(1599--one other copy known), and 'Epigrammes and
Elegies' by Davies and Marlow (_circa_ 1598), realised L15,100--and
departed forthwith to the United States.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX

A PLEA FOR SPECIALISM--(_Continued_)

'Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea.'
WORDSWORTH.

[Sidenote: First Editions.]

TO most of us it matters but little what becomes of our books when we are
dead. We garner them for our own use and benefit absolutely, and when we
are gone they may well be distributed among other book-lovers for aught
we care. No doubt a considerable zest is added to collecting in the case
of those lucky ones who, being established in the land, purpose to 'lay
down' a library for their posterity. In such cases almost invariably
there must be a thought of future value. It is but natural. Whether he
lay down wine or books no man is so foolish as to lay down trash. Such
schemes, however, do not always result in that success which their owner
intended. Like wine, the value of books may 'go off.'

There are two classes of books, however, that he who is wealthy enough to
lay down a library may acquire with perfect assurance. They are, in
fact, gilt-edged securities. One is the original editions of _famous_
Elizabethan and early Stuart authors, the other, the more estimable
_incunabula_. Just as the population of the world increases yearly, so
every year there are more and more book-collectors, and, consequently,
more competition to acquire rarities. Every day, too, the chances of
further copies coming to light are more remote. Books are not
everlasting, and there will come a time when the only fifteenth-century
volumes in existence will be those treasured in velvet-lined boxes and
glass cases.

There can be little doubt that in fifty years' time a collection of
Beaumont and Fletcher's or Massinger's plays in the original quartos will
be worth not merely double its present value, but quadruple and more.
Then there are the famous prose authors of the early Stuart period, such
as Bacon, Barclay, Robert Burton, Daniel, Donne, Drayton, Shelton, and
even the prolific Gervase Markham, to mention only a few. All these are
good investments, as regards their first editions, _for your children's
children_.

As regards the first editions of more modern authors we are on much mo