and demand. But, as with other luxuries, the demand fluctuates according
to fashion rather than from any real, tangible want. The want, for
example, of the edition of Chaucer printed by Caxton, or of the
Boccaccio by Valdarfer, is an arbitrary rather than a literary one, for
the text of neither is without faults, or at all definitive. To take
quite another class of books as an illustration: the demand for first
editions of Dickens, Thackeray, Ruskin, and others, is perhaps greater
than the supply; but we do not read these first editions any more than
the Caxton Chaucer or the Valdarfer Boccaccio; we can get all the good
we want out of the fiftieth edition. We do not, however, feel called
upon to anticipate the labours and inquiries of the future Adam Smith;
it must suffice us to indicate some of the more interesting prices and
fashions in book-fancies which have prevailed during the last two
centuries or so in London.

The sale of books by auction dates, in this country at all events, from
the year 1676, when William Cooper, a bookseller of considerable
learning, who lived at the sign of the Pelican, in Little Britain,
introduced a custom which had for many years been practised on the
Continent. The full title of this interesting catalogue is in Latin--a
language long employed by subsequent book-auctioneers--and runs as
follows:

CATALOGUS | VARIORUM ET INSIGNIUM | LIBRORUM | INSTRUCTISSIMAE
BIBLIOTHECA | CLARISSIMI DOCTISSIMIQ VIRI--LAZARI SEAMAN, S.
T. D. | QUORUM AUCTIO HABEBITUR LONDINI | IN AEDIBUS DEFUNCTI
IN AREA ET VICULO | WARWICENSI. OCTOBRIS ULTIMO | CURA
GULIELMI COOPER BIBLIOPOLAE | LONDINI.

{ GRUIS IN CAEMETARIO }
{ ED. BREWSTER } { PAULINO }
APUD { & } AD INSIGNE { PELICANI IN } 1676.
{ GUIL. COOPER. } { VICO VULGARITER }
{ DICTO }
{ LITTLE BRITAIN. }

As will be seen from the foregoing, Cooper had no regular auction-rooms,
for in this instance Dr. Seaman's books were sold at his own house in
Warwick Court. Mr. John Lawler, in _Booklore_, December, 1885, points
out an error first made by Gough (in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and
extensively copied since), who states that the sale occurred at Cooper's
house in Warwick Lane. In his preface 'To the Reader,' Cooper makes an
interestin