And so I bid you farewell, brother book-hunter. There is no subject with which I have dealt but could have had a volume to itself: my aim throughout has been to strike the happy medium between a tedious list of titles and editions and a description too brief to be of interest. Thank you for your patience and sympathy (of the latter indeed I was assured at the outset, for we book-hunters are a class that knows no other feeling when reading about our beloved books), and allow me to express the sincere wish that good fortune may attend you on your expeditions. May your 'finds' be frequent, cheap, clean, tall, perfect, and broad of margin, and may you never suffer from borrowers, bookworms, acid-tanned leathers, clumsy letterers and insecure shelf-fastenings. May good scribbling paper, sharp pencils, uncrossed nibs, clean ink and blotting-paper be ever at your hand, and may your days be passed in wholesome leisure, in the divine fellowship of books. Vale.

The End.

FOOTNOTES:

[82] Msr. F. C. Wieder, the librarian, writing to the 'Times Literary Supplement' of 6th February 1919 (p. 70), states that 'the catalogue is in preparation, and arrangements will be made that the books of this library can be sent on loan to foreign students through the intermediary of public libraries.'

[83] See note on p. [78].

[84] The moated manor-house (Southcote, near Reading) which he built provides an excellent example of the way in which learned men (especially mathematicians!) go astray when they insist upon being their own architects. A more unhandy house it is difficult to conceive; and in winter-time the dinner must invariably have been cold by the time it reached the dining-room. The writer of these lines prospected it from attics to cellars some years ago, but as usual "drew blank."

[85] Mr. E. Heron-Allen's 'De Fidiculis Bibliographia' was issued in parts, and forms two small quarto volumes, 1890 and 1894; but only about sixty complete sets are known to exist.

[86] Dodd's 'Essay towards a Natural History of the Herring,' 1752, contains a chapter of bibliography.

[87] You will find the whole tale—a most interesting one—in 'Bibliographica,' vol. iii., p. 291, from the pen of Mr. Falconer Madan.