Protestant minister in his native town. On the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes he retired to Rotterdam, where he devoted his
life to literary researches. He died at the Hague in 1723. For
his great reputation as a skilful diplomatist, see Voltaire's
'Age of Louis XIV.'

Another edition of this work was published in octavo at Basle in
1740.

Whenever our book-hunter has an afternoon to spare, pocketing a handful
of cards from the index he sets off for the British Museum (or wherever
he may happen to be working at the time, where access may be had to the
volumes he requires) and settles himself to collate and copy title-pages.
But it must be borne in mind that the collation of any volume cannot be
considered as 'standard' until at least three copies of the book have
been examined, all of which are identical. The majority of the common
books printed after the year 1600 vary not at all in their make up; and
having once collated such a volume, the comparison with it of other
copies takes but a very few minutes. Sixteenth-century books, however,
especially those printed in the first half of the century, vary
sufficiently in their collations to demand a much more careful scrutiny.
If the volume under examination is a book of which different copies vary
considerably, you must naturally be exceedingly cautious in declaring
that your collation represents the form in which the book was issued from
the press. It is quite possible that you will find differences in each of
six copies.

At the end of each collation our book-hunter puts a letter or letters in
brackets to denote the habitations of the copies he has examined, the
tallest copy (of which the title-page's measurements are given) being
distinguished by an asterisk; thus: A, B*, N. 'A' represents our
book-hunter's own copy, 'B' that in the Bodleian Library, 'N' that in the
Bibliotheque Nationale; and so on. Mention, of course, from which copy
the collation has been taken is made in the text; or, if you prefer it,
you may denote this, so that it may be seen at a glance, by entering the
necessary distinguishing letter in _red_ ink.

As I have said, it is a fascinating pursuit, but unless the subject in
which you specialise is a narrow one, you may be overwhelmed by the
magnitude of the task. Take heed that you do not undertake more than you
have time or opportunity to complete; or else, embarking upon a labour of
Hercules you may liken