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.
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