to a bookseller in matters which require more attention and effort than the mere furnishing of some specific article in his stock, and they must often wish that it were possible to have the services of a man of ability and experience at their constant command. Such services I freely offer to anyone who chooses to employ them; no fee is required to obtain them, and not a fraction will be added to the cost of the supplies. The friendly confidence which is necessarily extended to one's agent at a distance will undoubtedly in time bring an ample return for my labours, but so far as the present is concerned, I ask for nothing but the pleasure of attending to the wants of those who are as yet without an agent in London. Whether the books to be procured through my intervention be rare or common, single items or groups, the gems of literature and art or the popular books of the day, I shall be happy to work in every way for book-lovers of every degree. Commissions of any kind may be entrusted to me; I will venture to guarantee satisfaction in every case, even in the delicate matter of getting books appropriately bound. It may likewise be well to state that my offer of agency extends to the selling of foreign books here, as well as to the supply of English books hence.' There is not much that is architecturally beautiful about Mr. Quaritch's shop at 15, Piccadilly, but its interest to the book-lover needs but little emphasis after what has been said. Like all great men, Bernard Quaritch has his little eccentricities, into which we need not now enter. We apologize to him for publishing the following extract, which is, however, not our own, but comes (of course) from an American source: 'Bernard Quaritch's antiquated hat is a favourite theme with London and other bookmen. A committee of the Grolier Club once made a marvellous collection of newspaper clippings about it, and a member of the Societe des Bibliophiles Contemporains wrote a tragedy which was a parody of AEschylus. In this tragedy Power and Force and the god Hephaistos nail the hat on Mr. Quaritch's head, like the Titan on the summit of overhanging rocks. Divinities of the Strand and Piccadilly, in the guise of Oceanidae, try to console the hat; but less fortunate than Prometheus, the hat knows it is for ever nailed, and not to be rescued by Herakles. However, _tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse_, as Dumas said, for Mr. Quaritch has bought a new hat, and a journal of London announces that the epic hat is enshrined in glass in the bibliopole's drawing-room.'