to their number.
More may turn up any day when the pickaxe breaks into a new Tanagra
cemetery, when a fallen palm in Ashanti brings up aggery beads clinging
to its earthy roots, when a pot of coins is found by some old Roman way,
and so forth. To be sure, perfection may be attained in coin collecting,
when a man has specimens of all known sorts, but even then he will pine
for better specimens, for the best specimens. In the other branches of
the sport we have mentioned the collector may be eager, of course, for
good things, but he can never know the passion of the stampomaniac who
has all sorts but three, and finds these within his reach. Perfection is
within a step of such a man, and that step we fear he will take, even if
it involves ever so many breaches of the Decalogue. In one of this
month's magazines, in a story called "Mr. Pierrepoint's Repentance," Mr.
Grant Allen tells the tale of a coin collector's infamy, and that coin
collector a clergyman and fellow of his college. A pope is said to have
stolen a rare book from a painter, and it is certain that enthusiastic
collectors are apt to have "their moral tone lowered some," as the
American gentleman said about the lady whom he had wooed with intentions
less than honourable.

A good example of the toils of the collector in pursuit of perfection is
given by M. Henri Beraldi in his very amusing catalogue of M. Paillet's
library. This book, by the way, is itself scarce, and the bibliomaniac
will be rather lucky if he meets with it. M. Beraldi describes M.
Paillet's copy of Dorat's "Fables," published in 1773, with illustrations
by Marillier. Nobody perhaps ever reads Dorat now, but his book came out
in the very palmiest days of the art of illustration in France. There
were no _photogravures_ then, nor hideous, scratchy, and seamy
"processes," such as almost make one despair of progress and of the
future of humanity. The people that takes to "processes" is lost! The
illustrations of the "Fables" were duly engraved on copper. There were
ninety-nine vignettes, and as many tail-pieces. The bibliographical
history of the book is instructive, either to young collectors or to the
common herd, not to speak impolitely--the persons who do not understand
what collectors want. The "Fables" were originally published on three
different sorts of paper, Dutch paper at seventy-two francs, French paper
at twenty-nine francs, and on "small paper" at twenty-four francs. In