nursery; not to take it surreptitiously under the pretence of raising the taste of little people. Why should not grown-up people avow their pleasure in children's books if they feel it? [Illustration: THE SPOTTED MIMILUS. ILLUSTRATION FROM "KING LONGBEARD." BY CHARLES ROBINSON (JOHN LANE. 1897)] [Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FROM "THE MAKING OF MATTHIAS" BY LUCY KEMP-WELCH. (JOHN LANE. 1897)] If a collector in search of a new hobby wishes to start on a quest full of disappointment, yet also full of lucky possibilities, illustrated books for children would give him an exciting theme. The rare volume he hunted for in vain at the British Museum and South Kensington, for which he scanned the shelves of every second-hand bookseller within reach, may meet his eye in a twopenny box, just as he has despaired of ever seeing, much less procuring, a copy. At least twice during the preparation of this number I have enjoyed that particular experience, and have no reason to suppose it was very abnormal. To make a fine library of these things may be difficult, but it is not a predestined failure. Caxtons and Wynkyn de Wordes seem less scarce than some of these early nursery books. Yet, as we know, the former have been the quest of collectors for years, and so are probably nearly all sifted out of the great rubbish-heaps of dealers; the latter have not been in great demand, and may be unearthed in odd corners of country shops and all sorts of likely and unlikely places. Therefore, as a hobby, it offers an exciting quest with almost certain success in the end; in short, it offers the ideal conditions for collecting as a pastime, provided you can muster sufficient interest in the subject to become absorbed in its pursuit. So large is it that, even to limit one's quest to books with coloured pictures would yet require a good many years' hunting to secure a decent "bag." Another tempting point is that prices at present are mostly nominal, not because the quarry is plentiful, but because the demand is not recognised by the general bookseller. Of course, books in good condition, with unannotated pages, are rare; and some series--Felix Summerley's, for example--which owe their chief interest to the "get-up" of the volume considered as a whole, would be scarce worth possessing if "rebound" or deprived of their covers. Still, always provided the game attracts him, the hobby-horseman has fair chances, and is inspired by motives hardly less noble than those which distinguish the pursuit of bookplates (_ex libris_), postage-stamps and other objects which have attracted men to devote not only their leisure and their spare cash, but often their whole energy and nearly all their resources. Societies, with all the pomp of officials, and members proudly arranging detached letters of the alphabet after their names, exist for discussing hobbies not more important. Speaking as an interested but not infatuated collector, it seems as if the mere gathering together of rarities of