Excerpt from The British Bibliographer, Vol. 2
If custom requires a Preface to this new volume, after what have preceded it as well in the Censura Literaria as in the former one of the present undertaking, it can hardly be expected that we should still enforce at much length the use of Bibliographical knowledge. The growing fashion of this pursuit has excited some obloquy, originating perhaps rather from a superficial than profound view of its tendency. It is so easy to speak with scorn of a skill in title-pages, and all the numerous haters of books are so ready and so happy to join in the contempt, that it is caught without examination, and repeated with a senseless triumph.
To this triumph Ignorance is perfectly welcome she may, if she chooses, glory in her own blindness: for my part, I shall leave her to herself.
It is clearly for the interests of learning, that a due attention should be raised to all its curiosities. The value of literary history has been duly appreciated by all men of cultivated minds: and it cannot well be questioned, that the present zeal for the possession of old books tends to encourage and advance it.
Much has been said, and many strange lamentations have been uttered about the prices of the Roxburghe Library. It is the individual opinion of the present writer that they form a subject of exultation, rather than of regret.
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