hy, from volumes
written for the Carolingian, if not Merovingian kings, to volumes
bound for Marie Antoinette.

Some interesting and instructive notices of our own public libraries,
and of a few private collections of former times, may be found in the
later volumes of the _Retrospective Review_.

The two _Rolls of Collectors_ before mentioned are capable of making a
not inconsiderable volume; but they are classifiable in groups and
periods, and certain individuals may be taken as the central figures
in the successive onward movements. Our immediate concern is with
printed monuments, and consequently we do not hearken back beyond the
men who witnessed the introduction of typography. Nor does there
appear, while the purchasing power of money for literary possessions
or the book-closet was high, to have been any _esprit de corps_ or
emulation tending to constitute schools or _coteries_, and to raise
certain books or series to an artificial standard. Men at first
acquired at random what happened to fall in their way; booksellers
there were few or (except at London or in the Universities) next to
none; and auctions were long unknown. Except for topography and the
classics, there was, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, no
active competition. The bulk of the Harleian Library was probably
obtained without extravagant outlay, though not without labour and
time; not those divisions which we should now prize would be the most
expensive, unless we include the manuscripts for which Lord Oxford had
even then to pay a price.

We have drawn the line where it appears that the principle of forming
libraries, in the modern sense of the word, commenced in this
country. Down to the Harleian epoch, when the Continental system began
to influence us, the shelf of books which we observe in many old
prints was the limit of nearly all collectors: not necessarily of
their resources, but of their views and of the feeling of the time.
Men acquired a handful or so of volumes, which came into their hands
by gift or otherwise; from the absence or paucity of public
institutions there were few individuals of any culture whatever
without a few books besides the family Bible and _Pilgrim's Progress_;
but such a colossal accumulation as was formed under the auspices of
the second Lord Oxford, and still more that of Richard Heber, was as
undreamt of as the vast and multifarious contents of the building in
Great Russell Street as it now exists.