To the collector all catalogues are interesting, and although one may not readily come across publishers' catalogues of the sixteenth century, yet seventeenth-century ones are not so rare, and those of the eighteenth century comparatively common. What interesting reading these old catalogues provide! Often it is worth while purchasing the flotsam of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from the penny tub merely for the sake of the catalogues which one frequently comes across bound at the end of such volumes. The desecration of a book is anathema to the bibliophile; but provided always that when you have paid your penny the volume proves to be but common trash and of no value whatever, you need not hesitate to remove the desired leaves and consign the wreckage to the waste-paper basket.

Perhaps nothing shows so clearly the change in manners and sentiments of each age as do these ancient catalogues. Doubtless many of the works therein described are to be found among the pages of any modern bookseller's list. But there they are scattered among works of all times, and strike the imagination as being merely the curiosities of a bygone age. Here, gathered together in one list, they are exhibited in company with their fellows, and there is little diversity of sentiment to distract one's attention. Though they treat of the most diverse subjects under the sun, yet there is a strange similitude about them which is characteristic of their age. And this impression is not due to the language in which their titles are couched; they are just the sort of books which we should expect our forefathers of that period to read. Whatever their subjects, whatever their titles, they are clearly all birds of a feather.

Take the following, all of which occur in 'A Catalogue of some Books Printed for Henry Brome, since the Dreadful Fire of London.'

Who could hesitate to assign a period to these? Is not 'The Civil War and Restoration' writ big about them all? Plainer, indeed, would it be were we to analyse each separate item; for the tastes of the age and trend of men's thoughts as depicted in the pages of Master Pepys are amply reflected here.

Beware, however, lest you come across a catalogue of some such rogue as Edmund Curll, that shameless rascal who gloried in the obscene productions of his minions, hesitating not to assign them to the greatest writers of the day. Though fined and pilloried for his scandalous publications, he regarded such 'accidents' merely as a medium of advertisement, and had no hesitation in calling attention to the fact that he had suffered corporal punishment on account of a book that he wished to sell.

In the course of his crooked career he fell foul of Pope by publishing a book entitled 'Court Poems,' which he ascribed to 'the laudable translator of Homer.' Pope promptly retorted by putting forth an essay with the delightful title 'A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, Bookseller; with a faithful copy of his Last Will and Testament.' Neither words nor deeds, however, could repress a man so destitute of moral worth; and, later, he came once more under the poet's lash in the 'Dunciad,' where we read—

'Obscene with filth the miscreant lies bewray'd.'

Yet even the devil must have his due, and Curll certainly was concerned in the production of a number of works of general and abiding interest. Here is a curious example of his wares, from one of his catalogues dated 1726. It is a version of Sallengre's 'L'Elogie de l'Ivresse,' a humorous (and scarce) little volume first published in 1714.