. These little Elzevirs are the memoranda and trophies of
many a walk by night and morning through the Cowgate, the Canongate, the
Bow, St. Mary's Wynd,--wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers
and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things rare and curious.
How often have I stood haggling on a halfpenny, lest, by a too ready
acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect
the value I set upon the article!--how have I trembled, lest some passing
stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor
student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall,
as a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!--And then, Mr.
Lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration, and
pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is
trembling with pleasure!--Then to dazzle the eyes of our wealthier and
emulous rivals by showing them such a treasure as this" (displaying a
little black smoked book about the size of a primer); "to enjoy their
surprise and envy, shrouding meanwhile, under a veil of mysterious
consciousness, our own superior knowledge and dexterity these, my young
friend, these are the white moments of life, that repay the toil, and
pains, and sedulous attention, which our profession, above all others,
so peculiarly demands!"

Lovel was not a little amused at hearing the old gentleman run on in
this manner, and, however incapable of entering into the full merits
of what he beheld, he admired, as much as could have been expected, the
various treasures which Oldbuck exhibited. Here were editions esteemed
as being the first, and there stood those scarcely less regarded as
being the last and best; here was a book valued because it had the
author's final improvements, and there another which (strange to tell!)
was in request because it had them not. One was precious because it
was a folio, another because it was a duodecimo; some because they
were tall, some because they were short; the merit of this lay in the
title-page--of that in the arrangement of the letters in the word Finis.
There was, it seemed, no peculiar distinction, however trifling
or minute, which might not give value to a volume, providing the
indispensable quality of scarcity, or rare occurrence, was attached to
it.

Not the least fascinating was the original broadside,--the Dying Speech,
Bloody Murder, or Wonderful Wonder of Wonders,--in its primar