egory, particularly if the acquirer were
satisfied here and there with trustworthy reproductions of
three-and-four-figure items. From L1000 to L1500 will go a long way in
supplying a collection with that qualifying proviso; without it, four
times the amount would barely cover you. The Hartley and Phillipps
catalogues should be consulted, as well as Upcott and other older
authorities.
_Liturgies_ form one of the tastes and objects of pursuit of persons
who have left behind them the fancies of their novitiate, and possess
the means of purchasing a description of literature which is
abnormally costly, and might prove more so, were the buyers more
numerous. The editions of the Prayer-Book fall under this section, and
are almost innumerable, being tantamount to _Annuals_, and of many
years we possess more than one issue.
The printed _Books of Hours_ might, from their extent, as regards
subordinate variations arising from the different uses and occasional
changes in portions of the ritual, constitute in themselves a life's
study and absorb a fortune. There is great disparity in their
typographical and artistic execution, no less than in their commercial
value. A tolerably full description of the series occurs in Brunet,
Lowndes, Maskell, the British Museum Catalogue, and in those of the
principal collectors on these lines. Of those adapted to English or
Scotish uses there is an account in Hazlitt's _Collections_; but we
may look in the early future for an exhaustive monograph from the pen
of Mr. Jacobus Weale.
The British Museum is singularly rich in editions in all languages of
the _Imitatio Christi_, having enjoyed the recent opportunity of
supplying wants from an enormous collection sold by public auction _en
bloc_. The Offor Catalogue is considered an authority on the
_Pilgrim's Progress_ and other works of Bunyan; but the National
Library contains a large proportion of these books, and the Huth
Catalogue and Hazlitt's _Collections_ must not be overlooked.
The authorities just cited, the Corser Catalogue, and the publications
of the Holbein Society, will prove useful guides to any one desirous
of studying the EMBLEM Series, which was some time since in marked
request, but has sustained the customary relapse, and is what
booksellers term rather _slow_ just now. Our own literature is not
particularly wealthy in these productions; there is nothing of
consequence beyond Whitney, Peacham, _The Mirror of Majesty_, 1618
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