It has been remarked that only an auctioneer admires all schools of literature. I think it is certain that the way to get most enjoyment from books is to specialise a little. Mr. Pepys, it will be remembered, collected Black Letter Ballads, Penny Merriments, Penny Witticisms, Penny Compliments, and Penny Godlinesses, and what Pepys paid a penny for are now worth much gold. Lord Crawford is, I believe, one of the most enthusiastic among present day collectors, and I am told that he spends many hours in arranging and cataloguing his extensive and curious collection. As far as I can gather from the printed catalogues which have been issued of Lord Crawford's library, he is rivalling Pepys in his collection of ballads. Other subjects which he has taken up are proclamations and Papal bulls. I cannot omit saying that if Lord Crawford's example were followed by a few more rich men, they would find therein very amusing hobbies. The catalogues of the Ballads and the Proclamations in the Library at Haigh Hall have been compiled by Lord Crawford's own hand, and there are no better catalogues of a private collection in existence. The late Lord Braybrooke collected County histories, and got together a most valuable and interesting collection. But, judging from his own account of his collection,[26] it was too general to be very interesting. There is hardly a more useful or profitable book hobby than the collecting of Topographical books, but each one should confine himself to one County, or at most two, and even with discrimination in buying, a single County collection soon becomes extensive. What should be aimed at in such a collection is the putting together whatever will illustrate the archÆology, general history, folk lore, dialect, and natural history, of a district or County, and wherever there is a Church and a Manor, there is a history. Each parish history is the unit of the history of the nation, and any one investigating the parochial history of a single parish will find much national history written in between the lines. With regard to topographical and genealogical books, I may say that the prices of these are rapidly rising, and will continue to rise, owing largely to the increasing competition in America for these books.

Sir Walter Gilbey has, it is well known, a fine collection of sporting books. There is no sport but what has its literature, and if there is one subject more than another, upon which the English mind is unchanging, it is sport, and this being so, sporting books will always offer a fine field for collectors. As the coaching age recedes farther back, so it will be found that an increasing number of men will want to read about what they no longer can hear viva voce. All out-door subjects are good hobbies. Flower culture and the laying out of grounds, birds and natural history generally are good subjects, but it must be understood that no one can find another a subject, one can only suggest, and that is all I propose to do here. Books offer a very endless variety of hobbies. So I have merely named one or two highways, and there is an endless maze of bypaths which offer delightful hunting grounds. Dr. Johnson, it may be remembered, expressed a very sound commonsense view of this matter to Boswell:

'When I mentioned that I had seen in the King's Library fifty-three editions of my favourite Thomas À Kempis .... in eight languages .... Johnson said he thought it unnecessary to collect many editions of a book which were all the same except as to paper and print. He would have the original, and all the translations, and all editions having variations in the text. He approved of the famous collection of the editions of Horace by Douglas, and, he added, "Every man should try to collect one book in that manner....."'