ritish Museum by the munificence of the late Sir
Wollaston Franks (Department of Antiquities).

[5] Said to have been purchased for Lord Amherst.

CHAPTER XVI

Foundations of bibliography--Commencement of advertising books
through catalogues and lists at end of other
publications--Classes of literature principally in demand--Origin
of sales by public competition--A book-lottery in 1661--The
book-auction in London makes a beginning--The practice extends to
the provinces and Scotland (1680-95)--First sale-catalogue where
Caxtons were separately lotted (1682)--Catalogue of a private
library appended to a posthumous publication (1704)--Mystery
surrounding the sources whence the Harleian Library was supplied
with its early English rarities--An explanation--Indebtedness of
the Heber Collection to private purchasers on a large scale--Vast
additions to our knowledge since Heber's time--The modern
auction-marts--Penny and other biddings at auctions--An average
auction-room--Watching the Ashburnham sale--The collector behind
the scenes--Key to certain prices--The Frost and the
Boom--Difficulty of gauging quotations without practical
experience--The _Court of Appeal_--The Duke of Wellington pays
L105 for a shilling pamphlet--A few more words about the Frere
sale in illustration of the Boom and something else--The Rig.

THE earliest method of communication between holders and vendors of
books and probable buyers of them related to the issue of new works,
or, at most, to such as were not out of date. Maunsell's celebrated
folio, of which he was not apparently encouraged to proceed with more
than certain sections, and which did not comprise the subjects most
interesting to us, came out in 1595 in two parts, and was,
notwithstanding its imperfect fulfilment, the most comprehensive
enterprise of the kind in our language down to comparatively recent
times. These matters usually took the form of notices, accompanying a
published volume, of others already in print or in preparation by the
same firm. No possessor or observer of old English books can fail to
have met with such advertisements; but, as we have said, they limit
themselves, as a rule, to current literature and the ventures of the
immediate stationer or printer. To some copies of Marmion's
_Antiquary_, 1641, we find attached a slip containing an announcement
by Thomas