in the fourth volume of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature,' pages 514 to 536. Carew Hazlitt's 'Fugitive Tracts' (1875) and 'Studies in Jocular Literature' (1890) are both useful; and Mr. G. F. Black has recently (1909) printed a bibliography of Gipsies. Witchcraft, sometimes classed under this heading, we shall deal with when we consider the Occult.

Fine Arts.

23. Works upon the Fine Arts are, like books on Architecture, chiefly illustrated. Doubtless such books are collected generally by students and craftsmen, but under this heading must be included books on gems, ancient statuary, and ceramics, cameos, rings, and the like. There is a large number of works which treat of these from the sixteenth century onwards, and many are to be had for a few shillings.

CHAPTER IX

A PLEA FOR SPECIALISM (Continued)

'Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea.'

First Editions.

WORDSWORTH.

O most of us it matters but little what becomes of our books when we are dead. We garner them for our own use and benefit absolutely, and when we are gone they may well be distributed among other book-lovers for aught we care. No doubt a considerable zest is added to collecting in the case of those lucky ones who, being established in the land, purpose to 'lay down' a library for their posterity. In such cases almost invariably there must be a thought of future value. It is but natural. Whether he lay down wine or books no man is so foolish as to lay down trash. Such schemes, however, do not always result in that success which their

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owner intended. Like wine, the value of books may 'go off.'

There are two classes of books, however, that he who is wealthy enough to lay down a library may acquire with perfect assurance. They are, in fact, gilt-edged securities. One is the original

editions of famous Elizabethan and early Stuart authors, the other, the more estimable incunabula. Just as the population of the world increases yearly, so every year there are more and more book-collectors, and, consequently, more competition to acquire rarities. chances of further copies more remote. Books are not everlasting, and there will come a time when the only fifteenthcentury volumes in existence will be those treasured in velvet-lined boxes and glass cases.

Every day, too, the coming to light are

There can be little doubt that in fifty years' time a collection of Beaumont and Fletcher's or Massinger's plays in the original quartos will be worth not merely double its present value, but quadruple and more. Then there are the famous prose authors of the early Stuart period, such as Bacon, Barclay, Robert Burton, Daniel, Donne, Drayton, Shelton, and even the prolific Gervase Markham, to mention only a few. All these are good investments, as regards their first editions, for your children's children.

As regards the first editions of more modern authors we are on much more delicate ground.

First editions of really great men, such as Milton, Pope, or Dryden, probably will always command a high price not only on account of their scarcity but because they are sought for by all students who make a study of those authors. But when we come to those more modern writers concerning whose merits tastes differ, then the collector's activity becomes a gamble. The first editions of Anthony Trollope or Rudyard Kipling may be worth their weight in gold some day, but it is also quite possible that succeeding generations will find in them more of the sentiments of the day than of those innate characteristics of the human mind which make a book really great, and will pass them by. We have dealt with this matter, however, in our chapter on the Books of the Collector, and with regard to bibliographies of the writings of the chief nineteenth-century authors, you will find mention of these in the appendices to the later volumes of the 'Cambridge History of English Literature.'

25. Folk-Lore, Fables, Fairy-Tales, Accounts of Mysteries and Miracle-Plays, Mummers, MinFolk-Lore, strels and Troubadours, Pageants, Mysteries. Masques and Moralities: an interesting medley. Books of fables, whether by Æsop, Bidpai, La Fontaine, Gay, or Kriloff, would form an interesting collection by themselves, and it would be amusing to trace the pedigree of some of the tales. Our national jokes are said to be

very ancient in origin; possibly some day the Curate's Egg will be traced to a budding priest of Amen-Ra, lunching with the Hierophant. Then there are books of proverbs-more than one would think-and the folk-lore of all countries that provides fairy-tales more entertaining than ever came out of the head of Perrault or Andersen. Altogether a heading which contains some fascinating literature.

It is doubtful whether such books as the 'Arabian Nights,' Le Grand's collections of ancient Norman tales, and Balzac's 'Contes Drôlatiques' should be included here; perhaps de natura they should be classed rather with 'Facetiae and Curiosa.' The literature upon this subject is a large one, and there is an excellent list of writings upon Minstrels, Mysteries, Miracle Plays, and Moralities in the fifth volume of the Cambridge History of English Literature,' pages 385 to 394; as well as in Mr. Courtney's invaluable work.

26. Freemasonry is another of those subjects (like Architecture, Law, and Early Science) which usually engage the attentions of those Freemasonry, whose businesses lead, or have at one

etc.

time led, them to those things. Some of the booksellers specialise in such works, and the older books on Freemasonry cannot be said to be of frequent occurrence in the ordinary booksellers' catalogues. The finest extant library of Masonic