e vernacular, and the third those printed in Latin. But
alas! the author left only this first volume, which contains some three
thousand authors, with short biographies of them. One hesitates to
connect this premature end of the book (or, indeed, the author's
assassination six years later) with the unlucky portrait! Altogether a
very delightful volume.

Nowadays a bibliography that is not at once complete, detailed, and
meticulously accurate is of no value. In this critical age when the
methods of modern science are applied to books, it behoves the
bibliographer to be careful, thorough, and precise. Unless he can bring
these three attributes to bear upon his work, far better that he should
never undertake it; for the result will be not only valueless but
misleading, and he will certainly fail to obtain 'that lasting fame and
perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the
reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind.'

There is one small appendage of the private library which must be
mentioned before we close the chapter. A list of the prices which he has
paid for his books forms a record that is indispensable to the
book-collector. It is impossible to carry all one's 'bargains' in one's
head, and if pencilled inside the book itself it is exposed to that
publicity which one naturally shuns. Such a record is of something more
than curious interest, for a knowledge of the rise or fall in the price
of those books in which he is interested is essential to the collector.
Whenever he comes across, in a bookseller's catalogue, a book that he
already possesses, he will like to know how the present price compares
with that which he gave for his copy.

A convenient shape for this useful book is an ordinary folio account book
(our book-hunter's measures 15 inches x 91/2 inches), and it should be
ruled for 'cash,' with an inner margin. Between the inner margin and
(outer) cash column he rules two lines, dividing the middle of the page
into three columns, of which the left-hand one is the widest. The
illustration over-page will show you precisely what is meant. At the top
of each page is placed a letter of the alphabet, and, immediately beneath
or alongside this, the date of a year. In the inner margin each line is
numbered down the page. In the next column is written the author and
short title of the book--sufficient to identify it--then the place where
it was bought, then the date w