Of late years there has been a violent competition for books and even tracts published in or in any way relating to the American Continent provided only that they were published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and sometimes also the eighteenth centuries. Thus Cotton's _Abstract of the Laws of New England_, 1641; _The Description of Jamaica_, 1657; Brereton's _Relation of the Discoverie of the North Part of Virginia_, 1602, and many other obscure little 4to tracts--not books--would be cheap at twenty guineas each, while others are worth even more. American collectors are largely responsible for this. In the same way treatises of any kind which have a Scotch local interest, and are dated about the same period, are always worth two or three guineas at the least, and in many cases far more than those amounts. The earliest book printed in Scotland is _The Knightly Tale of Golagrus and Gawane and other ancient poems_ (Edinburgh, 1508), 4to, which was reprinted in fac-simile under the superintendence of Dr. Laing in 1827. As might be expected, the original is so scarce as to be unprocurable, and even the reprint is of considerable value. Early Scotch-printed books by such workmen as Walter Chepman, Androu Myllar, Andro Hart, Alexander Arbuthnot, Thomas Davidson, Anthony Marlar, James Watson, Andrew Anderson and his widow the would-be monopolist, Robert Freebairn, and several others, some of whom carried on business into the eighteenth century, should never be overlooked or discarded. These are just the kind of books which are occasionally discovered on stalls in obscure streets, and which may be expected to be bought for a few pence. They are scarce, of course, or it would not be worth while to mention them; but they look insignificant, and many, for anything I know, may this very day be making their weary pilgrimage on costermongers' barrows in the New Cut, despised and rejected of men. Specimens of typography from the presses of Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and other early English printers, some of which have already been mentioned, are essentially curiosities, and it is almost useless to hope for even the semblance of a bargain so far as they are concerned. Still, occasional finds are from time to time reported from out-of-the-way villages whose inhabitants have not yet wakened from their mediaeval slumbers, and great is the rejoicing of the explorer, and many the paragraphs with which the discovery is heralded in the newspapers. The collector who is fortunate enough to come across a work of this class--he can hardly expect a repetition of such extraordinary luck--will have crowned his labours, be they great or small, and can henceforth pride himself on his success. If he never handles a book again, he will have earned his laurels.