Personally I feel sorry that the gotten Lore Society had such a small measure of success, for it deserved well. The management was too vicarious for the times, and, moreover, its object was not the buying and selling of books, which one man, if he have sufficient capital, can do as well as twenty. To rescue mean-looking but valuable literature from certain destruction was its one and only study, and the realization of its dreams was only accomplished very partially because, as I have hinted, the members of the association were specialists moving in narrow grooves. The few successes that can be placed to its credit would, however, have been its curse had it dealt hardly and uncharitably with the ignorant people who on more than one occasion parted with small fortunes (to them) for the price of a day's subsistence. To buy a perfectly clean copy of Thackeray's 'Second Funeral of Napoleon' for 2s. was a work of art, for the old woman who sold it, in order to buy tea, as it subsequently transpired, wanted more, and yet was so thoroughly saturated with suspicion that she would probably have refused to sell at any price had more been offered. The book was acquired for that sum, as I have said, after much discussion and with many misgivings, at least on one side; but when bought, the circumstances altered, and she found herself possessed of more money than she had had the control of at one time in her life before, for it is, I think, to the credit of the Forgotten Lore Society that it voluntarily paid into the Post-Office Savings Bank a sum of £10 to the order of the seller a few days after the transaction was carried through. Such finds as these were, however, few and far between. In nearly every case such books as the ignorant are possessed of are very inferior, and, what is perhaps not surprising, assessed by their owners at ridiculous prices.

It was part of the business of the society to advertise for books in country journals, and to while away a few moments I give the gist or the actual text of some of the replies received. One correspondent wrote to say that he hadn't got no books, but would sell us a fox-terrier pup, if that would do instead, and then he proceeded to enumerate at great length what he called its 'pints,' concluding with the remark that he had sent it off that very evening by passenger, train. It turned up, sure enough, in the morning, sorrowful of countenance, a snarling, disreputable cur, which we were only too glad to feed and return to its home without delay.

This was an instance, fortunately very rare, of the wilful substitution of one article for another of a totally different kind; but nearly every letter we took the trouble to answer proved to be misleading in one way or another, and not a few contained a series of palpable untruths. There would be no advantage in reproducing many of these epistles, and, moreover, the circumstances surrounding them are not of sufficient interest to warrant more than a passing notice. Suffice it to say that they were mere vendors' glosses, not to be taken au serieux. The number of books with 'magnificent plates' or in 'splendid condition' that turned out on inspection to be the tramps and tatterdemalions of bookish society was very surprising. Some few, however, were very curious, and others so quaint in diction that I have no hesitation in copying them either wholly or in part. Here is one:

'Deer Sur i begs to state as ou i ave sume bukes their is Boosey anecdoates of fishin for wich five bob and a lang his hanglin skeches hopen to hoffers stackhouse new history of the Holy Bibel to pouns an a lot moar to order deer Sur if you be willin and i wil sen to luke at for 2£ on the nale your respectabul——.'

A 'bob,' I may explain for the benefit of my American readers, is the slang equivalent of a shilling, or twenty-four cents.

The following reply, full of facetiousness and loaded with cunning, came from a village near Kirkby Stephen, in Westmoreland:

'SIR

'Seeing your advt in the Gazete I hasten to copie out the titles of some books which have been in my family for I dont know how long. A Bookseller come up from Lancaster last Toosday and wanted to have them sore but as I could see he wanted to cheat me I thought it better tell him so in plain English which is the way of yours truly who is a wrestling man and champion chucker out of these parts round about. Am open to good offer for the lot but will sell any at following and no discount. Ellicot Lectures on J. Christ, 10s. Durny Histoir de Romans, vol. 4, 6s. Stock Exchange year Book for 1884, 7s; Ante Baccus a choise volume bound in calf, 17s. 6d. Scrope Days and Nights of Fishing 1843, 12s. The Female Parson 4s, and plenty more too numerous till I see what you are made of. Please write at once if you want any.

'Yours truly——.'

The upshot of this was that we said we should like to see Scrope and the 'Female Parson,' but our bellicose correspondent refused to part with either till he got the money, for he did not, he said, intend to trouble himself about useless references. So the money was sent, and in due course the books arrived, carriage not paid. The 'Female Parson,' which we had never heard of before, proved to be worthless, but Scrope's 'Salmon Fishing' was really a beautiful copy of the first edition in the original cloth, and this it was that had doubtless tempted the Lancaster bookseller.