Note 141 — The Cabinet.

The "Bibliothèque Curieuse, Historique et Critique, ou Catalogue raisonné de Livres difficiles à trouver," of David Clement, published at Gottingen, Hanover, and Leipsic, in 9 quarto volumes, from the year 1750 to 1760—is, unfortunately, an unfinished production; extending only to the letter H. The reader may find a critique upon it in my Introduction to the Greek and Latin Classics, vol. i., p. 370; which agrees, for the greater part, with the observations in the Bibl. Crevenn., vol. v., 290. The work is a sine quâ non with collectors; but in this country it begins to be—to use the figurative language of some of the German bibliographers—"scarcer than a white crow,"—or "a black swan." The reader may admit which simile he pleases—or reject both! But, in sober sadness, it is very rare, and unconscionably dear. I know not whether it was the same Clement who published "Les cinq Années Littéraires, ou Lettres de M. Clément, sur les ouvrages de Littérature, qui ont parus dans les Années 1748—á 1752;" Berlin, 1756, 12mo., two volumes. Where is the proof of the assertion, so often repeated, that Clement borrowed his notion of the above work from Wendler's Dissertatio de variis raritatis librorum impressorum causis, Jen., 1711, 4to.?—Wendler's book is rare among us: as is also Berger's Diatribe de libris rarioribus, &c., Berol. 1729, 8vo.