Thus much for the Elzevir press, which, like the Aldine, is not regarded with the same favour by collectors as it formerly was. Nevertheless there are many, particularly in France, who yet make a speciality of these little books with "good dates," and it is, therefore, necessary to know something of them. Of one thing the collector may be quite confident: he has here plenty of material for the study of a lifetime, and, what is greatly to the point, ample opportunity of accumulating a representative series of examples of the press. Good Elzevirs, though rare, are not hopelessly so; while bad ones are as plentiful as blackberries. In this respect, at any rate, the Elzevir collector has a great advantage over many of his fellows, whose hunting-grounds are circumscribed, and who frequently would give anything to obtain even a mutilated copy from the press of their favourite printer. FOOTNOTES: [9] Louis Elzevir II. (1590-1621) produced nine books, one, however, the _Navigatio ac Itinerarium_ of Linschoten, 1599, bearing the name of Gilles Elzevir (probably inserted whilst he was temporarily managing the business of his brother, who in 1599 was called to Leyden to help his father, Louis I.). [10] This was the mark of Erpenius, whose stock was purchased by the Elzevirs. [11] The imprint is merely _Lvgdvni Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana_. CHAPTER IX. THE EARLY ENGLISH PRESSES. In the short time that intervened between the invention of printing by means of movable type and the end of the fifteenth century some 20,000 different works are known to have been issued from the European press. Many copies of these are doubtless hidden away in old lumber rooms, or in the recesses of imperfectly catalogued libraries of obscure and decaying towns. Some have altogether perished, leaving no trace of their ephemeral existence; others are known by name, but have themselves vanished as effectually as if they had never existed. What, for instance, has become of the fifteen books of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ which Caxton, in his preface to the _Golden Legende_, says that he printed? Hitherto no copy has been unearthed, nor any fragment of a copy. Where is the _Lyfe of Robert Erle of Oxenford_ mentioned in the preface to the _Four Sons of Aymon_? What was the great printer doing between the years 1486-8, during which time, so far as can be discovered, he printed nothing? These and many similar questions are important, as raising a very strong probability that the bibliography of Caxton is very far from being complete. The same remarks apply more or less to nearly every other fifteenth century printer. There is a field here which has never been fully explored, and which, in all probability, never will be until some Augustus shall arise, and by a wave of his hand throw open the dwellings, the libraries, and even the outhouses of the world to his troop of eager agents. In the meantime, a single discovery