one, he has carried it into execution in a surprisingly perfect manner:  for you can scarcely, by candle-light, detect the difference between what is printed and what is executed with a pen.  I think it was the whole of the Scholia attached to the Aldine Discorides, in folio, and a great number of leaves in the Grammatical Institutes of Urbanus, of 1497, 4to. with several other smaller volumes, which I saw thus rendered perfect:  How any scribe can be sufficiently paid for such toil, is to me inconceivable:  and how it can answer the purpose of any bookseller so to complete his copies, is also equally unaccountable:  for be it known, that good M. Chardin leaves you to make the discovery of the MS. portion; and when you have made it,—­he innocently subjoins—­“Oui, Monsieur, n’est il pas beau?” In a sort of passage, between his principal shew-room and his bed room, is contained a very large collection of tracts and printed volumes relating to the FAIR SEX:  being, in fact, nothing less than a prodigious heap of publications “FOR and AGAINST” the ladies.  M. Chardin will not separate them—­adding that the “bane and antidote must always go together.”

This singular character is also vehemently attached to antiquarian nick-knackery.  Old china, old drawings, old paintings, old carvings, and old relics—­of whatever kind—­are surveyed by him with a curious eye, and purchased with a well-laden purse.  He never speaks of GOUJIN but in raptures.  We made an exchange the other day.  M. Chardin hath no small variety of walking canes.  He visited me at the Hotel one morning, leaning upon a fine dark bamboo-stick, which was headed by an elaborately carved piece of ivory—­the performance of the said Goujon.  It consisted of a recumbent female, (with a large flapped hat on) of which the head was supported by a shield of coat armour.[144] We struck a bargain in five minutes.  He presented me the stick, on condition of my presenting him with a choice copy of the AEdes Althorpianae.  We parted well satisfied with each other; but I suspect that the purchase of about four-score pounds worth of books, added much to the satisfaction on his part.  Like all his brethren of the same craft, M. Chardin disports himself on Saturdays and Sundays at his little “ferme ornee,” within some four miles of Paris—­ having, as he gaily told me “nothing now to do but to make poesies for the fair sex."[145]

With Chardin I close my bibliopolistic narrative; not meaning thereby to throw other booksellers into the least degree of shade, but simply to transmit to you an account of such as I have seen and have transacted business with.  And now, prepare for some account of PRINTERS ... or rather of three presses only,—­certainly the most distinguished in Paris.  I mean those of the DIDOT and that of M. CRAPELET.  The name of Didot will last as long as learning and taste shall last in any quarter of