Wheatley Henry Benjamin
Prices of Books
FOLIOS
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, gave seven shillings in 1621 for Bacon’s work on Henry VII., and in 1624 £3, 6s. 8d. for four volumes of “Purchas’s Pilgrims.” The published price of the first edition of Shakespeare’s Plays is said to have been £1.
John Ogilby, who was one of the first projectors of grand illustrated books in large folio, found himself burthened with a heavy stock of expensive books which did not sell, so he hit upon the expedient of getting rid of them by means of a lottery, licensed by the Duke of York and the Assistants of the Corporation of the Royal Fishery. These books were an illustrated Bible, printed by John Field at Cambridge in 1660, two volumes folio; the “Works of Virgil,” translated by Ogilby, 1654; Homer’s “Iliads,” translated by Ogilby, 1660; Homer’s “Odysseys,” 1665. Pope frequently spoke in later life of the great pleasure Ogilby’s “Homer” gave him when a boy at school. “Æsop’s Fables paraphrased by Ogilby,” 1665; and Ogilby’s “Entertainment of Charles II. in his Passage through the City of London to his Coronation,” 1662—a splendid book, which is said to have proved of great service in succeeding coronations.
It is worthy of note that Samuel Pepys was a subscriber to the lottery, and obtained the “Æsop” and the “Coronation,” which cost him £4 (Feb. 19, 1665-66).
Ogilby issued a Proposal for a second lottery, which was reprinted in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1814, part 1, pp. 646-48).32 This is valuable as containing the prices at which the books are valued, viz.—
In 1689 St. John’s College, Cambridge, gave £10, 15s. for David Loggan’s Cantabrigia illustrata, 1688, but this probably included a present to the author; for in 1690 Eton College paid £4 for Cantabrigia illustrata and Oxonia illustrata, 1675, two volumes together, so that we may suppose the published price of each to be £2.
The Rev. John Flavel’s Works, in two volumes folio, was published in 1700 for forty shillings, which shows that the price of an illustrated volume in folio was still about £1.
Colin Campbell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, a handsome work containing a large number of fine architectural plates, was published at a very reasonable price. The first and second volumes, published in 1715 and 1717 respectively, were sold for four guineas on imperial paper, and three guineas on royal paper.
The price of Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, two volumes folio, was in 1755 four guineas in sheets, and £4, 15s. in boards.
Folios are so completely out of fashion now, except for gorgeously illustrated books, or for facsimiles of books and documents, that it is scarcely worth while to carry the inquiry to a later period.
QUARTOS
The small quarto volumes of the seventeenth century were by no means high priced, and we learn that three shillings bought Milton’s “Paradise Lost” when first published. The price of the early editions of the separate plays of the Elizabethan dramatists, which now are so much sought after, was sixpence. This we learn from the address prefixed to the early issue of “Troilus and Cressida,” 1609, published before that play was acted—
“Amongst all these is none more witty than this; and had I time, I would comment upon it, though I know it needs not—for so much as will make you think your testern well bestowed,—but for so much worth as even poor I know to be stuffed in it.”
The poets had a profitable time when their poems, handsomely printed in quarto volumes, were priced so high as two guineas. Sir Walter Scott made great sums by these editions which sold in large numbers, but no other poet was so fortunate as he was. Moore did well with his poems, and in his Diary (Dec. 23, 1818) he records an amusing instance of the practical appreciation of an admirer. He writes—
“The young Bristol lady who enclosed me £3 after reading ‘Lalla Rookh’ had very laudable ideas on the subject; and if every reader of ‘Lalla Rookh’ had done the same, I need never have written again.”
Wordsworth’s “Excursion” was published in 1814, in a two guinea quarto volume, but it took six years to exhaust an edition of five hundred copies. Such are the inequalities in the rate of the remuneration of authors.
Rees’s “Cyclopædia,” which was published between 1802 and 1820 (in forty-five volumes and six volumes of plates), cost in all £85. The “Encyclopædia Britannica,” which has superseded it, is published at the small price of twenty-eight shillings per volume.
In the early part of this century, when it was the fashion to print standard works in quarto, they were very high priced, thus the first edition of “Pepys’s Diary” was published in two volumes for six guineas. Now the quarto is almost as much out of date as the folio, and is confined to illustrated books.
OCTAVOS
The ordinary octavo volume was published at the beginning of the eighteenth century for five or six shillings. Thus Boyer’s translation of “The ingenious and entertaining Memoirs of Count Gramont, who lived in the court of King Charles II., and was afterwards Ambassador from the King of France to King James II.,” 1714, was published at five shillings, and George Psalmanazar’s “Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa” at six shillings. Since then the price for an octavo has gradually increased to seven shillings and sixpence, then to ten shillings and sixpence. In the latter half of the present century there has been a considerable advance to twelve shillings, to sixteen and eighteen shillings, and now fully illustrated books are often priced as high as one guinea a volume. Plays, trials, and pamphlets generally have averaged about one shilling apiece.
DUODECIMOS
Walton’s “Complete Angler,” first published in 1653, was issued at one shilling and sixpence, as appears from the following contemporary advertisement, quoted by Hone in his “Every-Day Book”: “There is published a Booke of Eighteen-pence price, called ‘The Compleat Angler; or, The Contemplative Man’s Recreation,’ being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing. Not unworthy the perusall. Sold by Richard Marriot at S. Dunstan’s Churchyard, Fleet Street.”
In 1663 Pepys bought the first part of Butler’s “Hudibras” for two shillings and sixpence, and sold it again for one shilling and sixpence. The Master of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, gave at the same time one shilling for the first part and the same sum for the second part, but later on he gave half-a-crown for the latter.
“The Works of the celebrated Mons. de Molière, translated from the last edition printed at Paris, containing his life, all his comedies, interludes, &c., with a large account of his life and remarkable death, who, as he was acting the part of Death in one of his own plays, was taken ill and died a few hours after....” This was printed in six volumes 12mo, “on a fine paper and Elzevir letter,” and published by B. Lintott for fifteen shillings (or two shillings and sixpence a volume) in May 1714.
Tom D’Urfey sold his “Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to purge Melancholy,” at two shillings and sixpence a volume.
Duodecimos have now gone out of fashion, at least in name, as small books are mostly known as post octavos, foolscap octavos, &c. The price of these small handy volumes remains much the same, as the half-crown of the last century is the equivalent of our five or six shillings.
The greatest change in price has been made in poetry and novels, and six shillings has become a favourite price for both. The two guineas for the poem, and the guinea and a half for the three-volume novel, are become things of the past.
Although in the last century many books were published and sold which could not be sold at the present time, it is probable that some of these books paid the publisher but badly, and it was therefore found to be a wise precaution to publish certain books by subscription, and this plan was therefore frequently adopted.
Dr. Brian Walton’s Polyglot Bible (six vols. folio, 1657, £10) is often said to be the first book printed by subscription in England; but Minsheu’s Dictionary, in eleven languages, 1617, was certainly sold by the author to subscribers. The number of these subscribers was 174, among whom are six—viz., Sir John Laurence, Dr. Aileworth, Mr. Paul Peart, Mr. Brigges, Sir Henry Spelman, and Mr. Booth—who largely assisted the author with money to complete his great undertaking.
“The Monthly Catalogue” of new books commenced by Bernard Lintott in May 1714 frequently contained lists of the books printed by subscription. In the number for January 1714-15 the terms of subscription to the worst edition of Chaucer’s works ever published are announced—
“Whereas John Urry, Student of Christ-Church, Oxon, has obtained from her late Majesty, Queen Anne, a Licence for Printing the Works of the celebrated Jeffrey Chaucer, corrected from all the printed editions, and from several rare and ancient MSS. not hitherto consulted: from the collating of which he has restored many single lines and added several Tales never yet printed, by which alterations, amendments, and additions, the work is in a manner become new. Thirty copper plates by the best gravers will be printed before each tale; a more compleat Glossary and Table will be added at the end. A small number will be printed on Royal Paper at 50s. per book, and those on the finest demy at 30s. Half to be paid in hand. Subscriptions are taken in by the Undertaker, Bernard Lintott between the Temple Gates, and by most Booksellers in London and the country. N.B.—A new Black Letter, accented, has been cast on purpose for this work, for the ease of the Reader.”
Dryden made very good terms with Tonson for the publication of his translation of Virgil, but Pope was still more successful with the subscription to his translation of Homer’s “Iliad.” The subscription for six quarto volumes was fixed at six guineas, and 575 persons subscribed for 654 copies. The booksellers eagerly made their offers of publication, and the highest bidder was B. Lintott, who agreed to supply all the subscription copies at his own expense, and to pay £200 for every volume. Pope therefore received altogether £5320 without any deduction.
Lintott engaged not to print any quartos except for Pope, but he printed the quarto pages on small folio, and sold each volume for half-a-guinea. These being cut down by some dishonest traders, were sold as subscription copies.
Lintott was defrauded of his profit by the sale of a duodecimo edition, printed in Holland, which obliged him to print an edition in a similar form. Of Lintott’s first duodecimo edition 2500 copies were quickly sold off. Five thousand further copies were at once printed.
Some of Hearne’s antiquarian works were subscribed at ten shillings and sixpence per volume for small paper, and one guinea for large paper.
It seems to have been the practice for the subscriber to a book to pay down half the purchase-money on sending in his name, and the other half on publication.
Another expedient for the rapid sale of books was their issue in numbers. Smollett’s “History of England” was published in sixpenny numbers, and had an immediate sale of 20,000 copies. This immense success is said to have been due to an artifice practised by the publisher. He sent down a packet of prospectuses carriage free (with half-a-crown enclosed) to every parish clerk in the kingdom, to be distributed by him through the pews of the church. This being generally carried out, a valuable advertisement was obtained, which resulted in an extensive demand for the work.
Books are published at an equal price, according to size, whether they are good or bad, but they find their level in the catalogues of the second-hand booksellers. The bad soon become waste-paper, or are marked down to very low prices, while the good books increase in price till they come in some cases to be marked more than the original published price.
Sometimes when books are printed in limited numbers the public will give more than the published price even before publication; thus the large paper edition of the “Life of the Queen,” by Mr. R. R. Holmes, was subscribed at £8, and the right of receiving a copy when ready is said to have been sold for from £20 to £25.
Publishers occasionally reduce the price of a book after publication, but this is seldom a successful operation. The selling-off of remainders has been the means of distributing books to the public at a low rate, and it will often be found that some of the scarcest and highest priced books in the present day are those which have been sold-off. These were good books, which sold too slowly, but which went off quickly when the price was low. When the stock is exhausted, and more are required, the price naturally goes up.
A most remarkable instance of this increase in price of a sold-off book is that of Edward Fitzgerald’s wonderful version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, the first edition of which was published by Quaritch in 1859. Though the number printed was few, nobody bought, and eight years afterwards the publisher, in disgust, threw the whole remainder into a box outside his door, and marked all these one penny each. It is said that Dante Rossetti found them there, and soon the remainder was exhausted. Now this penny book is worth six guineas.33
CHAPTER V
AUCTION SALES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The exact date of the first introduction into England of the convenient plan of selling books by auction is known to us through the amiable weakness of the auctioneers for writing prefaces to the sale catalogues; and this history, therefore, is singularly unlike that of most other inventions and customs, the origin of which is usually open to doubt, because the originators have not thought it worth while to explain that they were doing some new thing. The auctioneers, on the other hand, tell us which was the first sale, and which were the second, the third, and the fourth. After this the freshness may be said to be exhausted, and we are contented with less exact particulars.
The custom was prevalent in Holland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and the honour of introducing it into England is due to William Cooper, the bookseller of Little Britain, about whom some notice has been given in a former chapter. He was largely interested in alchemy, and three years before he sold his first sale he published a “Catalogue of Chemical Books.”
We must not, however, suppose that this was the introduction of auctions into England, for sale by inch of candle had long been practised here, a plan adopted by the Navy Office for the sale of their old stores.
The earliest use of the word auction, quoted by Dr. Murray in the “New English Dictionary,” is from Warner’s translation of Plautus, 1595: “The auction of Menæchmus, … when will be sold slaves, household goods,” &c.; and the next quotation is from the Appendix to Phillip’s Dictionary, 1678: “Auction, a making a publick sale and selling of goods by an outcry.” We shall see that the word was far from familiar to the general public, as the auctioneers considered it wise to explain the word, thus: “Sale of books by way of auction, or who will give most for them.” The more usual words in old English were outcry, outrope (still familiar in Scotland as roup, cf. German ruf) and port sale.
The first sale by auction was that of the library of Lazarus Seaman, a member of the Assembly of Divines, and chaplain to the Earl of Northumberland. He was also minister of All Hallows, Bread Street, and Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In the latter college a Diary written by him between 1645 and 1657 is preserved. He seems to have been an active man on his own side in politics, and we find that he was a member of the Committee for ejecting Scandalous Ministers for London and the Counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon. It is therefore not surprising to find that at the Restoration he was ejected both from his living and from the Mastership of Peterhouse. He died at his house in Warwick Court, London, in September 1675, and in the following year his library was sold in his house by Cooper, who makes the following interesting remarks in his preface—
“Reader, it hath not been usual here in England to make sale of Books by way of auction, or who will give most for them: But it having been practised in other countreys to the advantage both of buyers and sellers, it was therefore conceived (for the encouragement of Learning) to publish the sale of these Books this manner of way, and it is hoped that this will not be unacceptable to Schollers....”
Mr. Alfred W. Pollard, in a very valuable article on English Book Sales, 1676-80 (Bibliographica, vol. i. p. 373), quotes an interesting letter from David Millington to Joseph Hill, an English Nonconformist minister in Holland, dated June 1697, and now preserved in the British Museum (Stowe MS., 709), in which the writer tenders to the divine his thanks for the “great service done to learning and learned men in your first advising and effectually setting on foot that admirable and universally approved way of selling librarys amongst us;” and distinctly states that it was Hill who “happily introduced the practice into England.” Mr. Pollard goes on to say that “Hill, who from 1673 to 1678, owing to his publication of a pamphlet which gave offence to the Dutch Government, was resident in England, must have advised the executors of Dr. Seaman, a theologian of principles not widely different from his own, to adopt this method of selling his friend’s library to the best advantage.” Seaman was the author of “A Vindication of the Judgement of the Reformed Churches, &c., concerning Ordination, &c.,” 1647, and the chief class of books in his library was what we might expect to find, viz., theological works that he required in his vocation. Some few books (such as the Eliot Bible of 1661-63, nineteen shillings) fetched small prices as compared with their present value, but Mr. Pollard says that “nine-tenths of the books sold for more than they would at the present day.”
The library was a large one, and the lots numbered between five and six thousand, and the amount realised by the sale was a little over £700, which may be roughly estimated at about £3500 of our present money.
The second auction sale (February 1676-67) was also carried out by Cooper, and consisted of the library of Thomas Kidner, Rector of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, who died 31st August 1676. The library, like that of Dr. Seaman, consisted largely of theological works. It is evident from Cooper’s preface to this catalogue that Seaman’s sale had given considerable satisfaction, although the reference to an attempt to stifle this manner of sale shows that there were some opponents of the system. Cooper writes—
“Reader, the first attempt in this kind (by the Sale of Dr. Seaman’s library) having given great content and satisfaction to the gentlemen who were buyers, and no great discouragement to the Sellers, hath encouraged the making this second trial, by the exposing (to auction or sale) the Library of Mr. Tho. Kidner, in hopes of receiving such encouragement from the Learned as may prevent the stifling of this manner of sale, the benefit (if rightly considered) being equally balanced between buyer and seller.”
The third sale (February 1677-78) was of the library of Thomas Greenhill, a Nonconformist minister of some repute, who died in 1671, seven years before his books were sold. This sale is worthy of note, for the auctioneer was Zachariah Bourne, and not Cooper, as in the two former cases. It took place at the Turk’s Head Coffee-House in Bread Street (in ædibus Ferdinandi Stable, Coffipolæ, ad insigne Capitis Turcæ). Bourne states in his preface that—
“The attempts in this kind having given great content and satisfaction to the gentlemen who were the buyers and no discouragement to the sellers, hath encouraged the making this trial by exposing (to auction or sale) the library of Mr. William Greenhill.”
The fourth sale (25th May 1678) was occupied with the library of Thomas Manton (1620-77), one of the ministers appointed to wait upon Charles II. at Breda. It took place at the house of the late possessor, in King Street, Covent Garden. More English literature was included in this library than in the former three. The auctioneer was Cooper, and his preface is worth quoting. It will be seen that the plan of allowing an inspection of the books before the sale had now been adopted—
“Reader, we question not but that this manner of sale by way of auction is pretty well known to the Learned, nor can we doubt their encouragement for the advantage which they (as well as we) may in time reap thereby. Wherefore we are resolved (Deo volente) to make a fourth triall with the Library of Dr. Tho. Manton, which is not contemptible either for the Value, Condition, or Number, as will appear upon a sight thereof, which is free for any Gentleman that shall please to take that pains.”
Cooper was not satisfied with the catalogue, which had been made by one considered by him to be incompetent, and of whom he writes thus—
“This Catalogue was taken by Phil Briggs, and not by W. Cooper, but afterwards in parts methodized by him. Wherefore he craves your excuse for the mistakes that have hapned; and desires that the Saddle may be laid upon the right horse.”
The sale of Benjamin Worsley’s library (May 1678) is interesting, as being the first auction in which a fair representation of old English literature occurs, in addition to the ordinary theological works. Chaucer (1602) fetched £1, 3s. 6d.; Ben Jonson’s Works (1640), £1, 13s. 6d.; Shakespeare, second folio, 16s., and third folio, £1, 8s. 6d. The auctioneers were John Dunsmore and Richard Chiswell, and the sale took place over against the Hen and Chickens, in Paternoster Row. The sixth sale consisted of the libraries of John Godolphin and Owen Philips, and took place in November 1678, when a Caxton—“Geffrey Chaucer’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ in English”—fetched five shillings. We thus see that in two years there were only six sales. After this time they became more frequent, and in this same month of November 1678 an attempt was made at rigging a sale; the booksellers were so well satisfied with the prices obtained, that they thought it would be a good stroke of business to lift some of their old stock under the cover of a good name. Moses Pitt adopted this expedient, and issued a catalogue of books described as including “the library of a worthy and learned person deceased, with a considerable number of the choice books of most sciences, some of which have been bought out of the best libraries abroad, particularly out of the late famous and learned Gilbert Voetius’s.”
This fraud was greatly resented by the book-buyers, and it was felt by the other auctioneers that a blow had been dealt to the newly-established system of sale; so when in December of this same year the libraries of Lord Warwick and Gabriel Sangar came to be sold at the Harrow, over against the College of Physicians, in Warwick Lane, Nathaniel Ranew, the auctioneer, thought it expedient to make a statement in the preface to the catalogue, where he informed his patrons that this is “no collection made by any private hand (which hath been imputed to some auctions as a reflection), but the works were really belonging to their proprietors deceased mentioned on the title-page, and by the direction of their respective executors exposed to sale.”
Moses Pitt made up another sale in February 1678-79, chiefly of books printed at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, which took place in Petty Canons Hall, near St. Paul’s Churchyard. In June 1679 William Cooper sold the libraries of Stephen Watkins and Dr. Thomas Shirley (the catalogue of which contained an appendix of Richard Chiswell’s books) at the Golden Lion, over against the Queen’s Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row. John Dunsmore sold in November 1679 the library of Sir Edward Bysshe, Clarenceux King at Arms, at his house, near the sign of the Woolpack, in Ivy Lane. This library was more varied in its character than many of those that were sold before it, and it contained a considerable amount of French, Italian, and Spanish literature, including some early editions of Molière. This catalogue is deserving of particular attention, because the books are described as “curiously bound and richly gilt.” Hitherto no mention had been made of bindings in the various catalogues. This attention to binding was to grow, and Thomas Hearne protested against it some years after. In his memoranda under date 15th February 1725-26 he wrote respecting the sale of John Bridges’ library: “I hear they go very high, being fair books in good condition, and most of them finely bound. This afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls’ College (I suppose Dr. Clarke) that gave a commission of eight shillings for a Homer in two vols., a small 8vo, if not 12mo. But it went for six guineas. People are in love with good binding more than good reading.”34
The British Museum Library contains a valuable collection of early sale catalogues, and one of the volumes, containing the first eleven sales from Seaman to Bysshe, is of considerable interest from having the following note in Richard Heber’s handwriting—
“This volume, which formerly belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, and since to Mr. Gough, is remarkable for containing the eleven first Catalogues of Books ever sold by auction in England. What renders it still more curious, is that the prices of nearly all the articles are added in MS. When it came into my possession it had suffered so much from damp, and the leaves were so tender and rotten, that every time the volume was opened, it was liable to injury. This has been remedied by giving the whole a strong coat of size. At Willett’s sale, Booth, the bookseller of Duke Street, Portland Place, bought a volume of old catalogues for £2, 3s. (see Merly Catalogue, 531), and charged the same in his own shop catalogue for 1815, £21 (6823). It contained merely the eight which stand first in the present collection, of which Greenhill’s and Godolphin’s were not priced at all; and Voet’s and Sangar’s only partially. However, it enabled me to fill up a few omissions in the prices of my copy of Sangar’s.—N.B. The prices of Willett’s and the present copy did not always tally exactly.”
Heber paid six shillings for this volume at Gough’s sale in 1810, and Charles Lewis’s labours in sizing and binding in 1824 cost £2, 15s. At Heber’s sale the volume sold for £3.
In April 1680 was sold “the Library of the Right Hon. George, late Earl of Bristol, a great part of which were the curiosities collected by the learned Sir Kenelm Digby, together with the Library of another Learned person.” It is impossible from the catalogue to tell which lots belonged to Sir Kenelm; and there seems to be little doubt that few of the books which he left in Paris when he came to London, and which were confiscated by the French Government on his death in 1665, were included in this catalogue. According to M. Delisle,35 Sir Kenelm’s books eventually reached the French national library. The proceeds of the sale of 3878 lots was only £908, and this does not look as if there were many of Digby’s books, nobly bound by Le Gascon, in this sale.
In 1681 Edward Millington’s name came into notice as the seller, in May of that year, of the libraries of Lawson, Fawkes, Stockden, and Brooks.
Richard Chiswell sold in 1682 the Bibliotheca Smithiana, or library of Richard Smith, Secondary of the Poultry Compter, who is better known to us as the author of the useful “Obituary” published by the Camden Society in 1849. This was probably the finest library brought to the hammer up to this date. Oldys wrote of the possessor, that “for many years together [he] suffered nothing to escape him that was rare and remarkable”; and he added, that his “extraordinary library makes perhaps the richest catalogue of any private library we have to show in print, making above four hundred pages in a very broad-leaved and close-printed quarto.” Richard Chiswell sold the library in May “at the auction house known by the name of the Swan, in Great St. Bartholomew’s Close.”
The auctioneer made the following remarks in his Address to the Reader—
“Though it be needless to recommend what to all intelligent persons sufficiently commends itself, yet perhaps it may not be unacceptable to the ingenious to have some short account concerning this so much celebrated, so often desired, so long expected library, now exposed to sale. The gentleman that collected it was a person infinitely curious and inquisitive after books; and who suffered nothing considerable to escape him that fell within the compass of his learning, for he had not the vanity of desiring to be master of more than he knew how to use. He lived to a very great age, and spent a good part of it almost entirely in the search of books. Being as constantly known every day to walk his rounds through the shops as he sat down to meals, where his great skill and experience enabled him to make choice of what was not obvious to every vulgar eye. He lived in times which ministered peculiar opportunities of meeting with books that are not every day brought into publick light; and few eminent libraries were bought where he had not the liberty to pick and choose. And while others were forming arms, and new-modelling kingdoms, his great ambition was to become master of a good book. Hence arose, as that vast number of his books, so the choiceness and rarity of the greatest part of them; and that of all kinds, and in all sorts of learning.... Nor was the owner of them a meer idle possessor of so great a treasure; for as he generally collated his books upon the buying them (upon which account the buyer may rest pretty secure of their being perfect) so he did not barely turn over the leaves, but observed the defects of impression, and the ill acts used by many; compared the differences of editions; concerning which and the like cases, he has entered memorable and very useful remarks upon very many of the books under his own hand: observations wherein, certainly never man was more diligent and industrious. Thus much was thought fit to be communicated to public notice, by a gentleman who was intimately acquainted both with Mr. Smith and his books.”
Dibdin condemns the compiler of the catalogue severely, and adds—
