 1573 occur at the end within an engraved border
employed for other purposes, the particular production by one of the
guards set over Mary, Queen of Scots, having probably appeared some
years after.

CHAPTER XV

Fluctuations in the value of books--The prices of books
comparative--Low prices adverse to the sale of books in certain
cases--Great difficulty in arriving at the market-price of very
rare volumes--Influence of the atmosphere--Reflections on the
utility and prudence of collecting--The collector, as a rule,
pays for his amusement--The classes which chiefly buy the dearer
books--Bookselling a speculation--The question of
investment--Runs on particular kinds of books or particular
subjects--Quotations of prices realised to be read between the
lines--Careful consideration of certain problems essential to
security of buyers--The bookseller's point of view--Books which
are wanted, and why--Capital publications and universally known
authors--Tendency to estimate earlier and middle period
literature by its literary or artistic qualities--Collectors in
the future--Interest in prices current--Some notable figures--The
most precious books of all countries--Two imperfect copies of
Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ bring L2900--Henry VIII.'s own copy
on vellum of a volume of Prayers, 1544, with MSS. notes by him
and his family--Lady Elizabeth Tirrwhyt's _Prayers_, 1574, bound
in gold--_Book of St. Alban's_, 1486, and _Chronicles of
England_, printed at St. Alban's--The _Lincoln Nosegay_--American
buyers and their agents--Composition of an average
auction-room--An early example of a book-lottery.

THE fluctuations and revolutions in the mercantile value of old
English books present phenomena to our consideration of an instructive
and occasionally of a tantalising character. No one has the power to
foresee what future changes time may bring forth. It is the fashion
with the vendor to force a purchase on his client, because, says he,
this book canno