The first book brought to the hammer at this sale; the preliminary bombshell which, to pursue Dibdin's metaphor, was the signal for a furious cannonade, consisted of the 'Biblia Sacra Græca,' printed by Aldus in 1518. This is the first complete edition of the Bible in Greek, and an important book on that account. It brought £4 15s., and any book-hunter might heartily pray for half a dozen copies now, on the same terms, for the present auction value runs to about six times as much. In fact, a sound copy sold only the other day for £27. So, too, Schoiffer's Latin Bible, printed at Mayence in 1472, folio, would be considered cheap now at £8 8s., assuming nothing was wrong with it. In 1893 a copy in oak boards brought £20 exactly. On the other hand, Baskerville's Bible, Cambridge, 1763, was excessively dear at £10 15s., seeing that a very fair copy can be got at the present time for about £1 10s. Collectors of Bibles are responsible for much of the terrible confusion that takes place when we begin to draw comparisons in matters of filthy lucre. If a Bible come from a noted press, or is an original edition of its version, or very old indeed, then up goes the price, especially if it be printed in English. One would have thought that Baskerville being an Englishman, and a fine printer in his way, would have been good for much more than £1 10s. But no; he has not been dead long enough, for the collectors have made it a rule that no English Bible printed after 1717 is any good at all, and consequently that the 'Vinegar Bible' is the last book of the kind in point of date worth looking at, unless, indeed, exception be made in favour of one of the six large-paper copies of Bentham's Cambridge Bible of 1762, which are reported to have luckily escaped a conflagration. The late Mr. Dore, who was a strong man on the subject of old Bibles, says that a little research would reveal the existence of many more than the traditional half-dozen copies, so perhaps, after all, the conflagration is a myth. But if Baskerville's Bible brought what we should now consider to be an outrageous sum, what shall be said of 'The Holy Bible, illustrated with Prints, published by T. Macklin, six volumes, folio, 1800,' which went for £43, incomplete though it was. Some £2 10s. for the whole seven volumes is not at all an uncommon auction price at the present day, and this amount and more would most certainly be swallowed up by the binding alone. What it comes to is that among all these books of theology, Biblical comment, criticism, polemics, sermons, and works of the Fathers, prices have fallen since 1812, except in those cases where collectors have stepped in to rescue old Bibles, works associated with some great religious revolution, or specimens of rare typography from the presses of old and noted printers.