see note in the ensuing pages under the word "Mercier." His
"_Dictionnaire Historique, ou Memoires Critiques et
Litteraires_," in two folio volumes, 1758, was a posthumous
production; and a very extraordinary and amusing
bibliographical common-place book it is! My friend Mr.
Douce, than whom few are better able to appreciate such a
work, will hardly allow any one to have a warmer attachment
to it, or a more thorough acquaintance with its contents,
than himself--and yet there is no bibliographical work to
which I more cheerfully or frequently turn! In the editor's
advertisement we have an interesting account of Marchand:
who left behind, for publication, a number of scraps of
paper, sometimes no bigger than one's nail; upon which he
had written his remarks in so small a hand-writing that the
editor and printer were obliged to make use of a strong
magnifying glass to decypher it--"et c'est ici (continues
the former) sans doute le premier livre qui n'ait pu etre
imprime sans le secours continuel du Microscope." Marchand
died in 1753, and left his MSS. and books, in the true
spirit of a bibliomaniac, to the University of Leyden. I
see, from the conclusion of this latter authority, that a
new edition of Marchand's History of Printing was in
meditation to be published, after the publication of the
Dictionary. Whether Mercier availed himself of Marchand's
corrected copy, when he put forth his supplement to the
latter's typographical history, I have no means of
ascertaining. Certainly there never was a second edition of
the _Histoire de l'Imprimerie_, by Marchsnd [Transcriber's
Note: Marchand].]

Perhaps I ought to have noticed the unoccupied niche under which the
name of VOGT[143] is inscribed; the title of whose work has been
erroneously considered more seductive than the contents of it. As we
go on, we approach FOURNIER; a man of lively parts, and considerable
taste. His works are small in size, but they are written and printed
with singular elegance.[144] See what a respectable and almost
dignified air the highly finished bust of the pensionary MEERMAN[145]
assumes! Few men attained to greater celebrity in his day; and few
men better deserved the handsome things which were said of him.
Polite, hospitable, of an inquisitive and active turn of
mind--passionately addicted to rare and