It is, of course, the case that there has been such a thing as bibliomania since there have been books in the world, no less in the manuscript period than after the age of printing. “The art of printing,” says Morier, “is unknown in Persia, and beautiful writing is, therefore, considered a high accomplishment. It is carefully taught in the schools, and those who excel in it are almost classed with literary men. They are employed to copy books, and some have attained to such eminence in this art, that a few lines written by one of these celebrated penmen are often sold for a considerable sum. I have known seven pounds given for four lines written by Dervish Musjeed, a celebrated penman, who has been dead for some time, and whose beautiful specimens of writing are now scarce.”[199] Robertson quotes in support of his general contention a statement of Naudé to the following effect: “In 1471, when Louis XI. borrowed from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, he not only deposited as a pledge a considerable quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, binding himself, under a great forfeiture, to restore the volumes.”[200] In the eighteenth century, however, when Selden wished to borrow a manuscript from the Bodleian Library, he was required to give a bond for a thousand pounds. It does not, therefore, follow that the reign of George II. was a dark age in English literature.[201] Maitland points out one very important detail, which served to give to some individual manuscript a value that might, when later referred to, appear disproportionate to the expense of the hand labour in its preparation. Under the process of the multiplication of books by printing, each copy of a given edition must of course be a fac-simile of all the other copies, sharing their measure of correctness, and equally sharing their blunders. In the manuscript period, however, every copy of a work was of necessity unique, and the correctness of a particular manuscript was no pledge for the quality even of those which had been copied directly from it. “In fact, the correctness of every single copy could be ascertained only by minute and laborious collation, and by the same minuteness of method which is now requisite from an editor who revises the text of an ancient writer.... If a manuscript had received such a collation at the hands of trustworthy scholars, and if it had been shown to present a text of such completeness and accuracy as might safely be trusted as copy for future transcripts, such a manuscript would undoubtedly be valued at an exceptional price.”[202]