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THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY

"Charge £5." I am no expert on these matters, but I wonder if many a collector would not pay a hundred times as much for it nowadays? On another shelf I saw a beautiful edition of Eusebius's Chronicles, printed at Venice in 1483, the paper as fresh and the rubrication as bright as when it was new. Opening it at random, I found the following note, which seemed quaintly topical:


Anno salutis 811, Anno mundi 6010, Locustes gregatim ex Affrica volantes Italiam infestant.

(Year of grace 811, Year of the earth 6010. The locusts flying in swarms from Africa, infest Italy.)


In this book some former owner has written, with the honorable candor of the true booklover:


De isto pretioso volumino animadvertere libet, quod non est "edition premiere" sicut opus Deburii falso ostendit.

W. H. Black, 4 Feb., 1831.

(Concerning this precious volume it is permitted to remark that it is not the first edition, as the work of Deburius falsely maintains.)


Ignoble Deburius, shame upon him !

Mr. Hedley also showed me the famous Atlas Major of John Blaeu, the Dutch publisher, issued (in Spanish) in Amsterdam in 1662, eleven huge tomes in white vellum, stamped in gold. These marvelous large-scale maps, magnificently colored by hand, with every town marked by a tiny dot of gleaming gold, set the lover of fine work in a tingle of amazement. Lucky indeed the bibliophile who finds his way to that sacred corner. One would