rity with the contents
of the leading assemblages of foreign and classical literature in
Continental hands. But there are very few of the great public
libraries abroad which have not casually or otherwise acquired English
books, and those of the rarest description. At Goettingen they have,
from an auction at Lueneburg in 1767, the _C. Merry Tales_ of 1526; at
Cassel, Marlowe's _Edward II._, 1594; and at Hamburg the Elizabethan
edition of _Blanchardine and Eglantine_, 1597, all unique or most
rare; and this is only by way of instance or sample. The Huth copy of
Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, 1609, was obtained from Zuerich.

The private amateur does well if he keeps before him the salient
features connected with his pursuit from this point of view. It is to
be deeply regretted that the Government of the Netherlands did not
take steps to preserve intact the Enscheden collection at Haarlem, in
the same manner that that of Belgium did the Plantin heirlooms.

The late Mr. Quaritch narrated an amusing and characteristic anecdote,
commemorative of his participation in the Enscheden sale, where the
agent of the British Museum waited till the morning to bid at the
table for the _Troy-Book_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, and he
bought it privately over-night of the auctioneer.

There is, it must be noted, a fundamental difference in the
constitution of public libraries in Great Britain and America as
compared with those on the Continent. The latter, if they do not
restrict themselves, in principal measure, to the literature of their
own country, or at least tongue, very seldom go far outside those
limits otherwise than by accident or for works of reference. On the
contrary, the English and American collections are cosmopolitan, like
those who have formed them. At the British Museum a volume in
Icelandic, Chinese, Hawaian, or any other character is welcomed nearly
as much as one in the vernacular. In Germany, at all events at Berlin
and Vienna, English books of importance are recognised. But at the
Bibliotheque in Paris it is not so. The French collect only the
classics and their own literature, just as they ignore in coins all
but the Greek and Roman and national series.

Within their own lines, however, it is wonderful, looking at all the
political convulsions which the country and capital have undergone,
what vast treasures remain in France--treasures of all epochs and in
every class, from the rise to the fall of the monarc