While the existence of libraries of various kinds, and even circulating libraries, in the Thirteenth Century may seem definitely settled, it will appear to most people that to speak of book collecting at this time must be out of place. That fad is usually presumed to be of much later origin and indeed to be comparatively recent in its manifestations. We have said enough already, however, of the various collections of books in libraries especially in France to show that the book collector was abroad, but there is much more direct evidence of this available from an English writer. Richard de Bury's Philobiblon is very well known to all who are interested in books for their own sake, but few people realize that this book practically had its origin in the Thirteenth Century. The writer was born about the beginning of the last quarter of that century, had completed his education before its close, and it is only reasonable to attribute to the formative influences at work in his intellectual development as a young man, the germs of thought from which were to come in later life the interesting book on bibliophily, the first of its kind, which was to be a treasure for book-lovers ever afterwards. Philobiblon tells us, among other things, of Richard's visits to the continent on an Embassy to the Holy See and on subsequent occasions to the Court of France, and the delight which he experienced in handling many books which he had never seen before, in buying such of them as his purse would allow, or his enthusiasm could tempt from their owners and in conversing with those who could tell him about books and their contents. Such men were the chosen comrades of his journeys, sat with him at table, as Mr. Henry Morley tells us in his English Writers (volume IV, page 51), and were in almost constant fellowship with him. It was at Paris particularly that Richard's heart was satisfied for a time because of the great treasures he found in the magnificent libraries of that city. He was interested, of course, in the University and the opportunity for intellectual employment afforded by Academic proceedings, but above all he found delight in books, which monks and monarchs and professors and churchmen of all kinds and scholars {158} and students had gathered into this great intellectual capital of Europe at that time. Anyone who thinks the books were not valued quite as highly in the Thirteenth Century as at the present time should read the Philobiblon. He is apt to rise from the reading of it with the thought that it is the modern generations who do not properly appreciate books.