0 0

The beginning of the 1st chapter was wanting. Lord Spencer
has a perfect copy of this rare book on spotless VELLUM!

No. 2656. Platonis Opera, apud Aldum. 2 vol. fol. 1513.
_Edit. Prin._ ON VELLUM 55 13 0

Purchased by the late Dr. W. Hunter; and is at this moment,
in his Museum at _Glasgow_. The reader who has not seen them
can have no idea of the beauty of these vellum leaves. The
ink is of the finest lustre, and the whole typographical
arrangement may be considered a master-piece of printing.
Lord Oxford told Dr. Mead that he gave 100 guineas for this
very copy.]

After this melancholy event, one would have thought that future
_Virtuosi_ would have barricadoed their doors, and fumigated their
chambers, to keep out such a pest;--but how few are they who profit by
experience, even when dearly obtained! The subsequent history of the
disease is a striking proof of the truth of this remark; for the
madness of book-collecting rather increased--and the work of death
still went on. In the year 1776 died John Ratcliffe[47] another, and
a very singular, instance of the fatality of the BIBLIOMANIA. If he
had contented himself with his former occupation, and frequented the
butter and cheese, instead of the book, market--if he could have
_fancied himself_ in a brown peruke, and Russian apron, instead of an
embroidered waistcoat, velvet breeches, and flowing perriwig, he
might, perhaps, have enjoyed greater longevity; but, infatuated by the
Caxtons and Wynkyn De Wordes of Fletewode and of West, he fell into
the snare; and the more he struggled to disentangle himself, the more
certainly did he become a prey to the disease.

[Footnote 47: BIBLIOTHECA RATCLIFFIANA; or, "A Catalogue of
the elegant and truly valuable Library of JOHN RATCLIFFE,
Esq. late of Bermondsey, deceased. The whole collected with
great judgment and expense, during the last thirty years of
his life: comprehending a large and most choice collection
of the rare old English _black-letter_, in fine
preservation, and in elegant bindings, printed by CAXTON,
LETTOU, MACHLINIA, the anonymous St. Albans Schoolmaster,
Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, Grafton, Day, Newberie,
Marshe, Jugge, Whytchurch, Wyer, Rastell, Coplande, and the
rest of the _Old English Typographers_: several missals and
MSS., and two Pedigrees on vellum, finely illuminated."