Besterman's bibliography deserves special praise for the fact that it rests on a personal inspection of virtually all the works cited. It needs scarcely to be said that he could have executed this task only at the British Museum or in a few other very great libraries. We can probably infer that Conrad Gesner handled the bibliographies that he cited in 1548, but few later workers have been equally successful in seeing all the books that they name. In this regard Gabriel Peignot made a long step in advance in the _Répertoire_ of 1812. The character of his comments makes it clear that he had a firsthand knowledge of the books that he cites. In 1838 his successor Pie Namur yielded countless times to the temptation to cite books from secondary sources, which moreover he does not name. In 1866 Julius Petzholdt established the standards of bibliographical accuracy that ought to be observed and indicated the books that he had not consulted, but his successors have not in general approached these standards. It is therefore altogether gratifying to praise Besterman's attention to such bibliographical details as collations, the citation of editions, and the identification of pseudonyms. In addition to these merits the correctness of the Index calls for particular mention. The bibliographies named in this essay have not always required an index, but those which do contain one have usually served their readers poorly. Philippe Labbé was the first but by no means the last of our bibliographers to offer his reader an unsatisfactory index. Even Julius Petzholdt left much to be desired in this regard. The index to Henri Stein's _Manuel_ is conspicuous for its faults. In comparison with his predecessors Besterman's success in the making of an index is all the more meritorious. In a second edition published between 1947 and 1949, Besterman revised his bibliography to include books printed as late as 1944 and 1945. Since I have referred to this and not to the first edition in my comments, it is sufficient to quote Besterman's statement of the differences between the two editions. The improvements and changes are important to every user of the book but do not affect its nature in any fundamental way. Large parts of the field have been surveyed anew, the text has been minutely revised throughout, and improvements made. The number of cross-references has been multiplied. Most important, however, are the new entries, which make this edition over 55 per centum bigger than the first. The number of volumes recorded and separately collated is now about 65,000. Nearly all intermediate editions [between the first and last] have now been deleted; they have only been retained, in fact, for bibliographies first published before 1800, and for those of special interest or importance.[202]