AN ACCOUNT OF RARE, CURIOUS, AND USEFUL BOOKS, PUBLISHED
IN OR RELATING TO GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, FROM THE
INVENTION OF PRINTING; WITH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL
NOTICES, COLLATIONS OF THE RARER ARTICLES, AND THE PRICES
AT WHICH THEY HAVE BEEN SOLD IN THE PRESENT CENTURY.

PREFACE.

In proportion to the advancement and general diffusion of literature ought to be the publication of references to, and accounts of, the multifarious works with which the genius of past and of the present times has enlightened and benefited mankind. BIBLIOGRAPHY, or a knowledge of particular books, the peculiarities of editions, their value, and what may be termed an intimate acquaintance with the history and character of a work, has, however, been singularly neglected in this country; and rich as our literature is in most departments, that particular class, on which all others are in a great degree dependent, is confessedly deficient. In France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Holland, numerous volumes have been written on the literary history of those several countries, together with others on universal literature; but in England, excepting a few catalogues of books on particular subjects, no general Bibliographical work deserving the name was ever published until the appearance of the "Bibliotheca Britannica" by Watt, which will be again alluded to. It is not intended to explain the cause of the low state of Bibliographical knowledge in England; but it may, perhaps, be partly ascribed to the folly of acquiring, at enormous prices, works which are no otherwise valuable than for their rarity, consisting, as that rarity sometimes does, in a colophon or the name of a printer, the texture or colour of the paper, the width of the margin, the occurrence or omission of a date, or even in an obvious defect. Mankind are disposed to remember the abuse rather than the utility of pursuits in which few are deeply interested; and in the ridicule which the enthusiastic zeal of bibliomaniacs has cast on Bibliography, they lose sight of the fact, that all accurate knowledge is in a greater or less degree absolutely dependent thereon.

The accumulated wisdom of ages is deposited in Books; can there then be more useful information than that by which these repositories of knowledge are rendered available to the world by proper classification, separating the valuable from the worthless, and presenting the student with a convenient and trustworthy guide to