A curious anecdote, connected with the bookselling business of the period, has been handed down to us; and it is sufficiently interesting to be handed on to the readers of this work, who are at liberty either to take it up, or to set it down at its real value. It is said that Tarquin was waited upon by a female, who brought with her nine books, and, expressing herself willing to do business, asked three hundred pieces of gold for the entire set of volumes. The King pooh-poohed the proposition, on the ground of the exorbitant price, and desired her to be off with the books, when she solemnly advised him not to off with the bargain. Finding him obstinate, the woman, who was, it seems, a sibyl, and eked out her bookseller's profits by the business of a prophetess, threw into the flames three of the volumes, which, assuming, for a few minutes, the aspect of illuminated copies, soon left no traces--not even a spark--of any genius by which they might have been inspired. The sibyl, soon after, paid a second visit to Tarquin, bringing with her the six remaining volumes; and having asked in vain the same sum for the imperfect copy as she had done for the whole work, she went through a sort of second edition of Burns, by throwing three more of her books into the fire. To the surprise of Tarquin, she appeared a third time with her stock of books, now reduced to three; and upon the King's observing to her "What do you want for these?" she replied that three hundred pieces of gold was her price; that she made no abatement; that if the books were not instantly bought, they would speedily be converted into light literature, and being condensed into one thick volume of smoke, would, of course, take their final leaves of the royal residence. The King, astonished at the woman's pertinacity, resolved at last to send for a valuer, to look at the books, who declared them to be well worth the money. They contained a variety of remedies for diseases, directions for preparing sacrifices, and other interesting matter, with a collection of the oracles of Cumæ, by way of appendix, so that the volumes formed a sort of encyclopædia, embracing the advantages of a Cookery Book, a Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and a Complete Fortune-teller. Tarquin[10] became the purchaser of these three very odd volumes, which seem to have been estimated less according to their intrinsic value, than the price they had brought; and they were carefully put away in the Temple library.