THE " IMITATIO CHRISTI."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIB,—In reference to the question of the wide distribution of "The Imitation of Christ," it may interest your readers to know that it is computed by collectors that five thousand. different editions have been printed since the work was first issued, in 1471, at Augsburg. That this roughly calculated total must be far below the true number, may well be imagined, when it is remembered that the book has been popular as no other has during the four hundred years it has existed, and. that it has been reprinted in every European language over and over again through the centuries. Where have all these various editions gone, and how many of them now exist? Devotional books, like school-books, get quickly thumbed out of existence, and the "Imitation" has shared the fate of books that have become scarce or extinct by reason of their popularity.
Edmund Warterton, who spent much of his life in collecting -every edition he could hear of, and ransacked the booksellers' shops of the chief Continental cities, succeeded in bringing -together between eleven hundred and twelve hundred editions; but these, as one went over them, seemed but straggling sur- vivors, which poorly represented the mighty host among which they had marched onward to our own time.—I am, Sir, &e.,
ELLIOT STOCK.
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