Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/40

 30 The Library. the device certainly came to be used as a trade-mark, and was dishonestly imitated along with the text of the book. But this belongs to the middle or later stages of its history, not to the earlier. On p. 2, Mr. Roberts confronts us with the remark that in the case of incunabula, without the name of the printer or place of imprint, " the mark of the printer has almost invariably been the chief aid" in enabling bibliographers to " place " these books ; where, for " almost invariably," the strongest adverb that can be used is " occasionally." A little later on he writes : "A very natural question now suggests itself 'Who invented these marks?' Laire, 'Index Librorum ' (Soec. xv.) ii. 146, in speaking of a Greek psalter, says : Habet signaturas, registtum ac cusiodts, sed non numerantur folia. Lilterce principales ligno incises sunt, sicut et in prin- cipio cujuslibet psalmi viticulce qua gallicl vignettes appellantur, quaruni usum primus excogitavit Aldus. The volume here described was printed about 1495, and the invention, therefore, has been very generally attributed to Aldus. That this is not so, will be shown in the next chapter." But in the Latin sentence quoted, where is there a word about a printer's mark ? Viticultz clearly refers to head-pieces, which, as far as we know, Aldus was the first to use, imitating them from Greek manu- scripts. If Mr. Roberts had stopped to think, he would surely have seen that no printer would ever have placed his mark at the beginning of each of the hundred and fifty psalms ; just as, a few lines further on, he might have saved himself from charging Antoine Cayllaut with irreverence in a mark for which we have a peculiar affection, merely because he repre- sented in it his patron saint, not surely by way of pun, but as claiming S. Antony's protection for his books ! We have written at length on these statements, not because they are, but because they are not, fair samples of Mr. Roberts' work as a whole. His later pages are not entirely free from errors, but they contain a great deal of curious and interesting information, to which the numerous illus- trations give considerable value, and we should be sorry if these pre- liminary rashnesses prevented a pleasant little book from winning acceptance. For our own credit we have said the worst there was to say against Mr. Roberts' work, and, this said, we are free to recommend it with a clear conscience. Bouquinistes et Bouquineurs. Physiologie des quais de Paris du Pont Royal au Pont Sully. Par Octave Uzanne. Illus- trations d'E. Mas. Paris, 1893. 8y o- PP- xi. 318. Price 10 francs. The Book- Hunter in Paris ; Studies among the Bookstalls and the Quays. By Octave Uzanne. With a Preface by Augus- tine Birrell. London: Elliot Stock, 1893. 8vo. pp. xxv. 232. Price 2 is. The first point which suggests itself to a reviewer of M. Uzanne's amusing book and its English translation, is the interesting difference in their price. If it could be attributed to the presence in the English ver- sion of the seven-page preface, by Mr. Augustine Birrell, the author of Obiter Dicta should indeed be a proud man, for the English reader would be reckoned as willing to pay something over eighteenpence for the pleasure of reading each page of his little essay. We are afraid, however, that the real cause of the discrepancy is other than this, and must be traced to the fact, often alluded to in this magazine, of the much