years after his father retired, but eventually opened a shop on his own account at 196, Piccadilly, next to St. James's Church, and possessed at one time and another many exceedingly rare books. The name is still continued under the title of Pickering and Chatto, of 66, Haymarket, who continue to use the Aldine device employed both by William Pickering and his son. There is no Pickering in the present firm. [Illustration: _James Toovey's Shop, Piccadilly._] [Illustration: _Bernard Quaritch, the Napoleon of Booksellers._] Of all second-hand booksellers, living or dead, Bernard Quaritch is generally conceded to be the king. Mr. Quaritch was born in 1819 at Worbis, Prussia, and after serving an apprenticeship to a bookseller came over to England in 1842, and obtained employment at H. G. Bohn's, with whom he remained (exclusive of two years in Paris) until 1847. He left Bohn's in April of that year, with the observation: 'Mr. Bohn, you are the first bookseller in England, but I mean to be the first bookseller in Europe.' Quaritch started with only his savings as capital, and his first catalogue was nothing more than a broadside, with the titles of about 400 books, the average price of which ranged from 1s. 6d. to 2s. His first big move was made in 1858, when the Bishop of Cashel's library was sold, when he purchased a copy of the Mazarin Bible for L595. In the same year appeared his first large catalogue of books, which comprised nearly 5,000 articles; two years later his catalogue had increased from 182 to 408 pages, and included close on 7,000 articles; in 1868 his complete catalogue consisted of 1,080 pages, and 15,000 articles; in 1880 it had extended to 2,395 pages, describing 28,000 books; but seven years later his General Catalogue consisted of 4,500 pages, containing 40,000 articles. As a purchaser, Mr. Quaritch puts the whilom considered gigantic purchases of Thomas Thorpe entirely into the shade. In July, 1873, he purchased the non-scientific part of the Royal Society's Norfolk Library; a few weeks later at the Perkins sale he bought books and manuscripts to the extent of L11,000; at the sale of Sir W. Tite's books in 1874 the Quaritch purchases amounted to L9,500; at the two Didot sales in 1878 and 1879 his purchases exceeded L11,000 in value; at the Beckford sale in 1882 a little more than half of the total (L86,000) was secured by Mr. Quaritch; at the Sunderland sale, 1881-83, Mr. Quaritch's bill came to over L33,000; at all the other great sales of the past twenty years the largest buyer has invariably been 'B. Q.' In an announcement 'To Book Lovers in all Parts of the World,' the Napoleon of bibliophiles makes the following statement: 'I am desirous of becoming recognised as their London agent by all men outside of England who want books. The need of such an agent is frequently felt abroad by the heads of literary institutions, librarians, and book-lovers generally. They shrink from giving trouble