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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: be worthless, but those with poor initials, or with none, were quite good,
and when sorted out I found I had got large portions of nearly twenty
different MSS., mostly Horae, showing twelve varieties of fifteenth
century handwriting in Latin, French, Dutch, and German. I had each sort
bound separately, and they now form an interesting collection.
Portrait collectors have destroyed many books by abstracting
the frontispiece to add to their treasures, and when once
a book is made imperfect, its march to destruction is rapid.
This is why books like Atkyns' "Origin and Growth
of Printing," 40, 1664, have become impossible to get.
When issued, Atkyns' pamphlet had a fine frontispiece,
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