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 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

little volume on "The Library" was written ten years ago, when the author's knowledge of books, never exhaustive, was younger and scantier than it is to-day. There have been many changes of taste among collectors, as is natural. Many great libraries, as the Hamilton Library and the Beckford collection, have been dispersed. They contained, among other rarities of which little is said in the following pages, examples of old romances, usually in black letter, and old works of travel, and Americana. On the whole, these things are beyond the purse of the kind of buyer in whose ear the "Library" is intended to gossip. The serious and opulent collector can study the catalogues of Mr. Hutts, Mr. Locker Lampson, Mr. Henry Hucks Gibbs, and others, in which he will find plenty of information. To lighter minds one may recommend "La