P. 274. Huth Catalogue.—My copy is full of corrections, the text abounding with errors, some of a very serious character. The late Mr. F. S. Ellis was the responsible editor, and omitted at his discretion much interesting matter.
P. 275. Bibliographical Works of Reference.—One of the best is Dickson and Edmond's Annals of Scotish Printing, 1890. The Rylands Catalogue proved a fiasco.
P. 298. Of course the notification in the press of a signally high price at an auction for a really important lot overwhelms the vendors with inquiries and offers—offers of similar treasures, which are extremely the reverse.
P. 307. Mr. Robert Hoe acquired the bulk or whole of Mr. Pope's books after his death, including the Caxton Arthur, 1485, and this gentleman continues to buy some of the most important items which occur for sale in London.
After all said, much as we at home here in Britain need to be better instructed in the art of Book-Collecting, our American cousins are still farther from having completed their education in this way—a few have not commenced it, I fancy. It is not generally realised in England that the American collector of loftier range is a type entirely distinct from the normal book-collector, whose limit is quickly reached. Those who buy books in the United States are by no means all Hoes and Morgans.
P. 311. Early Catalogues of old Plays.—I should have added the so often quoted one annexed to the Old Law, 1656.
P. 314. Inch of Candle.—This practice survived down to modern times both in France and England in the disposal or transfer of real property.
P. 315. Lazarus Seaman.—This gentleman was a member of the Assembly of Divines, and at one time chaplain to the Duke of Northumberland. He held the living of All Hallows, Bread Street, and became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. But he lost his clerical preferment at the Restoration, and chiefly resided in his later days in Warwick Lane, London, where he died in 1675.
P. 317. Book Auctions.—It is at present, I believe, at the discretion of the auctioneer to postpone a sale, when the company is too small to promise a satisfactory result, yet I have known one carried out when not more than two influential bidders were present. In a catalogue of 1681, however, there is a proviso that at least twenty gentlemen must attend.
P. 323. It is a powerful exemplification of the contrast between old times and ours, that Mr. Pierpont Morgan is credited with having acquired forty Caxtons at one swoop.