Let us suppose that a London publisher advertises a new edition of some famous work, tastefully got up and luxuriously bound and illustrated. The issue of course is limited, as the price is high, and discriminating purchasers must be tempted. The old-fashioned amateur is not to be charmed because he persuades himself that there is plenty of time, and what matter if a few years later he has to pay a slightly enhanced price? The book will be worth it, for it will be scarce, and, moreover, have attained a respectable degree of antiquity, and so he passes it by. Not so the new school, which we will assume has answered its solitary question in the affirmative. The edition is snapped up in a moment, and single members will buy as many duplicates as they can afford to invest in--buy to sell again ultimately, and in the meantime to gloat over, like so many jackdaws eying a secreted heap of stolen goods. This is commonly called "cornering" an edition; and when several persons possessing the same opinions and the same tastes join their forces, it will readily be perceived that if a book will not go up of its own accord it may readily be forced up by judicious retention and self-denial. This, of course, is nothing more nor less than Stock-Exchange speculation, and it is satisfactory to find that sometimes the greedy purchaser makes a mistake and is saddled with a small stock of waste-paper. As previously stated in the fifth chapter, a book which has perhaps been cornered as often as any other, and never successfully, is Ottley's _Italian School of Design_, on large paper, with proof impressions. The published price was L25 4s., the present value is about L3 by auction. Here is a dreadful falling off, and the adherents of the new school have never yet been able to understand the reason, or to cease persuading themselves that the day must surely come when the book will go up. If anything, however, it is going down, and in the opinion of many experts it can never again take a respectable position in the market.