if he anticipated an age and a race of
book-buyers among whom his great critical works are forgotten, and his
name is known solely for the spurious volume, sacred to infamy, which
may be found side by side with the works of the author of Trimalcion's
Feast--"par nobile fratrum."

There is another failing, without a leaning to virtue's side, to which
some collectors have been, by reputation at least, addicted--a
propensity to obtain articles without value given for them--a tendency
to be larcenish. It is the culmination, indeed, of a sort of lax
morality apt to grow out of the habits and traditions of the class. Your
true collector--not the man who follows the occupation as a mere
expensive taste, and does not cater for himself--considers himself a
finder or discoverer rather than a purchaser. He is an industrious
prowler in unlikely regions, and is entitled to some reward for his
diligence and his skill. Moreover, it is the essence of that very skill
to find value in those things which, in the eye of the ordinary
possessor, are really worthless. From estimating them at little value,
and paying little for them, the steps are rather too short to estimating
them at nothing, and paying nothing for them. What matters it, a few
dirty black-letter leaves picked out of that volume of miscellaneous
trash--leaves which the owner never knew he had, and cannot miss--which
he would not know the value of, had you told him of them? What use of
putting notions into the greedy barbarian's head, as if one were to find
treasures for him? And the little pasquinade is _so_ curious, and will
fill a gap in that fine collection so nicely! The notions of the
collector about such spoil are indeed the converse of those which Cassio
professed to hold about his good name, for the scrap furtively removed
is supposed in no way to impoverish the loser, while it makes the
recipient rich indeed.

Those habits of the prowler which may gradually lead a mind not
strengthened by strong principle into this downward career, are hit with
his usual vivacity and wonderful truth by Scott. The speaker is our
delightful friend Oldenbuck of Monkbarns, the Antiquary, and what he
says has just enough of confession in it to show a consciousness that
the narrator has gone over dangerous ground, and, if we did not see
that the narrative is tinged with some exaggeration, has trodden a
little beyond the limits of what is gentlemanly and just.

"'See this bundle of ball