Books like Bewick's Birds and Quadrupeds, and indeed all works of the modern side in request, are best liked in the original boards with labels inviolate.
P. 191. Cloister Life of Charles V.—The Keir illustrated copy was long at Leighton's in Brewer Street, while the late Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell was known as Mr. Stirling.
P. 198. Henry VIII., Prayers, 1544.—This exists in later impressions in English, and of the date 1544 in Latin.
P. 200. Special Copies.—To the list given may be added the extraordinary volume of tracts formerly in the possession of Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey, a MS. note in which throws an entirely new light on the earlier life of Spenser, as first pointed out by me after my purchase of the book at an auction, where its importance was overlooked.
P. 205. Shakespear's Copy of Florio's Montaigne, 1603.—In my Monograph on Shakespear, 1903, I have adduced new evidence in support of the authenticity of this and other signatures of the poet.
P. 206. Books with MSS. Notes.—There is yet another category of remains among the older literature of all countries, and it is that, in which an acknowledged judge or master of a subject, though himself perhaps a person of no peculiar celebrity, has rendered a copy of some book the medium for preserving for future use matter overlooked by the author or editor or correcting serious errors, and the lapse of time exercises its influence in the appreciation of such adversaria. A living scholar may be capable of going far beyond his predecessors in enriching margins and flyleaves; but there is the caveat that he is our contemporary. The privilege of the grave appertains to the man who laid down his pen ever so long ago. We may know much more than Langbaine or Oldys about the drama, and than Johnson or Malone about Shakespear; yet, depend upon it, their notes are more wanted than ours.
P. 208. Autographs in Books.—In his copy of Slatyer's Palæalbion, 1621, the poet Earl of Westmorland wrote on a flyleaf: "Solus Deus Protector Meus. W. Ex dono Danielis Beswitch servi mei fidelis, 1654."
Among his books Robespierre possessed a MS. Account of the Glorious Achievements of Louis XIV. with illustrative drawings, and did it the honour of attaching his autograph—an operation seldom so harmless.
P. 218. Books on Vellum.—The Horæ of the Virgin in the ancient impressions on vellum are commoner than those on paper, though, as the late Mr. Huth quietly observed to me, the vellum copies may be more desirable.
The material, on which the Gwynn and Methuen copy of Helyas, 1512, was printed, was unusually coarse, and this criticism applies to other early English books taken off on that substance. They are a powerful contrast to the Italian productions of the same class.