Volumes containing separate tracts should always be examined, as it sometimes happens that rare pieces are found bound up with a mass of worthless matter. I once heard of original editions of two of Moliere's plays being found in this way; and as these stand pretty much in the same position, so far as rarity and consequent value is concerned, to the early Shakespearean quartos, the importance of the "find" to the lucky discoverer can hardly be exaggerated. This is only another example of the rule which can never be too often repeated, since it can never be sufficiently understood. If the author is "big enough," and the edition is early enough, buy. The probability is you may not realise the full importance of what you have got until you have had time to consult some book of reference; it may indeed turn out that a wretched and dirty reprint has done duty for the original, or it may so be that the book is worthless on its merits. This is one of the risks of book collecting, and, it may be added, one of its charms. Hundreds of thousands of dead and forgotten books must be annually disposed of, for nominal sums, in London alone, and there is no telling how often these and others may have been turned over and flung aside by passers-by before they eventually find a market. Among all this profusion of rubbish, a certain percentage of valuable pieces must necessarily exist, and these, from the very circumstances under which they are offered for sale, will be unknown, and more or less unbound and uncut. Every year some of these princes in disguise are rescued from the wind and rain, and henceforth considered a fair exchange for gold instead of copper; but alas! we cannot both eat our cake and have it too. "Finds," as they are called, are not so numerous as they once were, nor hucksters so ignorant as in the merry days of Dibdin and Burton, to say nothing of such foreign Nimrods as Colbert, Grolier, and the great Pixerecourt.