Could we believe this gentle message on hearsay? We should probably argue, the age was so narrow, the girl was so young, the expression is too condensed, too mature. The rational doubt would blur one of the loveliest pictures in Time’s gallery of fair women. A martyr without the spur, or the blemish of fanaticism! A Queen of ten days but a Defender of the Faith forever. The crown jewels pale before this illuminated prayer-book of Her Most Christian Majesty. This dear little Protestant called forth the one tender letter extant from the highly practical Diana of Poitiers. “I have just been hearing the account of the poor young Queen Jane, and I could not keep myself from weeping at the sweet, resigned words she spoke to them on the scaffold; surely never was such a sweet and accomplished princess.” Indeed, the best thing in the world of books, as well as in the world of men, “is something out of it,” and it is the appreciation of this “something,” manifest to sympathetic souls, which makes us bibliophiles. If unknown to history a tender touch of hands long dead lurks in an old edition, is it not beyond price? Although there are priceless books like this little prayer-book of Queen Jane, every good bibliophile is a bit of a speculator; to bet on an author is as loyal an excitement as to bet on a racer; and to feel a beloved volume appreciating upon one’s shelves is like watching the development of a promising child. Robert Browning, who was brought up in the fold, his father being a collector, writes: Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss I’ the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact Secreted from man’s life when hearts beat hard, And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries since? Examine it yourselves! I found this book, Gave a _lira_ for it, eightpence English just. _Opening lines of_ “_The Ring and the Book_.” That eightpence has the regular bibliomaniacal ring. Next to giving fifty prices for a book, the genuine collector delights in paying an improperly low one—a _tour de force_ either of wit or of purse. Just think of getting material for the longest poem of the century for eightpence! and material so unique! with the inspiration of the old tome thrown in! But now, when books are so cheap they are almost free, when exact reproductions of wonderful editions might flood the market at any day, when venders of old books have become too expert for book hunters, we are assured that bibliophiles, grasping the tangible in the hope of realizing the intangible, are the absurdities of a rational age.