Excerpt from The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, Vol. 1: Containing an Account of Rare, Curious, and Useful Books, Published in or Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, From the Invention of Printing Upon the utility of such information it is scarcely necessary to insist: without a Manual of this nature the collector may in deed, as is happily remarked by a French Bibliographer, form a collection, but not a library, since the one consists simply of a mass of books purchased without knowledge or discrimination of subjects or editions; but a library, by which is meant a selec tion of the best writers, and of the best editions, depends more upon the erudition, judgment, and taste of the possessor, than Upon his wealth or liberality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.