one who trades in books. Booksellers, amongst us, are the same with the bibliopole of the ancients, whose office was distinct from that of the libra-rii. Petty dealers, or venders of small wares, were distinguished by the diminutive appellation of libelliones. In Rome, the Argiletum was the mart for books, as Paul's Churchyard, Fleet Street, and Paternoster Row, have been in London.

Booksellers are in many places ranked among the members of universities, and entitled to the privileges of students; as at Tubingen, Salzburg, and Paris, where they have always been distinguished from the vulgar and mechanical traders, and exempted from various taxes and impositions laid on other companies. An acquaintance with booksellers' marks or signs, as expressed on the title-pages of their books, is of some use, because many books, especially in the last century, have no other designation. The anchor is the mark of Raphelengius at Leyden; and the anchor, with a dolphin twisted round it, is that of the Manutii at Venice and Rome. The Arion denotes a book printed by Oporinus at Basel; the Caduceus or Pegasus, one printed by the Wecheluses at Paris and Frankfort; the cranes, by Cramoisy; the compass, by Plantin at Antwerp; the fountain, by Vascosan at Paris; the sphere in a balance, by Janson or Blaeu at Amsterdam; the lily, by the juntas at Venice, Florence, Lyons, and Rome; the mulberry tree, by Morel at Paris; the olive-tree, by the Stephens at Paris and Geneva, and the Elzevirs at Amsterdam and Leyden; the bird between two serpents, by the Frobeniuses at Basel; the Truth, by the Commelins. at Heidelberg and Paris; the Saturn, by Colineus; the printing-press, by Badius Ascenius; and so of the rest. See Bibliography.

The traffic in books was anciently very inconsiderable, insomuch that the book merchants of England, France, Spain, and other countries, were distinguished by the appellation of stationers, as having no shops, but only stalls or "stands" in the streets. During this state the civil magistrates took little notice of the booksellers, leaving the control of them to the universities, of which they were supposed to be the more immediate retainers, and which accordingly gave them laws and regulations, fixed the prices of their books, examined the correctness of these, and punished them at discretion. But when, by the invention of printing, books and booksellers began to multiply, it became a matter of more consequence to regulate their proceedings; and hence sovereigns took the direction of the bibliopoles into their own hands.