the price of L4000 it fell to Mr. Quaritch at
the Ashburnham sale in 1897. But for the _Manesse Liederbuch_, a
thirteenth-century MS. of national ballads, carried away by the French
from Heidelberg in 1656, and found among the Ashburnham MSS., the
German Government practically paid in 1887 L18,000. What may be termed
a bad second was the Duke of Hamilton's Missal, sold to the German
Government in 1887 for L10,000; but that also belongs to the
manuscript class.

It must be an absolute truism to state that at the present moment the
American is a material factor in influencing the book-market. He is
less so, perhaps, in the sort of way in which he assisted the
booksellers of a bygone generation in reducing or realising their
stocks; but he has come to the front more than ever as a competitor
for the prizes. There was a day when countless Transatlantic libraries
were in course of formation; but they are now fairly complete, and,
moreover, they have the means at hand, not formerly available, of
filling up the gaps at home.

Our American kinsfolk have undoubtedly become masters of an almost
countless number of bibliographical gems, and have been content to pay
handsomely for them. We do not hear of any sensible reflux of old
books from the States, but that might happen hereafter under the
influence of financial depression. At the same time, there is perhaps
nothing on the other side of the Atlantic which is not represented in
duplicate here, unless it be in an instance or two, as, for example,
the perfect Caxton _Morte Arthur_, 1485; and even those volumes, which
are of signal rarity, are almost without exception in repositories
accessible to all.

Returning for a moment to the commercial aspect of our present topic,
the Transatlantic acquirer at any cost makes the fixture of high, even
ridiculous, prices for certain books impossible. Beyond the _maximum_
there is a higher _maximum_ still. Who would have dreamed of a first
edition of Burns, although uncut, bringing, as it did just lately
(February 1898) in an Edinburgh auction-room, L572, or a sixpenny
volume on Ploughs by one Small, L30, because it bore on the title,
_Rob^t. Burns, Poet_, in the great man's own hand, as well as a
holograph memorandum attached to flyleaf? In the case of the
Kilmarnock Burns of 1786 the sole excuse of the purchaser was its
uncut state, for it is a comparatively common book. It was acquired by
Mr. Lamb of Dundee, a hotel-keeper, of one Mr.