There are rare books which, paradoxical as it may seem, are not rare. Take, for example, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621; the first folio Shakespeare, 1623; Milton's Lycidas, Poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, in the editiones principes; the works of the minor poets, Suckling, Carew, Shirley, Davenant; Walton's Angler, 1653; Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 1678; the Kilmarnock Burns, 1786; and many first editions of Wordsworth, Lamb, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson. Every season swells the roll of existing copies. On the contrary, Spenser's Faëry Queen, Books i.-iii., 1590, and Milton's Comus, 1634, are authentically scarce, the former especially so in fine state; and the same may be predicated of Lovelace's Lucasta (the two parts complete). But the real meaning of the rarity of the other books above specified—and the list might be readily enlarged—is that, although the copies are numerous enough, the taste for capital productions has increased within a few years out of proportion to the recovery of new or unknown examples.

We are finding frequent occasion to cite works of foreign origin, which are more or less habitually taken up into our own collections by miscellaneous or general buyers; and there is among these one which forms a signal illustration of the fallacy of uniqueness. It is the Gutenberg or Mazarin Bible. Scarcely a library of the first rank occurs here or elsewhere without offering a copy; and we are persuaded that at least forty must exist, either on paper or on vellum, throughout the world. The book occupies the same bibliographical position as the first folio Shakespeare, the first edition of Walton's Angler, and the first Burns; it tends to grow commoner, yet, so far, not cheaper.

There are other books which, as it may be more readily understood, are rare without being valuable, and of which such of the commercial world as has it not in its power to expend large amounts on individual purchases, naturally seeks to make the most. It was almost amusing, some time since, to note the entries in some of the booksellers' lists under "Black Letter," "Gothic Letter," "Rare Law," "Curious Early English," and so forth; and the names of Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and other ancient printers were freely introduced to help off a rather lame foreigner, who was alleged to have been professionally associated with one or the other of them. If the bookseller knows the book-buyer, it is highly requisite that the latter should study what he is going to buy.

Illustrations are not wanting of the loss of untold treasure through a medium more fatal than any other—through exhaustive popular demand. Entire and large impressions of books, pamphlets, and broadsides have succumbed, not to the sacrilegious hand of the spoiler, but to the too affectionate, and not too cleanly, fingering of the multitude of men and women who read and then cast the sources of entertainment away. If we remember that certain of the Bibles ordered to be kept in churches for general use chiefly survive in crumbling fragments, or at best woefully dilapidated copies, we cease to be surprised at the easy prey which more fugitive compositions have formed to a succession of careless and indifferent owners. The illiterate inscriptions on many books, which have thus become valuable, point to the hands through which they have passed, and tell a story of prolonged neglect, too often culminating in appropriation to domestic requirements.

It is, anyhow, perfectly undeniable that of the miscellaneous early literature of all countries, the proportion which exists is in very numerous instances no more than a simple voucher for the work having passed the press. A single copy has formerly occurred or occurs fortuitously, and no duplicate can be cited. This is the position of thousands of volumes, and of many it is the chief merit.

Infinitely numerous are the strange tales, sometimes drawing up the moisture into the mouth, sometimes sufficient to make one's hair rigid, of books of price hung up for use at country railway stations, or employed by a tobacconist to wrap up his pennyworths of snuff, or converted by a lady of quality into curl-papers. What has become of the Caxtons sent over to the Netherlands in the last century by a confiding English gentleman their owner, for the inspection of a nameless Mynheer his friend, who, when he was invited to restore them, lamented their disappearance in a fire?

There was beyond a question an epoch, and a prolonged one, when the mill shared with household demands an immense quota of the cast-off literature of these islands. One of our early collectors of Caxtons, Ratcliff, whose books were sold in 1776, acquired his taste (one in a thousand) through his vocation as a chandler or storekeeper in the Borough. We may surmise how his Caxtons came to him, and at what rates!

These episodes appertain to the romantic and speculative aspect of book-collecting; but they really have another side. Here, at a time when the first-fruits of the English press were unregarded, we find a man of Ratcliff's status acquiring thirty Caxtons. He lived just to see a rise in their value, yet a very slight and fluctuating one; for at last he went into the open market and purchased a few lots at West's auction in 1773, and the Caxtons thus obtained re-sold after Ratcliff's death in one or two cases at a lower rate. He had inflated the market; the competitors were not more than two or three. But the time was soon to come when such persons could no longer afford to hold this kind of property—when it became fashionable for dukes and earls and men of large property to make our early typography an object of research; and so it continued down to the present time, till the agricultural depression arrived to create another organic change, and to direct these, as well as other costly luxuries, into new channels. Not the chandler, or the Government official, or the private gentleman of modest means, but the great manufacturer or the merchant-prince entered on the scene, and wrested from the landowner his long-cherished possessions. The West and Ratcliff sales (1773-76) were the two golden opportunities, however, of which the advisers of George III. wisely availed themselves to purchase volumes at what we have been taught to consider nominal prices; and there they are in the British Museum to-day, a recollection of one of the better traits in the character of that prince. When we say that the market for Caxtons in 1776 was beginning to expand, we mean that the day for getting such things for a few pence or a shilling or two had gone by. Here, for example, are some of the quotations from the Ratcliff auction:—

£s.d.
Chronicles of Englande, fine copy, 1480550
Doctrinal of Sapyence, 1489880
The Boke called Cathon, 1483550
Tullius de Senectute, in Englyshe, 14811400
The Game and Playe of Chesse1600
The Boke of Jason5100
Legenda Aurea; or, the Golden Legend, 14839150

These figures make even some of those in the West auction, 1773, appear by comparison rather extravagant. For his Majesty's agent at the latter gave as much as £14 for the romance of Paris and Vienne, from the Caxton press, 1485. True, it seems to be unique, and might to-day require its purchaser, if it were for sale, to have £500 in his pocket or at his bank to secure it. Yet strange events still continue to happen from time to time. Not Caxtons nor Shakespeares, but excellent books which command prices in the open market, are yet occasionally given away.