Grudé's book is a choice one. It is entitled 'Le Premier Volume de La Bibliothèque du Sieur de la Croix-du-Maine: Qui est un catalogue général de toutes sortes d'Autheurs, qui ont escrit en François depuis cinq cents ans et plus jusques à ce iourd'huy,' and was published at Paris 'Chez Abel L'Angelier' in 1584. It is one of those folio volumes printed in large pica on thick paper that delight the heart of the bibliophile and are a joy to handle. At the back of the title-page is an oval portrait of Henry of Navarre, dated 1581. He was not a handsome man, if one may judge by this portrait, in fact it would be difficult to draw a more repellent face; yet the book was dedicated to the king in a long 'Epistre au Roy' which ends with the author's quaint anagram 'Race du mans, si fidel a son Roy' (François de la Croix du Maine). But perhaps the portrait was omitted in the royal copy. The work was to have been completed in three volumes, of which the first two were to contain works published in the vernacular, and the third those printed in Latin. But alas! the author left only this first volume, which contains some three thousand authors, with short biographies of them. One hesitates to connect this premature end of the book (or, indeed, the author's assassination six years later) with the unlucky portrait! Altogether a very delightful volume.
Nowadays a bibliography that is not at once complete, detailed, and meticulously accurate is of no value. In this critical age when the methods of modern science are applied to books, it behoves the bibliographer to be careful, thorough, and precise. Unless he can bring these three attributes to bear upon his work, far better that he should never undertake it; for the result will be not only valueless but misleading, and he will certainly fail to obtain 'that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind.'
There is one small appendage of the private library which must be mentioned before we close the chapter. A list of the prices which he has paid for his books forms a record that is indispensable to the book-collector. It is impossible to carry all one's 'bargains' in one's head, and if pencilled inside the book itself it is exposed to that publicity which one naturally shuns. Such a record is of something more than curious interest, for a knowledge of the rise or fall in the price of those books in which he is interested is essential to the collector. Whenever he comes across, in a bookseller's catalogue, a book that he already possesses, he will like to know how the present price compares with that which he gave for his copy.