The next twenty books averaged something over a pound apiece, and the prices languished till this division of the sale was over, and the 'Patres Graeci' were succeeded by the 'Patres Latini,' the works of S. Augustine (Froben's edition, 1569) heading the list at £5, 15s. Among the editions of the Bible, 'Bibliae variae,' as the auctioneer called them, the London Polyglot of 1657 was _facile princeps_, fetching no less than £8, 2s., or within three shillings of the top price of the sale. Rabbinical literature was the next division taken, and here it is curious to note that no single work fetched as much as a sovereign. Then came long rows of classics and theology, with nothing to call for remark till we come to the books of English divinity, among which Fox's 'Martyrs' (London, 1641) fetched as much as £3, 5s. Among the English philologists, a very miscellaneous section, Raleigh's 'History of the World' went for £1, 6s., and Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' (Oxford, 1638) for 6s. Even the latter was not much of a bargain, for it is the first edition (1621), the one in quarto, which is now so highly prized.
When the folios were all sold, the smaller sizes were taken in their order, but either the collectors of the seventeenth century (very unlike in this to their modern successors) valued a book in proportion to its bulk, or else the novelty of the bidding was exhausted. Certainly we have no more high prices to record, and the auctioneer, after a time, had recourse to selling books in bundles or batches. The Oriental works went badly, probably because few could read them; the English divinity, which were sold ten and twenty together, at from a florin to fifteen shillings the lot, even worse, because Dr. Seaman's theology was now discountenanced by Churchmen, and the pockets of the Dissenters were ill furnished. We note a few pearls among these dusty tomes. Fletcher's 'Purple Island' (1633) was sold with six dull tracts for 5s., and Bacon's 'Advancement of Learning' (1605) for 1s. The pamphlets of the Civil War went fairly well, but a collection, which would now be held priceless, of thirty-two tracts on the relation of England and Spain from 1585 to 1591 realised no more than 8s.