There is, for example, the etched title-page to the first issue of the first edition of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, where the reward on the direction post appears as “100£” instead of “£100,” which is often wrongly labelled “suppressed.” As a matter of fact it was not suppressed at all. It is nothing more than the _first state_ of a plate which was afterwards altered. However, the bait is so valuable a one with which to entice the bibliomaniac, that there is no prospect of the description being lightly relinquished, and as it is one object of this treatise to protect the unwary, allusion to it is not out of place. The fact that it is the title-page issued after the book had appeared serially with its forty illustrations, disposes of any lingering idea that in acquiring it we are assured of the possession of early impressions of the other plates. But the undiscriminating bibliomaniac requires no logical justification, and the plate will still retain its market value. A like variation is to be found in a well-known etching by George Cruikshank, entitled “The Worship of Wealth.” The head of Mammon is represented by a small money-bag, and the {54} features of the face by the letters GOLD. Of this plate only one state was known until in a happy moment one of our best-known collectors discovered and secured a unique proof with all the letters printed in reverse, thus:— [Illustration] —a triumph which only the true _dilettante_ will appreciate at its proper value. Another variation of the same kind is to be found in the first and second issues of Pine’s beautiful edition of Horace (1733), in which the text is engraved throughout. In the first there is the misprint “Post est” on the medal of Cæsar. In the second “Potest” has been substituted. Copies containing the mistake fetch twice as much in the market as those containing the correction! This is, however, justifiable, as the mistake connotes an early set of impressions. [Illustration: The Strange Gentleman]