Harris' _Enquiry into the Causes of the Miscarriage of the Scots Colony at Darien_ (Glasgow, 1700); Bastwicke's _Elenchus Religionis Papisticae_ (1634); Blount's _King William and Queen Mary, Conquerors_, &c. (1692); the second volume of Wood's _Athenae Oxoniensis_ (1793); De Foe's _Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ (1702); Pocklington's _Sunday no Sabbath and Altare Christianum_ (1640); Sacheverel's _Two Sermons_ (1710); and Coward's _Second Thoughts concerning the Human Soul_ (1702), were all burned by the hangman, and copies destroyed wherever found. Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of a work being destroyed for positively nothing at all is furnished by Cowell's _Law Dictionary_, which was sent to the flames by order of King James the First himself. This dictionary, and indeed every one of the books mentioned as having been subjected to the purification of fire, are now rare historical landmarks, and consequently both extrinsically and intrinsically valuable. Hence the reason of the high prices frequently demanded for them and for other works of this class. The remaining copies of editions which were suppressed by their authors, or which have escaped accidental destruction, are frequently of considerable value. In the former class, Rochester's _Poems_ and Mrs. Seymour's _Account of the Origin of the Pickwick Papers_ are prominent examples; in the latter, the third folio edition of Shakespeare's Plays (1664), almost the entire impression of which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Dugdale's _Origines Juridiciales_ (London, folio, 1666) was also almost entirely destroyed at the same time. Books coming under one or other of these classes are to be met with, and the note-book should always be at hand, so that a memorandum can be jotted down before the reference is lost. This course is adopted by the most experienced bibliographers, as well as by the amateur who wishes to become proficient in a study which is pleasant and profitable when conscientiously undertaken, but difficult and worse than useless to those who will not take the trouble to learn the rudiments of their science.