materials in compiling a general history of printing cannot be denied, but the destruction of many rare books was the result, and more than counter-balanced any benefit bibliographers will ever receive from them.  When here and there throughout those volumes you meet with titles of books now either unknown entirely, or of the greatest rarity; when you find the Colophon from the end, or the “insigne typographi” from the first leaf of a rare “fifteener,” pasted down with dozens of others, varying in value, you cannot bless the memory of the antiquarian shoemaker, John Bagford.  His portrait, a half-length, painted by Howard, was engraved by Vertue, and re-engraved for the Bibliographical Decameron.

A bad example often finds imitators, and every season there crop up for public sale one or two such collections, formed by bibliomaniacs, who, although calling themselves bibliophiles, ought really to be ranked among the worst enemies of books.

The following is copied from a trade catalogue, dated April, 1880, and affords a fair idea of the extent to which these heartless destroyers will go:—­

“MISSAL ILLUMINATIONS.

FIFTY DIFFERENT CAPITAL LETTERS on VELLUM; all in rich Gold and Colours.  Many 3 inches square:  the floral decorations are of great beauty, ranging from the XIIth to XVth century.  Mounted on stout card-board.  IN NICE PRESERVATION, L6 6_s_.

 These beautiful letters have been cut from precious
     MSS., and as specimens of early art are extremely
     valuable, many of them being worth 15_s_. each.”

Mr. Proeme is a man well known to the London dealers in old books.  He is wealthy, and cares not what he spends to carry out his bibliographical craze, which is the collection of title pages.  These he ruthlessly extracts, frequently leaving the decapitated carcase of the books, for which he cares not, behind him.  Unlike the destroyer Bagford, he has no useful object in view, but simply follows a senseless kind of classification.  For instance:  One set of volumes contains nothing but copper-plate engraved titles, and woe betide the grand old Dutch folios of the seventeenth century if they cross his path.  Another is a volume of coarse or quaint titles, which certainly answer the end of showing how idiotic and conceited some authors have been.  Here you find Dr. Sib’s “Bowels opened in Divers Sermons,” 1650, cheek by jowl with the discourse attributed falsely to Huntington, the Calvinist, “Die and be damned,” with many others too coarse to be quoted.  The odd titles adopted for his poems by Taylor, the water-poet, enliven several pages, and make one’s mouth water for the books themselves.  A third volume includes only such titles as have the printer’s device.  If you shut your eyes to the injury done by such collectors, you may, to a certain extent, enjoy the collection, for there is great beauty in some titles; but such a pursuit is neither useful nor meritorious.  By and by the end comes, and then dispersion follows collection, and the volumes, which probably Cost L200 each in their formation, will be knocked down to a dealer for L10, finally gravitating into the South Kensington Library, or some public museum, as a bibliographical curiosity.  The following has just been sold (July, 1880) by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, in the Dunn-Gardinier collection, lot 1592:—­