tinual use gives men a judgment of things comparatively,
and they come to fix on that as most proper and easy which
no man, upon cursory view, would determine. _His soul was
never so staked down as in an old bookseller's shop_; for
having (as the statutes of the college required) taken
orders, he was restless till he had compassed some of that
sort of furniture as he thought necessary for his
profession. He was, for the most part, his own factor, and
seldom or never bought by commission; which made him lose
time in turning over vast numbers of books, and he was very
hardly pleased at last. I have borne him company at shops
for hours together, and, minding him of the time, he hath
made a dozen proffers before he would quit. By this care and
industry, at length, he made himself master of a very
considerable library, wherein the choicest collection was
_Greek_." There is some smartness in the foregoing
observations. The following, in a strain of equal interest,
affords a lively picture of the _bookselling trade_ at the
close of the 17th century: "It may not be amiss to step a
little aside, to reflect on the vast change in the trade of
books, between that time and ours. Then, _Little-Britain_
was a plentiful and perpetual emporium of learned authors;
and men went thither as to a market. This drew to the place
a mighty trade; the rather because the shops were spacious,
and the learned gladly resorted to them, where they seldom
failed to meet with agreeable conversation. And the
booksellers themselves were knowing and conversible men,
with whom, for the sake of bookish knowledge, the greatest
wits were pleased to converse. And we may judge the time as
well spent there, as (in latter days) either in tavern or
coffee-house: though the latter hath carried off the spare
hours of most people. But now this emporium is vanished, and
trade contracted into the hands of two or three persons,
who, to make good their monopoly, ransack, not only their
neighbours of the trade that are scattered about town, but
all over England, aye, and beyond sea too, and send abroad
their circulators, and, in that manner, get into their hands
all that is valuable. The rest of the trade are content to
take their refuse, with which, and the fresh scum of the
pres