's eye alight upon 'sweeter copies'--as
the phrase is; and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer
rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy
characterized it. A copy of the Editio Princeps of Homer (by
no means a first-rate one) brought 92_l._: and all the
ALDINE CLASSICS produced such an electricity of sensation
that buyers stuck at nothing to embrace them! Do not let it
hence be said that _black-letter lore_ is the only
fashionable pursuit of the present age of book-collectors.
This sale may be hailed as the omen of better and brighter
prospects in Literature in general: and many a useful
philological work, although printed in the Latin or Italian
language--and which had been sleeping, unmolested, upon a
bookseller's shelf these dozen years--will now start up from
its slumber, and walk abroad in a new atmosphere, and be
noticed and 'made much of.'

Here I terminate my _annotation labours_ relating to
ANECDOTES OF BOOK-COLLECTORS, and ACCOUNTS OF BOOK-AUCTIONS.
Unless I am greatly deceived, these labours have not been
thrown away. They may serve, as well to awaken curiosity in
regard to yet further interesting memoranda respecting
scholars, as to shew the progressive value of books, and the
increase of the disease called the BIBLIOMANIA. Some of the
most curious volumes in English literature have in these
notes, been duly recorded; nor can I conclude such a
laborious, though humble, task, without indulging a fond
hope that this account will be consulted by all those who
make book-collecting their amusement. But it is now time to
rise up, with the company described in the text, and to put
on my hat and great-coat. So I make my bow, wishing, with
_L'Envoy_ at the close of MARMION,

To all, to each, a fair good night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.]

LOREN. Do you mean to have it inferred that there were no collections,
of value or importance, which were sold in the mean time?

LYSAND. I thank you for stopping me: for I am hoarse as well as
stupid: I consider the foregoing only as the greater stars or
constellations in the bibliographical hemisphere. Others were less
observed from their supposed comparative insignificancy; although, if
you had attended the auctions, you would have found in them many very
useful, and even rare