BOOK I. Chapter VI. Purchases.

§ 1. CHOICE OF AUTHORS AND OF EDITIONS.

No task is more likely to strip a man of self-conceit than that of having to frame, and to carry out in detail, a plan for the formation of a large Library. When he has once got beyond those departments of knowledge in which his own pursuits and tastes have specially interested him, the duty becomes a difficult one, and the certainty that, with his best efforts, it will be very imperfectly performed is embarrassing and painful. If, on the other hand, the task be imposed upon a “Committee,” there ensues almost the certainty that its execution will depend at least as much on chance as on plan; that responsibility will be so attenuated as to pass off in vapour; and that the collection so brought together will consist of parts bearing but a chaotic sort of relation to the whole.