This chapter is devoted to the 'Hunting-grounds' of London, and I deny that a collector who gives a standing order either verbally or by letter to a bookseller for some work he particularly wants is a book-hunter at all, at least so far as that particular transaction is concerned. To my mind Nimrod must handle his own bow and not entrust it to a deputy, even though he might by the rules of the chase be absolutely entitled to the quarry which the skill of the latter had brought down. Let him go where he will, East or West, the point of the compass makes no matter, he is a hunter only when he prosecutes his own inquiries and carries out in person all his arrangements. So we will avoid the great firms of book-sellers, although it may be taken for granted that almost any scarce work could be procured sooner or later from them, and go off on a chase in which we shall never, in all human probability, meet with any great prize, and may have to be satisfied with a little, that little, however, being much from many points of view.
At the present day books of all sorts are to be met with in great profusion in Farringdon Street. Every Saturday morning throughout the year light hand-carts to the number, perhaps, of thirty or forty, stand in a long line against the curb, and each is packed with works of all kinds. I am bound to admit that obsolete school-books and forgotten sermons constitute the great majority of these waifs and strays, but there is always a wide choice of useful books to be got for purely nominal sums, and occasionally one that is rare and valuable. Personally I never met with a really scarce book in Farringdon Street, but three years ago--and I mention this at the risk of being charged with travelling from the subject--I bought there the undoubtedly original study by Sir Joshua Reynolds for the portrait of the Right Honourable George Seymour Conway, afterwards Lord George Seymour Conway. The portrait was painted in 1770, and engraved in mezzotint by Edward Fisher the year following. The study is in oils, on thick paper of about twelve inches in height, and is so remarkable as a work of art, that it is a wonder it could have escaped recognition for an hour, instead, as was the fact, for a whole morning.