e and connection.

To watch carefully and studiously a big sale such as that of the
Ashburnham library, of which two out of three portions are now
scattered, is a bibliographical, if not a commercial, education in
little. We attended in person throughout, and observed with interest
and profit the curious working, unappreciable to those not practically
versed in books, and acquainted with the result only through
paragraphs in the newspapers. A spectator with some preparatory
training could see how and why certain lots fetched such and such
abnormal figures; and a leading agency in this direction was the
unfortunate employment--unfortunate for himself, not for the owner or
the auctioneer--by a leading buyer of an agent who had to win his
purchases from men stronger than himself. Thus the Caxton's _Jason_,
instead of bringing perhaps L1000, ran up to more than twice that sum,
while, if it was re-sold under different conditions, it might not even
reach the lower amount. Still more striking were the offers for such
things as the first English edition of More's _Utopia_ (L51), a volume
which has repeatedly sold for a couple of guineas; while, on the other
hand, a handsomely bound copy of Bourrienne's _Memoires_ in ten
volumes went for 11s., and other ordinary works in proportion.

The names in the booksellers' ledgers and in the auctioneers'
catalogues as buyers of old or scarce literature are not by any means
necessarily always the names of collectors. They are often those of
middlemen, through whose hands a volume passes before it reaches its
ultimate destination--passes in many cases from one of these channels
to another. This is, of course, another mode of saying that the number
of actual book-holders on their own permanent account is comparatively
limited, and so it is. A call on the part of two or three persons for
a particular class of work or subject immediately puts the whole trade
on its mettle; everything directly or indirectly connected with the
new topic is bought up or competed for with extraordinary and abrupt
eagerness; the entire fraternity is bent on supplying the latest
demand; and prices rise with proportionate rapidity to an extravagant
height. The market consists of a couple or trio of individuals, who
might be insensible to the excitement which they have occasioned if it
were not for the offers from all sides which pour in upon them from
day to day; and in a season or so it is all over; quotations are