Book IX

. p. 234):--"Sure I am, a great antiquarie lately deceased (rich as well in his state as learning) at the hearing thereof quitted all his intention of benefaction to Oxford or any place else." ... And Wood (_Hist. and Antiq._, by Gutch, ii. 942) says that he had been told that this misappropriation was one reason of Selden's distaste at Oxford.'

Besides the books sent to the Bodleian Library, those relating to law were given to Lincoln's Inn, and some medical works were bequeathed by Selden to the College of Physicians. 'Eight chests full of registers of abbeys, and other manuscripts relating to the history of England,' were unfortunately destroyed in a fire at the Temple; and many volumes also were lost during the interval between Selden's death and their arrival at Oxford.

THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF NORFOLK, 1586-1646

One of the most zealous and successful collectors of the early part of the seventeenth century was Thomas Howard, only son of Philip, Earl of Arundel, and grandson of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded in 1572. He was born on the 7th of July 1586. In 1595 his father died in the Tower, and by his attainder his son was deprived of his titles and lands. On the accession of James I. the former were restored to him, but the King retained the property. Lord Arundel was created Earl of Norfolk in 1644, and died at Padua on the 4th of October 1646.

[Illustration: ARMS OF THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF NORFOLK.]

After his death his collections were partially dispersed; and in 1666 his printed books were presented, at the instigation of John Evelyn, to the Royal Society by Henry Howard, afterwards sixth Duke of Norfolk, a grandson of the Earl, while the manuscripts were divided between that Society and the College of Arms. In 1831 the principal portion of the manuscripts in possession of the Royal Society were transferred to the British Museum, and the remainder, consisting of Oriental manuscripts, in 1835. They were valued at three thousand five hundred and fifty-nine pounds, and were paid for partly in money, and partly with duplicates of printed books in the Museum collection. A large portion of the Earl's library consisted of the books of Bilibaldus Pirckheimer of Nuremberg, which he acquired during a diplomatic mission into Germany in 1636. Some of the manuscripts, Oldys states, once formed part of the library of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary. The Earl of Norfolk's collections also comprised a very large number of antique marbles, paintings, vases, and gems.

RICHARD SMITH, 1590-1675

Richard Smith or Smyth, who was born in 1590 at Lillingston Dayrell, Buckinghamshire, was the son of the Rev. Richard Smith of Abingdon, Berkshire. He was sent to the University of Oxford, but did not matriculate, and after a short stay there was removed by his parents, and articled to a solicitor of the city of London. In 1644 he became Secondary of the Poultry Compter, which was worth about seven hundred pounds a year. This office he held until the death of his eldest son John in 1655, when he sold it, and 'betook himself,' says Anthony a Wood, 'wholly to a private life, two-thirds of which he at least spent in his library.' He died on the 26th of March 1675, and was buried in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Smith was an indefatigable collector, and amassed a library of very fine and rare books, many of which had belonged to an earlier collector, Humphrey Dyson. These books came to Smith by marriage.[36] Wood informs us that 'he was constantly known every day to walk his rounds among the booksellers' shops (especially in Little Britain) in London, and by his great skill and experience he made choice of such books that were not obvious to every man's eye.' 'He lived in times,' Wood adds, 'which ministred peculiar opportunities of meeting with books that were not every day brought into public light: and few eminent libraries were bought where he had not the liberty to pick and choose.... He was also a great collector of MSS., whether ancient or modern that were not extant, and delighted much to be poring on them.' Wood also states that after Smith's death, 'there was a design to buy his choice library for a public use, by a collection of moneys to be raised among generous persons, but the work being public, and therefore but little forwarded, it came into the hands of Richard Chiswell, a bookseller living in S. Paul's Ch.-yard, London: who printing a catalogue of, with others added to, them, which came out after Mr. Smith's death, they were exposed to sale by way of auction, to the great reluctancy of public-spirited men, in May and June 1682.' The sale, which commenced on the 15th of May, and was continued day by day the first five days of every week until all the books were sold, took place at 'the Auction House known by the name of the Swan in Great Bartholomew's Close.' It realised one thousand four hundred and fourteen pounds, twelve shillings and eleven pence.[37] A copy of the catalogue, with the prices in manuscript, is preserved in the British Museum. The sums obtained for the Caxtons, of which there were about a dozen, will be interesting to bibliographers. A copy of _Godfrey of Bulloyn_, which it is stated had belonged to King Edward IV., fetched the highest price--eighteen shillings; and the _Game of the Chesse_, the _History of Jason_, and the _Eneydos of Virgil_ sold respectively for thirteen shillings, five shillings and a penny, and three shillings; while no more than two shillings could be got for the _Book of Good Manners_. A fine copy of the Coverdale Bible realised only twenty shillings and sixpence, and Captain John Smith's _History of Virginia_ went for seven shillings and twopence. The manuscripts also, even for those days, sold at exceedingly low prices.

A very interesting account of the library will be found in an article on English Book-Sales, 1681-86, by Mr. A.W. Pollard, in vol. ii. of _Bibliographica_. Mr. Smith wrote some learned works which he left in manuscript. _A Letter to Dr. Henry Hammond, concerning the Sense of that Article in the Creed, He descended into Hell_, written by Smith in 1659, was printed in 1684; and his _Obituary, being a catalogue of all such persons as he knew in their life; extending from A.D. 1627 to A.D. 1674_, was edited for the Camden Society by Sir H. Ellis, K.H., in 1849.

The manuscript of the _Obituary_, together with the manuscripts of two or three other works by Smith are preserved among the Sloane Manuscripts in the British Museum. A portrait of him was engraved by William Sherwin.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 36: Hearne in his _Diary_ (Oct. 4, 1714) states: 'That Mr. Rich. Smith's rare and curious collection of books was began first by Mr. Humphrey Dyson, a public notary, living in the Poultry. They came to Mr. Smith by marriage. This is the same Humphrey Dyson that assisted Howes in his continuation of _Stowe's Survey of London_, ed. folio;' and in his preface to Peter Langtoft's _Chronicle_ (vol. i. p. xiii.) Hearne describes Dyson as 'a person of a very strange, prying, and inquisitive genius in the matter of books, as may appear from many Libraries; there being Books (chiefly in old English) almost in every Library, that have belong'd to him, with his name upon them.' Some of his books are preserved in the British Museum.]

[Footnote 37: In an entry in his _Diary_ (Sep. 4, 1715) Hearne says:--'Mr. Richard Smith's Catalogue that is printed contains a very noble and very extraordinary collection of books. It was begun first in the time of King Hen. VIII., and comeing to Mr. Smith, he was so very diligent and exact in continueing and improving, that hardly anything curious escaped him.']

GEORGE THOMASON, _died_ 1666

George Thomason, who formed the wonderful collection of Civil War tracts, which was given to the British Museum by King George III., was born at the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. Nothing appears to be known of his parents. He took up his freedom as a member of the Stationers' Company on the 5th of June 1626.[38] His first publication was a new edition of Martyn's _History of the Kings of England_, which he produced in conjunction with James Boler and Robert Young in 1628, and he continued to publish books until 1660. He carried on business at the Rose and Crown, St. Paul's Churchyard, and we learn from the _Obituary_ of Richard Smith that he died on April 10, 1666, and was 'buried out of Stationers' Hall (a poore man).' The Rev. George Thomason, who was Canon of Lincoln from 1683 to 1712, is stated to have been his eldest son.

The number of separate printed tracts in the collection which Thomason formed with such unwearied perseverance for twenty years is stated in an Account of it,[39] printed about 1680, to consist of 'near Thirty Thousand several sorts,' together with 'near one hundred several MS. pieces that were never printed, all, or most of them on the King's behalf, which no man durst then venture to publish without endangering his Ruine,' and it is said that these were contained in 'above Two Thousand bound Volumes.' Mr. Falconer Madan, however, in his admirable paper on the Thomason Tracts in _Bibliographica_,[40] informs us that after going carefully through the collection, and looking at every title-page, he has come to the conclusion that the present number of separate pieces is twenty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-one in print, and seventy-three in manuscript, comprised in about one thousand nine hundred and eighty-three volumes.

All the tracts are arranged in chronological order, and from July 1642 to the end of the collection Thomason has placed the date of issue on every piece when it is not printed on it, and has also endeavoured to supply the place of printing when not given. These notes are sometimes supplemented by others commenting on the opinions of the authors of the tracts. There is a manuscript catalogue in twelve folio volumes, compiled by Marmaduke Foster, and annotated and corrected by Thomason himself.

The collection is not confined to tracts relating to the Civil War and the Commonwealth; it also contains many works on other subjects. Among these is a fine copy of the first edition of Walton's _Compleat Angler_, which at the present time would realise nearly, if not quite, as large a sum as the amount (three hundred pounds) given by King George III. for the entire series.

The collection, which was commenced by Thomason in 1640, and continued until 1661, was made by him under great difficulties. He was a staunch Royalist, and the books appear to have been in constant danger of falling into the hands of the Parliamentary army. We read in the Account to which we have already referred that 'to prevent the Discovery of them, when the Army was Northwards, he pack'd them up in several Trunks, and by one or two in a week sent them to a trusty Friend in Surry, who safely preserv'd them; and when the Army was Westward, and fearing their Return that way, they were sent to London again; but the Collector durst not keep them, but sent them into Essex, and so according as they lay near Danger, still, by timely removing them, at a great charge, secur'd them, but continu'd perfecting the Work.

'And for a further Security to them, there was a Bargain pretended to be made with the University of Oxford and a Receipt of a Thousand Pounds given and acknowledg'd to be in part for them, that if the Usurper had found them out, the University should claim them, who had greater Power to struggle for them than a private Man.

'All these Shifts have been made, and Difficulties encounter'd to keep the Collection from being embezel'd and destroy'd; which with the great Charges of collecting and binding them, cost the Undertaker so much that he refused Four Thousand Pounds for them in his Life time, supposing that Sum not sufficient to reimburse him.'

And in another account, at one time prefixed to the catalogue of the collection, it is stated that 'not thinking them safe anywhere in England, he at last took a resolution to send them into Holland for their more safe preservation. But considering with himself what a treasure it was, upon second thoughts, he durst not venture them at sea, but resolved to place them in his warehouses in form of tables round about the rooms covered over with canvas, continuing still without any intermission his going on; nay, even then, when by the Usurper's power and command he was taken out of his bed, and clapt up close prisoner at Whitehall for seven weeks' space and above,[41] he still hoping and looking for that day, which, thanks be to God, is now come, and there is put a period to that unparallelled labour, charge and pains he had been at.

'Oxford's Library Keeper[42] (that then was) was in hand with them, about them a long time, and did hope the Publick Library might compass them; but that could not be then effected, it rising to so great a sum as had been expended on them for so long a time together.'

After Thomason's death a trust was appointed under his will to take charge of the tracts, and one of the trustees, Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bodley's librarian from 1652 to 1660, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, had them for a long time in his custody, as appears from a letter addressed by him to the Rev. George Thomason, the son of the collector, dated Oxon, February 6, 1676. He mentions in the letter that he had endeavoured to secure them for the Bodleian Library, and that although he had hitherto failed, he still did not despair of finding a way to do so. He was not, however, successful in his efforts, and King Charles II. appears to have directed Samuel Mearn, the royal stationer and bookbinder, to buy them on his account; it is not known for what sum. It is to be presumed, however, that the King did not find the money for them, for on May 15, 1684, the Privy Council considered and granted a petition from Anne Mearn, widow of Samuel Mearn, that she might dispose of the tracts by sale. She does not seem to have succeeded in doing this, and they appear to have been returned to the Thomason family, for in the year 1745 we find them in possession of Mr. Henry Sisson, a druggist in Ludgate Street, London, who, Richard Gough, the antiquary, was informed, was a descendant of the collector.[43] After some negotiations with the Duke of Chandos for their purchase, they were brought by Thomas Hollis[44] to the notice of King George III., who, through the Earl of Bute, bought them of Miss Sisson in 1761 for the sum of three hundred pounds, and in the following year they were presented by him to the British Museum.

On one of the volumes of the collection are some mud stains, which have an interesting history. The volume was borrowed from Thomason by King Charles I., who was anxious to read one of the tracts in it, and while journeying to the Isle of Wight let it fall in the dirt. Thomason made a memorandum of the circumstance on a fly-leaf of the book, adding the 'volume hath the marke of honor upon it, which noe other volume in my collection hath.'

In 1647 Thomason published a trade catalogue in quarto, consisting of fifty-eight closely printed pages, entitled _Catalogus Librorum diversis Italiae locis emptorum Anno Dom. 1647, a Georgio Thomasono Bibliopola Londinensi apud quem in Caemiterio D. Pauli ad insigne Rosae Coronatae prostant venales. Londini, Typis Johannis Legatt_, 1647, and in 1648 a selection of works in oriental languages from this catalogue was purchased by order of the House of Commons,[45] who directed that the sum of five hundred pounds out of the receipts at Goldsmiths' Hall should be paid for the books, in order that they might be bestowed upon the Public Library at Cambridge.

Mr. A.W. Pollard, in a note to Mr. Madan's article in _Bibliographica_, states that Thomason had great difficulty in getting the money for these books: 'On March 28th, 1648,' he tells us, 'the five hundred pounds was ordered to be paid from the arrears of the two months' assessments for the Scots army before Newark; on Sep. 25th it was charged on the composition of Colonel Humphrey Matthews; and on Nov. 16th, Thomason, being still unpaid, was consoled by interest at the rate of eight per cent.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: Arber, _Transcript of the Register_, vol. iii. p. 686.]

[Footnote 39: Copies are preserved in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, and it is reprinted in Beloe's _Anecdotes_ vol. ii. p. 248.]

[Footnote 40: Vol. iii. p. 304.]

[Footnote 41: Thomason was implicated in Christopher Love's plot against the Commonwealth. There are several entries in the _Calendar of State Papers_ which refer to his imprisonment. Mr. A.W. Pollard, the editor of _Bibliographica_, has given a list of them in a note (vol. iii. p. 298) to Mr. Madan's paper on the Thomason Collection in that publication.]

[Footnote 42: Probably Dr. Thomas Barlow, librarian of the Bodleian Library.]

[Footnote 43: Gough, _Anecdotes of British Typography_, second edition, p. 699, note.]

[Footnote 44: _Memoirs of Hollis_, vol. i. pp. 121, 192; vol. ii. p. 717.]

[Footnote 45: _Journals of the House of Commons_, 24th March 1648.]

SIR SYMONDS D'EWES, BART., 1602-1650

Sir Symonds D'Ewes, one of the most eminent of the antiquaries and collectors of the first half of the seventeenth century, was born in 1602. He was the son of Paul D'Ewes of Milden, Suffolk, and Cecilia, daughter and heiress of Richard Simonds of Coxden, Chardstock, Dorsetshire. In 1618 he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, but left in 1620, and entered at the Middle Temple, being called to the Bar in 1623. He soon, however, gave up his legal practice, and devoted himself to the study of history and antiquities. D'Ewes was made a knight in 1626, and created a baronet in 1641. He was twice married, and died in 1650. The baronetcy became extinct in 1731.

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF SIR SYMONDS D'EWES, BART.]

D'Ewes possessed a very fine collection of manuscripts, which were sold by his grandson to Sir Robert Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, notwithstanding the injunction of D'Ewes, in his will, that his library should not be sold or dispersed. Oldys states that Harley recommended Queen Anne to purchase the manuscripts for a public library, as the richest collection in England next to Sir Robert Cotton's, but that the Queen said, 'It was no virtue for her, a woman, to prefer as she did arts to arms; but while the blood and honour of the nation was at stake in her wars, she could not, till she had secured her living subjects an honourable peace, bestow their money on dead letters.' 'Whereupon,' adds Oldys, 'the Earl stretched his own purse, and gave six thousand pounds for the library.' The manuscripts, together with a list of them, which is believed to have been made by D'Ewes himself, now form part of the Harleian Collection in the British Museum. The manuscript of an Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, compiled by D'Ewes in conjunction with Francis Junius, and several of his diaries are also preserved there. His great work was the _Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth_, which was not published until 1682.

SIR KENELM DIGBY, 1603-1665

The celebrated scholar and collector, Sir Kenelm Digby, was born at Gayhurst, near Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, in 1603. He was the son of Sir Everard Digby, who was executed in 1606 for the part he took in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm, who was the author of several remarkable works, is described by Lord Clarendon as a man of 'very extraordinary person and presence, with a wonderful graceful behaviour and a flowing courtesy and civility.' He was knighted in 1623. Digby possessed a very fine library, which he formed during his residence in Paris, and he had many of the volumes bound there by Le Gascon and other eminent binders. An earlier library which he collected is said to have been burnt by the Roundheads during the Civil War.[46] When he died in 1665, his library, which was still in France, was claimed as the property of the French king, by virtue of the _droit d'aubaine_, and it is said to have been purchased for ten thousand crowns by the Earl of Bristol, who died in 1676, and whose books, conjointly with those of another collector, were sold in London in April 1680. A priced catalogue of the sale is preserved in the British Museum; and it is stated in it that the books principally belonged 'to the library of the Right Honourable George, late Earl of Bristol, a great part of which were the Curiosities collected by the learned Sir Kenelme Digby.' It is evident, however, that a considerable number of the volumes which belonged to Digby remained in France, as several are to be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale and other libraries. In a communication to the Library Association of the United Kingdom, M. Leopold Delisle, Director of the Bibliotheque Nationale, gives a list of manuscripts and printed books in that library, which were formerly the property of the collector. One volume, with a very beautiful binding by Le Gascon, is preserved in the Bibliotheque Mazarine. Sir Kenelm presented to the Bodleian Library a valuable collection of manuscripts and printed books which Thomas Allen, his former tutor, had bequeathed to him in 1630. He also gave a considerable number of volumes to the library of Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., and the following notice of the gift occurs in the works of Richard Baxter:--

'I proposed,' he writes, 'to have given almost all my library to Cambridge in New England; but Mr. Thomas Knowles, who knew their library, told me that Sir Kenelm Digby had already given them the Fathers, Councils and Schoolmen, and that it was Histories and Commentators which they wanted. Whereupon I sent them some of my Commentators and some Histories, among which were Freherus, Renherus, and Pistorius's collections.'

[Illustration: ONE OF SIR KENELM DIGBY'S BOOK-STAMPS.]

Unfortunately, this first Harvard library was destroyed by fire in 1764. At that time it contained about six thousand volumes.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: See Article on English Book-Sales, 1676-1680, by Mr. A.W. Pollard, in _Bibliographica_, vol. i. p. 373.]

RALPH SHELDON, 1623-1684

Ralph Sheldon, who was born on the 1st of August 1623, at Beoley in Worcestershire, was the eldest son of William Sheldon of Beoley and Elizabeth, daughter of William, second Lord Petre. He was privately educated, and at the age of nineteen he paid a visit to France and Italy, and resided at Rome for some time, returning home about 1647, after an absence of four years from his native country. Sheldon appears to have been greatly respected, and Nash, in his _Collections for the History of Worcestershire_, says 'he was a person of such rare worth and excellent qualities as deserve particular notice. He was a great patron of learning and learned men, and well skilled in the history and antiquities of his country, sparing no money to set up a standing library at Weston. He was a great friend to Anthony Wood, and left him a legacy of L40. He purchased the valuable MSS. of the ingenious Augustine Vincent, Windsor Herald, and Keeper of the records in the Tower, _temp._ Charles I., which at his death he bequeathed to the Heralds' College, where they are still preserved; and allowed John Vincent his son a yearly pension for many years. He travelled often to Rome, and spent some time there to furnish himself with choice books, coins and medals. In short, he was of such remarkable integrity, charity and hospitality, as gained him the universal esteem of all the gentlemen of the county; insomuch that he usually went by the name of the Great Sheldon.... And for the sufferings which himself and father had undergone in the civil wars, he was nominated by Charles II. one of the gentlemen of Warwickshire, who were to have received the honour of the Order of the Royal Oak, had it been instituted; his estate being then valued at L2000 per annum, the largest of any in the county, except that of the Middlemores of Edgbaston, which was estimated of the same annual value.' The library formed by Sheldon at his manor-house of Weston in the parish of Long Compton, Warwickshire, was a fine one. Among the printed books was a very curious and probably unique copy of the first folio of Shakespeare (now the property of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts), where the concluding passages of _Romeo and Juliet_, and the opening passages of _Troilus and Cressida_, are printed twice over at different parts of the volume. This irregularity was discovered by Mr. Sidney Lee, who read a paper on the subject before the Bibliographical Society on March 21, 1898. The library at Weston was dispersed in 1781.

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF RALPH SHELDON.]

In commemoration of Sheldon's gifts to Heralds' College, Mr. Ralph Bigland, who was created Blue Mantle in 1757, and died as Garter in 1784, caused a handsome canvas to be painted, on which are emblazoned Sheldon's arms, impaled with those of his wife, accompanied by the following biographical notice:--'To the Memory of Ralph Sheldon of Beoley in the County of Worcester, Esquire, a great Benefactor to this Office. Who died at his Manor-House of Weston in the Parish of Long-Compton, in the County of Warwick, on Midsu[~m]er Day, 1684, aged 61 years wanting 6 weeks: the Day afterwards his Heart and Bowels were buried in Long-Compton Chancel, in a Vault by those of his Father, Mother, Grandfather, etc., and on the 10th of July following, his Body in a Vault by his Ancestors under our Lady's Chapel, Joyning on the North Side to St. Leonard's Church of Beoley: He married Henrietta-Maria, Daughter of Thomas Savage, Viscount Rock-Savage by Elizabeth his wife, Daughter of Thomas, Lord Darcy, of Chich in Essex, Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers, but by her had no issue.'

This canvas is still preserved in Heralds' College.

Sheldon compiled _A Catalogue of the Nobility of England since the Norman Conquest, according to theire severall Creations by every particular King_, with the arms handsomely emblazoned. This manuscript came into the possession of Sir Thomas Phillipps, and formed one of the lots at the sale of his collection in June 1893.

DR. FRANCIS BERNARD, 1627-1698

Dr. Francis Bernard was born in 1627. He was a Fellow of the College of Physicians, Assistant-Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Physician-in-Ordinary to King James II. He died on the 9th of February 1698, and was buried in the parish church of St. Botolph, London, where his wife erected a monument to his memory.

Dr. Bernard formed a very extensive library, which consisted, 'more especially of that sort of Books which are out of the Common Course, which a Man may make the Business of his Life to collect, and at last not be able to accomplish.'[47] It was very rich in works relating to medicine, and it also contained a considerable number of early English books, among which were about a dozen Caxtons. The collection was sold by auction shortly after Bernard's death. The title-page of the sale catalogue reads:--'A Catalogue of the Library of the late learned Dr. Francis Bernard, Fellow of the College of Physicians, and Physician to S. Bartholomew's Hospital. Being a large Collection of the best Theological, Historical, Philological, Medicinal and Mathematical Authors, in the Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and English Tongues, in all Volumes, which will be sold by Auction at the Doctor's late Dwelling House in Little Britain; the Sale to begin on Tuesday, Octob. 4, 1698.' A copy of the catalogue, with the prices in manuscript, is in the British Museum. The sale consisted of nearly fifteen thousand lots and thirty-nine bundles of tracts, which realised nineteen hundred and twenty pounds; the expenses of the sale amounting to three hundred and twenty pounds. The Caxtons sold for a little over two guineas. _The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_ and the _Knight of the Tower_ each fetched five shillings and fourpence, the _History of Jason_ three shillings and sixpence, the _Histories of King Arthur_ two shillings and tenpence, the _Chastising of God's Children_ one shilling and tenpence, and the second edition of the _Game of the Chesse_ one shilling and sixpence.

Dibdin says that Dr. Bernard was 'a stoic in bibliography. Neither beautiful binding, nor amplitude of margin, ever delighted his eye or rejoiced his heart: for he was a stiff, hard, and straightforward reader--and learned, in Literary History, beyond all his contemporaries'; and in the preface to the sale catalogue we read that he was 'a person who collected books for use, and not for ostentation or ornament, and he seemed no more solicitous about _their_ dress than _his own_.' A memorandum book containing notes of his visits to patients, etc., is in the Sloane collection of manuscripts in the British Museum.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 47: Address to the reader, prefixed to sale catalogue.]

SAMUEL PEPYS, 1633-1703

Samuel Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of King Charles II. and King James II., was born either at London or Brampton in Huntingdonshire on the 23rd of February 1633.

[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF SAMUEL PEPYS.]

His father, John Pepys, was a citizen of London, where he followed the trade of a tailor, but in 1661 retired to Brampton, at which place he had inherited a property of eighty pounds a year from his eldest brother Robert Pepys. He died there in 1680. Samuel Pepys received his early education at Huntingdon, and afterwards at St. Paul's School, London, where he continued until 1650, in which year he was admitted at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. On the 5th of March 1651 he migrated as a sizar to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he is entered in the books of the College as 'Samuel Peapys,' and where, two years later, he was elected to a scholarship founded by John Smith. He graduated B.A. in 1653 and M.A. in 1660. In 1659 he accompanied his relative, Sir Edward Montagu, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, on his expedition to the Sound, and on his return became a clerk in the office of Sir G. Downing, one of the Tellers of the Exchequer. In 1660 he was appointed Clerk of the Acts of the Navy, which post he held until 1673, when he was made Secretary for the Affairs of the Navy, and in 1684 he became Secretary of the Admiralty, an office he retained until the accession of William and Mary, when he lost his public appointments, and retired into private life. Pepys was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1665, and in 1684 became President. He died at Clapham on the 26th of May 1703, and was buried in the church of St. Olave, Hart Street, London.

Pepys collected a very interesting library, which is now preserved in a fireproof room in Magdalene College, Cambridge. It consists of about three thousand volumes arranged in eleven mahogany cases in the precise order in which Pepys left them. The cases are the identical ones mentioned in his _Diary_, August 24, 1666:--'Up and dispatched several businesses at home in the morning, and then comes Sympson to set up my other new presses for my books, and so he and I fell in to the furnishing of my new closett, and taking out the things out of my old, and I kept him with me all day, and he dined with me, and so all the afternoon till it was quite dark hanging things, that is my maps and pictures and draughts, and setting up my books, and as much as we could do, to my most extraordinary satisfaction; so I think it will be as noble a closet as any man hath, and light enough--though indeed it would be better to have a little more light.'

This room, Mr. Wheatley tells us in his excellent account of the library in vol. i. of _Bibliographica_, 'was at the Navy Office in Crutched Friars, and the illustration in the ordinary editions of the _Diary_ shows the position of the cases when they were transferred to the house in York Buildings (now Buckingham Street, Strand).' 'The presses,' he adds, 'are handsomely carved, and have handles fixed at each end; the doors are formed of little panes of glass, and in the lower divisions the glass windows are made to lift up. The books are all arranged in double rows; but by the ingenious plan of placing small books in front of large ones, the letterings of all can be seen. Neatness was a mania with Pepys, and the volumes were evened on all the shelves; in one instance some short volumes have been raised to the required height by help of wooden stilts, gilt in front.'

The library consists principally of ordinary books, but it also comprises some valuable manuscripts, and many volumes from the presses of the early English printers. It contains as many as nine Caxtons, eight Pynsons, and nineteen Wynkyn de Wordes, several of the last being unique. The books printed by Caxton are the _Game of the Chesse, Polychronicon, Chronicles of England, Description of Britain, Mirrour of the World, Book of the Order of Chivalry_, the first and second editions of the _Canterbury Tales_, and the _Chastising of God's Children_. Among the most interesting collections is one of eighteen hundred ballads in five folio volumes; and another of four duodecimo volumes of garlands and other popular publications, printed for the most part in black letter. The volumes are lettered: Vol. 1 _Penny Merriments_, Vol. 2 _Penny Witticisms_, Vol. 3 _Penny Compliments_, and Vol. 4 _Penny Godlinesses_. In the first volume of the ballads Pepys has written:--'My collection of ballads, begun by Mr. Selden, improv'd by the addition of many pieces elder thereto in time; and the whole continued to the year 1700.' The library also possesses collections of old novels, pieces of wit, chivalry, etc, plays, books on shorthand, tracts on the Popish Plot, liturgical controversies, sea tracts, news-pamphlets, etc.

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF SAMUEL PEPYS.]

The most interesting manuscripts are the famous _Diary_ in six volumes, the papers collected by Pepys for his proposed _Navalia_, and a collection of Scottish poetry, formed by Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Lord Privy Seal and Judge in the Court of Session, who died in 1586. The drawings and prints in the library are numerous and valuable. Among them are portraits of Pepys's friends, and prints and drawings illustrating the city of London; one of the rarest of these is the large plan of London attributed to Agas, of which only one other copy is known. The library also contains some volumes of music with the title, _Songs and other Compositions, Light, Grave and Sacred, for a single voice adjusted to the particular compass of mine; with a thorough base on ye ghitarr by Cesare Morelli_. Several songs composed by Pepys are in this collection, one of which, entitled _Beauty Retire_, was a great success, and the composer was very proud of it. All the books in the library are in excellent condition, and, with the exception of a few in morocco or vellum, are bound in calf. Almost all of them bear Pepys's arms on the lower cover; while on the upper is found a shield with the inscription, SAM. PEPYS CAR. ET IAC. ANGL. REGIB. A SECRETIS ADMIRALIAE. This shield is surmounted with his helmet and crest, and is surrounded by mantling, in which are introduced two anchors, indicating his office. He also used three bookplates--one with his arms, quartering Talbot of Cottenham; a second with his portrait by Robert White, with his motto, _Mens cujusque is est Quisque_, from the _Somnium Scipionis_ of Cicero; and a third bearing his initials, with two anchors crossed, together with his motto.

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF SAMUEL PEPYS.]

Pepys left his library, together with his other property, to his nephew, John Jackson; but in a paper of directions respecting it, preserved among the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, he expresses a desire that at his nephew's death it should be placed in either Trinity or Magdalene College, Cambridge, preferably 'in the latter, for the sake of my own and my nephew's education therein.' In addition to Pepys' collection at Magdalene College, the Bodleian Library contains a series of his miscellaneous papers in twenty-five volumes, together with numerous other volumes which belonged to him, including many curious dockyard account-books of the times of King Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth.[48] These were bequeathed to the library by Dr. Richard Rawlinson, the nonjuring bishop. Mr. John Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., of Childwall, Weybridge, Surrey, also possesses some papers which once belonged to Pepys.

Pepys published _Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England for ten years determined December 1688_, in 1690; and a work entitled _The Portugal History: or a Relation of the Troubles that happened in the Court of Portugal in the years 1667 and 1668 ... by S.P., Esq._, printed at London in 1677, is also attributed to him. His well-known _Diary_, the manuscript of which fills six small volumes of closely written shorthand, was first deciphered by the Rev. John Smith, Rector of Baldock, Hertfordshire, and was published, with a selection from his private correspondence, by Lord Braybrooke, in two volumes in 1825. It has since been several times reprinted. The last edition, edited by Mr. H.B. Wheatley, F.S.A., published in eight volumes octavo in 1893-96, contains the whole of the _Diary_, with the exception of passages which cannot possibly be printed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_.]

EDWARD STILLINGFLEET, BISHOP OF WORCESTER, 1635-1699

Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, was the seventh son of Samuel Stillingfleet of the family of Stillingfleet of Stillingfleet, Yorkshire. He was born at Cranborne in Dorsetshire on the 17th of April 1635, and received his early education in the grammar schools of Cranborne and Ringwood. In his fifteenth year he was admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Fellowship in 1653. For several years after leaving college he was engaged as a private tutor, first in the family of Sir Roger Burgoyne of Wroxall in Warwickshire, and afterwards in that of the Hon. Francis Pierrepoint of Nottingham, during which period he was ordained by Ralph Brownrig, the deprived Bishop of Exeter. In 1657 he was presented by Sir R. Burgoyne to the rectory of Sutton, Bedfordshire, and in 1665 the Earl of Southampton gave him the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn. He was also appointed Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and shortly afterwards Reader of the Temple, and Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles II. In 1667 he was collated to a Canonry in St. Paul's, London; in 1669 he became a Canon 'in the twelfth prebend' in Canterbury Cathedral; in 1677 Archdeacon of London; in 1678 Dean of St. Paul's; and on the 13th of October 1689 he was consecrated Bishop of Worcester. He died at his residence in Park Street, Westminster, on the 27th of March 1699, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory by his son, with a Latin epitaph by Richard Bentley, who had been one of his chaplains.

Bishop Stillingfleet collected 'at a vast expence of time, pains and money' a very choice and valuable library, which contained a considerable number of manuscripts, and upwards of nine thousand five hundred printed volumes, besides many pamphlets. It is stated that there were over two thousand folios in it, and that it cost the Bishop six thousand pounds. Evelyn in a letter to Pepys, dated August 12th, 1689, writes: 'The Bishop of Ely[49] has a well stor'd library; but the very best is what Dr. Stillingfleete, Deane of St. Paule's, has at Twicknam, ten miles out of towne.' After Stillingfleet's death his library was offered for sale. Entries in Evelyn's diary[50] show that great efforts were made to persuade William III. to buy it, but they evidently failed, as the historical manuscripts were purchased by Robert Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford), while the remainder of the collection was acquired by Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, who bought the books for a public library in Dublin which he had founded. He is said to have paid two thousand five hundred pounds for them. Stillingfleet, who on account of his handsome person was nicknamed 'the beauty of holiness,' was the author of _Origines Britannicae, or Antiquities of the British Churches_, and many controversial works. His collected works were printed in 1710 in six volumes folio, and a volume of his miscellaneous works was published in 1735 by his son, the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Canon of Worcester.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: John Moore, Bishop of Ely, whose library was purchased by King George I., and presented by him to the University of Cambridge.]

[Footnote 50: '_April 29, 1699._--I dined with the Archbishop, but my business was to get him to persuade the King to purchase the late Bishop of Worcester's library, and build a place, for his own library at St. James's, in the Parke, the present one being too small.'

'_May 3, 1699._--At a meeting of the Royal Society I was nominated to be of the Committee to wait on the Lord Chancellor to move the King to purchase Bp. of Worcester's library.']

JOHN MOORE, BISHOP OF ELY, 1646-1714

John Moore, Bishop successively of Norwich and Ely, who was born at Sutton-juxta-Broughton, Leicestershire, in 1646, was the eldest son of Thomas Moore, an ironmonger at Market Harborough. He was educated at the Free School, Market Harborough, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1667. Having taken holy orders, he was collated in 1676 to the rectory of Blaby in Leicestershire; and in 1679, through the influence of Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham, who, in 1670, had appointed him his chaplain, he was installed canon in Ely Cathedral. In 1687 he was presented by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's to the rectory of St. Austin, London, and in 1689 he obtained the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn, which he held with his canonry at Ely until 1691, when he was consecrated Bishop of Norwich. He remained in that see until 1707, in which year he was translated to the more valuable bishopric of Ely. Moore died on the 31st of July 1714, from the effects of a cold which he caught while presiding at the trial of Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was charged with encroaching on the privileges of the fellows of that institution. He was buried in Ely Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory.

[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE PLACED IN BOOKS FROM BISHOP MOORE'S LIBRARY GIVEN BY GEORGE I. TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.]

Bishop Moore, who is called by Dibdin 'the father of black-letter collectors in this country,' was a great and generous patron of learning, and formed a magnificent library, which at the time of his death contained nearly twenty-nine thousand printed books and seventeen hundred and ninety manuscripts. John Bagford was the principal assistant in its collection, and in return for his services the Bishop procured him a place in the Charterhouse. The library, which was kept in the episcopal residence in Ely Place, Holborn, where it occupied 'eight chambers,' is mentioned in _Notices of London Libraries_, by John Bagford and William Oldys, where it is stated that 'Dr. John Moore, the late Bishop of Ely, had also a prodigious collection of books, written as well as printed on vellum, some very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a _Capgrave's Chronicle_, books of the first printing at Mentz, and other places abroad, as also at Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, etc.' John Evelyn, Bishop Burnet, and Ralph Thoresby also write in terms of high praise of the excellence and great extent of the collection. Richard Gough, the antiquary, states that 'the Bishop formed his library by plundering those of the clergy in his diocese. Some he paid with sermons or more modern books; others only with quid illiterati cum libris'; but there appears to be little, if any, truth in this accusation. Moore, who was anxious that his library should not be dispersed after his death, offered it, in 1714, to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, for the sum of eight thousand pounds; but the negotiation failed in consequence, it is said, of the Bishop 'insisting on being paid the money in his lifetime, though Lord Oxford was not to have the books till the Bishop's death.' After Moore's decease the collection was sold for six thousand guineas to George I., who gave it, on the suggestion of Lord Townsend, to the University of Cambridge. A special book-plate, designed and engraved by John Pine, was placed in the volumes. At the same time that the king sent these books to the University he despatched a troop of horse to Oxford, which occasioned the two well-known epigrams attributed to Dr. Tripp and Sir William Browne--

'Contrary methods justly George applies To govern his two universities, To Oxford sent a troop of horse;--for why? That learned body wanted Loyalty. To Cambridge he sent books, as well discerning, How much that loyal body wanted learning.'

The reply by Sir W. Browne runs--

'Contrary methods justly George applies To govern his two universities, And so to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For Tories hold no argument but force; To Cambridge Ely's learned books are sent, For Whigs admit no force but argument.'

This is not the only version of these epigrams, but the Rev. Cecil Moore in his Memoir of the Bishop considers it to be the correct one.

Moore's diaries, letters, and private accounts are also preserved in the Cambridge University Library. A volume containing his printed sermons was published in 1715, and a second issue in two volumes in 1724. Both series were edited by the Rev. Samuel Clarke, D.D.

JOHN BAGFORD, 1650?-1716

John Bagford was born about 1650. The exact date of his birth is unknown, and he does not appear to have been acquainted with it himself, for a short time before his death he informed Mr. James Sotheby that he was either sixty-five or sixty-six years of age, he could not tell which. According to the belief of Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, he was born in Fetter Lane, London, and he was no doubt for some time a shoemaker, for in a very curious and entertaining little treatise on the _Art of Shoemaking and Historical Account of Clouthing of ye foot_, which is believed to have been written by him, and is now preserved among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, the writer states that he was brought up to the 'craft of shoemaking.' This trade, however, he soon abandoned for a more congenial occupation, and he became a collector of books on commission for booksellers and amateurs. In pursuance of this work he made several journeys to the Continent, and acquired a great knowledge of books, prints, and literary curiosities. He was specially employed by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, Sir Hans Sloane, and John Moore, Bishop of Ely, who appear to have greatly appreciated his judgment, diligence, and honesty; and the last-named collector procured him, as some recompense for his services, admission into the Charterhouse. Nothing is known of Bagford's parents, and little of his domestic life, but he appears to have been married, for on the back of a leaf in one of the volumes of his collections we find the following memorandum in Bagford's writing: 'John, son of John and Elizabeth Bagford, was baptized 31st October 1675, in the parish of St. Anne, Blackfriars.' This son seems to have become a sailor in the Royal Navy, for in another volume in the same collections there is a power of attorney, dated April 6, 1713, signed by John Bagford, Junior, empowering his 'honoured father, John Bagford, Senior, of the parish of St. Sepulchre, in the county of Middlesex, bookseller,' to claim and receive from the Paymaster of Her Majesty's Navy his wages as a seaman in case of his death. Bagford, who took great interest in all descriptions of antiquities, was one of the little group of distinguished men who reconstituted in 1707 the Society of Antiquaries. He died, Dr. Birch informs us, at Islington on the 15th of May 1716, and was buried in the graveyard belonging to the Charterhouse.

[Illustration: JOHN BAGFORD.]

During his researches for his employers Bagford amassed two great collections: one consisting of ballads, now known as the 'Bagford Ballads'; the other being a vast collection of leaves from manuscripts, title-pages and fragments of books, specimens of paper, book-plates, engravings, bindings, catalogues, advertisements, and various interesting and curious pieces. With the aid of these materials Bagford intended to write a history of printing, and in 1707 he published his _Proposals for an Historical Account of that most universally celebrated as well as useful Art of Typography_. The work, which was also to contain a history of bookbinding, paper-making, etc., was, however, never published, and it has been often stated that Bagford was quite incompetent to carry out such an undertaking. This may possibly have been the case, for although he was certainly a man of much ability, and possessed an extensive knowledge of books, he had received but little education. Several of his contemporaries, however, held a different opinion, and among them Hearne, who repeatedly expresses in his works his admiration of both Bagford's genius and his collections.

The method of compiling a history of printing from a collection of title-pages appears to be both a clumsy and a costly one, but it seems probable from entries in the diary of Oldys, and from Gough's memoir of Ames, that that bibliographer wrote his _Typographical Antiquities_ with the aid of similar materials.

Bagford has been subjected to very severe censure for mutilating books for the purpose of forming his collection of title-pages. Mr. Blades, in his work _The Enemies of Books_, accuses him of being 'a wicked old biblioclast who went about the country, from library to library, tearing away title-pages from rare books of all sizes'; and Dr. Dibdin in _Bibliomania_ states that he 'was the most hungry and rapacious of all book and print collectors.' The testimony of Hearne (who knew Bagford well, and who was also amply qualified to judge both of his merits and demerits), however, is very different. He writes: 'It was very laudable in my Friend, Mr. John Bagford (who I think was born in Fetter Lane, London), to employ so much of his time, as he did, in collecting Remains of Antiquity. Indeed he was a man of very surprising genius, and had his education (for he was first a shoemaker, and afterwards for some time a bookseller) been equal to his natural genius, he would have proved a much greater man than he was. And yet, without this education, he was, certainly, the greatest man in the world in his way.... 'Tis very remarkable, that, in collecting, his care did not extend itself to Books and to the fragments of Books, only, but even to the very Covers, and to the Bosses and Clasps; and all this, that he might, with the greater ease, compile the History of Printing, which he had undertaken, but did not finish. In this noble Work he intended a Discourse about Binding,... and another about the Art of making paper, in both of which his observations were very accurate.'

A great number of the title-pages and fragments collected by Bagford are evidently taken from books which could be purchased in his day for a few shillings, many of them probably for a few pence; while it is possible that some may have been salvage from the Great Fire of 1666, when we know immense quantities of books were burnt or damaged. The collections, it is true, contain fragments of the Gutenberg Bible, various Caxtons, and other rare books, but there is no reason to think that these were abstracted from complete copies; it is much more likely that they were odd leaves which Bagford had picked up, while the leather stains on some of the most valuable show that they once formed part of the padding of old bindings. Many of the books were probably acquired by Bagford when he took part in the book-hunting expeditions of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Oxford, Sunderland, and other collectors, who amused themselves every Saturday during the winter in rambling through various quarters of the town in search of additions to their libraries. After Bagford's death Hearne was very anxious to obtain his collections, as he wished to publish 'a book from them, for the service of the public, and the honour of Mr. Bagford,' but much to his chagrin he was forestalled by Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, who acquired them for his employer's library, and they formed part of the Harleian Manuscripts, etc., purchased in 1753 for the British Museum. Wanley, however, does not appear to have secured the whole of Bagford's papers, as the Sloane collection contains four volumes of manuscripts and printed matter which belonged to him, and the Bodleian Library possesses some Indulgences which he acquired and gave to Hearne.

The Bagford collections in the British Museum consist of one hundred and twenty-nine[51] volumes, including three of ballads. The manuscript pieces are contained in thirty-six folios; the printed pieces in sixty-three folios, twenty-one quartos, and nine octavos. Among the more important manuscripts are Bagford's Commonplace Book; his Book of Accounts; his Account of Public and Private Libraries; Collections in reference to Printing; Names of old English Printers, with lists of the works which passed through their hands; an Account of Paper; Patents granted to Printers in England; Observations on the History of Printing; Lives of famous Engravers, etc. The collection also contains a large number of fragments of early Bibles, Service Books, Decretals, Lives of Saints, etc. These are almost entirely of vellum, and some of them are as early as the eighth century.

Among the printed fragments is a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible,[52] portions of the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_, the _Polychronicon_, the _Book of Fame_, and many other books from the presses of Caxton, Machlinia, Rood and Hunte, Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and other early printers, both English and foreign.

The maps in the collection are especially important and interesting, including a very rare one sometimes found in Hakluyt's _Navigations and Discoveries of the English Nation_, printed in the years 1599 and 1600, and worth at least two hundred pounds;[53] and the even more valuable celestial and terrestrial planispheres by John Blagrave of Reading, which are believed to be unique. There are also some rare documents relating to the Post Office; a number of early book-plates; some fine specimens of English, French, and German stamped bindings of the sixteenth century; several volumes of Chinese, marbled, and other papers; early almanacks; a quantity of engravings of towns, costumes, trades, furniture, etc.; curious advertisements of tobacco, tea, quack medicines, etc.; specimens of fine writing; and many other miscellaneous papers of much interest.

Bagford was the author of a letter on the antiquities of London, prefixed to the first volume of Hearne's edition of Leland's _Collectanea_; and also of an _Account of London Libraries_, first printed in 1708 in _The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious_. This little brochure was continued by Oldys, and the complete work published by Mr. James Yeowell in 1862. _The Essay on the Invention of Printing, by Mr. John Bagford_, in vol. XXV. of the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_, was, Dibdin says, drawn up by Wanley. The collection of ballads has been edited by the Rev. J.W. Ebsworth for the Ballad Society.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: It is somewhat doubtful whether a few of these belonged to Bagford.]

[Footnote 52: Probably given to Bagford by Michael Maittaire, the collector, who possessed a very imperfect copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which sold for fifty shillings at the sale of his library.]

[Footnote 53: This is believed to be the map alluded to by Shakespeare in Act. iii. Sc. 2 of _Twelfth Night_, where he makes Maria say of Malvolio: 'He does smile his face into more lines than there are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies.']

THOMAS HERBERT, EIGHTH EARL OF PEMBROKE, 1656-1733

Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, who was born in 1656, was the third son of Philip, the fifth Earl. By the deaths of his elder brothers, the sixth and seventh Earls, he succeeded to the title in 1683, and from that time to his death in 1733 he held many of the highest appointments in the State. He was one of the representatives of England at the treaty of Ryswick, and he carried the Sword of Justice at the coronations of William and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II. He was also President of the Royal Society in 1689-90.

Many of the Earls of Pembroke were men of culture and patrons of learning. In 1629 William, the third Earl, gave to the University of Oxford, of which he was Chancellor, a very valuable series of Greek manuscripts collected by Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice; and in 1649 his brother Philip, the fourth Earl, gave to the same University, of which he was also Chancellor, a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglot Bible, printed in 1645 in nine volumes. These two brothers are 'the incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the first folio of Shakespeare is dedicated. There had been for several generations a library at Wilton House, Salisbury, which Dibdin considered to be one of the oldest of private collections existing; but Thomas, the eighth Earl, added to it so large a number of rare books that it 'entitled him to dispute the palm even with the Lords Sunderland and Oxford.' Maittaire, in his _Annales Typographici_, calls the library a 'Bibliotheca exquisitissima,' and styles its owner 'Humanitatis politioris cultor et patronus.' Dibdin also states that Lord Pembroke spared no expense for books, and that he was 'a collector of everything the most precious and rare in the book-way.' The library was still further augmented by his successor Henry.

Dr. Dampier, Bishop of Ely, compiled a list in 1776 of the earlier printed works in the library, which Dibdin has reproduced in his _Decameron_. The books are one hundred and ninety-nine in number, of which one hundred and eighty-eight are of the fifteenth century. The list contains eight Caxtons, eighteen volumes printed by Jenson, and ten by the Spiras. Among the most notable of the incunabula are the _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus, on vellum, printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; the _Catholicon_ of Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1460; _Cicero de Oratore_, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465; Cicero's _Epistolae ad Familiares_, printed by Joannes de Spira at Venice in 1469; and the _Bokys of Hawkyng and Huntyng_, printed at St. Albans in 1486. The Caxtons are _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_; the first and second editions of _The Game of the Chesse_; the first edition of _The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, _Chronicles of England_, the _Polychronicon_, and the _Liber Festivalis_.

NARCISSUS LUTTRELL, 1657-1732

Narcissus Luttrell, who was born in 1657, was the son of Francis Luttrell of London, a descendant of the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, in the county of Somerset. He received his early education under Mr. Aldrich at Sheen in Surrey, and in 1674 was admitted a fellow-commoner of St. John's College, Cambridge. In the succeeding year he was created M.A. by royal mandate.[54] While at the University he presented a silver tankard to his college, which was lost, together with a quantity of other plate, on the 9th of October 1693, for the recovery of which a reward of ten pounds was offered.[55] Luttrell, who, Dibdin says, was 'ever ardent in his love of past learning, and not less voracious in his bibliomaniacal appetites,' formed an extensive library at Shaftesbury House, Little Chelsea, where he resided for many years in seclusion. Hearne speaks of it 'as a very extraordinary collection,' and adds that 'in it are many manuscripts, which, however, he had not the spirit to communicate to the world, and 'twas a mortification to him to see the world gratified without his assistance.' A special feature of the library was the large and interesting collection of fugitive pieces issued during the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Anne, which Luttrell purchased day by day as they appeared. Sir Walter Scott found this collection, which in his time was chiefly in the possession of the collectors Mr. Heber and Mr. Bindley, very useful when editing the _Works_ of Dryden, published in eighteen volumes at London in 1808. In the preface he remarks that 'the industrious collector seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and date of purchase. His collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of Grub Street.' On Luttrell's death, which took place at his residence in Chelsea on the 27th of June 1732, the collection became the property of Francis Luttrell (presumed to be his son), who died in 1740. It afterwards passed into the possession of Mr. Serjeant Wynne, and from him descended to Edward Wynne, his eldest son, the author of _Eunomus, or Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution of England; and a Miscellany containing several law tracts_, published at London in 1765. He died a bachelor in 1784, and the library, which had been considerably enlarged by its later possessors, was inherited by his brother, the Rev. Luttrell Wynne, of All Souls' College, Oxford, by whose direction it was sold by auction by Leigh and Sotheby in 1786. The sale, which consisted of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six lots, commenced on March 6th, and lasted twelve days. It is stated in the catalogue that 'great part of the library was formed by an Eminent and Curious Collector in the last Century, and comprehends a fine Suite of Historical, Classical, Mathematical, Natural History, Poetical and Miscellaneous Books, in all Arts and Sciences ... by the most Eminent Printers, Rob. Steph., Morell, Aldus, Elzevir, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, &c. &c. Also a very curious Collection of old English Romances, and old Poetry; with a great number of scarce Pamphlets during the Great Rebellion and the Protectorate.' Various portions of the Luttrell collections were bought by Messrs. Heber and Bindley. The greater part of those purchased by Mr. Bindley were eventually acquired by the British Museum at the Duke of Buckingham's sale in 1849, while those which belonged to Mr. Heber are now to be found on the shelves of the Britwell library. Dibdin informs us that 'a great number of poetical tracts was disposed of, previous to the sale, to Dr. Farmer, who gave not more than forty guineas for them.' Two Caxtons in the sale--the _Mirrour of the World_ and _Caton_--fetched respectively five guineas and four guineas, and a collection of plays, in twenty-one volumes, by Gascoigne, Dekker, etc., sold for thirty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings.

[Illustration: SIR HANS SLOANE, BART.]

Luttrell compiled a chronicle of contemporary events, which was frequently quoted by Lord Macaulay in his _History of England_. This remained in manuscript for many years in the library of All Souls' College, Oxford, but in 1857 it was printed in six volumes by the Delegates of the University Press under the title of _A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714_. He also left a personal diary in English, but whimsically written in Greek characters, consisting principally of entries recording the hours of his rising and going to bed, the manner in which he spent his time, what friends called to see him, the sermons he heard, where and how he dined, and the occasions, which were not infrequent, when he took too much wine. This manuscript is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 10447).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: _Notes and Queries._ Second Series. Vol. xii., page 78.]

[Footnote 55: See _London Gazette_, October 16-19, 1693.]

SIR HANS SLOANE, BART., 1660-1753

Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., was born on the 16th of April 1660 at Killileagh, County Down, Ireland. His father, Alexander Sloane, was a Scotchman, who had settled in Ireland on his appointment to the post of receiver-general of the estates of Lord Claneboy, afterwards Earl of Clanricarde.[56] Hans Sloane gave early indications of unusual ability, and as soon as his health, which was delicate, would permit, he came to London, and devoted himself to the study of medicine, and the kindred sciences of chemistry and botany. In 1683 he went to Paris, which at that time possessed greater facilities for medical education than could be found in London. Having taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Orange in July 1683, he made a tour in France, and towards the close of the year 1684 he returned to England and settled in London. In 1685 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1687 he was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians. His love for scientific research led him to accept the offer of the post of physician to the Duke of Albemarle, who had been recently appointed Governor-General of the West India Colonies. He was also appointed physician to the West Indian fleet. He set sail for Jamaica on the 12th of September 1687, and reached Port Royal on the 19th of December; but in consequence of the death of the Duke, which took place towards the end of the following year, Sloane returned to England in May 1689, bringing with him large collections in all branches of natural history, which he had obtained in Madeira, as well as in Jamaica and other West Indian islands. In 1693 Sloane was appointed to the Secretaryship of the Royal Society, and in 1727 he had the honour of succeeding Sir Isaac Newton as President. His professional career was a very successful one. In 1712 he was made Physician-Extraordinary to Queen Anne, whom he attended during her last illness; and in 1716 he was created a baronet by King George I., who also bestowed on him the post of Physician-General to the Forces. On the accession of King George II. in 1727 he was appointed First Physician to the King. He was elected President of the College of Physicians in 1719, and held the office till 1735. In 1741 he removed his museum and library from his residence in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, to the fine old manor-house of Chelsea, which he had purchased from the family of Cheyne. Here he spent his time in the society of his friends, and in enriching and arranging the treasures he had collected. He died after a short illness on the 11th of January 1753, in the ninety-third year of his age, and was buried in Chelsea church, where a monument was erected to his memory by his daughters. Sir Hans Sloane married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Alderman Langley, and widow of Fulk Rose of Jamaica, by whom he had four children, two of whom died young. Sarah, the elder of the two daughters who survived their father, married George Stanley of Poultons, Hampshire; the younger, Elizabeth, married Colonel Charles Cadogan, afterwards second Baron Cadogan.

A table drawn up by Sloane's trustees immediately after his death shows that, in addition to his splendid natural history museum, his collections comprised between forty and fifty thousand printed books, three thousand five hundred and sixteen manuscripts,[57] and six hundred and fifty-seven pictures and drawings. The coins and medals amounted to thirty-two thousand, and other antiquities to two thousand six hundred and thirty-five. Sir Hans Sloane expressed a desire in his will that his collection in all its branches might be kept and preserved together after his decease, and that an application should be made by his trustees to Parliament for its purchase for twenty thousand pounds, a sum which did not represent more than a fourth of its real value. This application was favourably received, and in June 1753 an Act was passed, 'For the purchase of the Museum, or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts; and for providing one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said Collections; and of the Cottonian Library, and of the additions thereto.' The Act further enacted that a board, consisting of forty-two trustees, be appointed for putting the same into execution; and at a general meeting of this body, held at the Cockpit, at Whitehall, on the 3rd of April 1754, it was resolved to accept of a proposal which had been made to them, of the 'Capital Mansion House, called Montague House, and the freehold ground thereto belonging, for the general repository of the British Museum, on the terms of ten thousand pounds.'[58] Although the Act had been passed, considerable difficulty was experienced in finding the purchase-money. When the matter was brought before George II. he dismissed it with the remark, 'I don't think there are twenty thousand pounds in the Treasury'; and eventually it was proposed that the needful sum should be raised by a public lottery, which should consist of 'a hundred thousand shares, at three pounds a share; that two hundred thousand pounds should be allotted as prizes, and that the remaining hundred thousand--less the expenses of the lottery itself--should be applied to the threefold purposes of the Act, namely, the purchase of the Sloane and Harleian Collections; the providing of a Repository; and the creation of an annual income for future maintenance.'[59] Sir Hans Sloane's principal work was the _Natural History of Jamaica_, 2 vols., London, 1707-25, which occupied him for no less than thirty-eight years.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: Edwards, _Lives of Founders of the British Museum_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 57: There are 4100 volumes of Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. A catalogue of them, compiled by the Rev. S. Ayscough, was printed in 1782.]

[Footnote 58: Sims, _Handbook to the Library of the British Museum_, p. 2.]

PETER LE NEVE, 1661-1729

Peter Le Neve was the son of Francis Neve (the _Le_ had been dropped for several generations, when Peter resumed the ancient form of his name), a citizen and draper of London. He was born in London in 1661, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. From an early age he displayed a great love of antiquarian pursuits, and in 1707, when the Society of Antiquaries was reconstituted, he was chosen the first President, which office he held until 1724. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society. On the 17th of January 1690, Le Neve was appointed Rouge-Croix Pursuivant; on April the 5th 1704, Richmond Herald; and on the 25th of the succeeding month Norroy King-at-Arms. He died on the 24th of September 1729, and was buried in the chancel of Great Witchingham Church, Norfolk. Oldys states that Le Neve had 'a vast treasure of Historical Antiquities, consisting of about 2000 printed books and above 1200 MSS., interspersed with many notes of his own.' Oldys also mentions that 'it is said that he had some pique with the Heralds' Office a little before his death, so cut them off with a single book, otherwise he had left them the whole of his library.'[60]

'Honest Tom Martin of Palgrave,' the antiquary, who was Le Neve's executor, and who married his widow, appears to have succeeded to the bulk of Le Neve's collections. They were sold by auction in 1731. The title-page of the sale catalogue reads:--'A Catalogue of the valuable library collected by that truly Laborious Antiquary, Peter Le Neve, Esq.; Norroy King of Arms (lately deceas'd), containing most of the Books relating to the History and Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, and many other nations. With more than a thousand Manuscripts of Abstracts of Records, etc., Heraldry, and other Sciences, several of which are very antient, and written on Vellum. Also, a great number of Pedigrees of Noble Families, etc. With many other Curiosities. Which will be Sold by Auction the 22nd Day of February 1730-1 at the Bedford Coffee-house, in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden. Beginning every Evening at Five a-Clock. By John Wilcox, Bookseller in Little Britain.'

The sale appears to have lasted about a fortnight, and was followed by a small supplementary one on March the 19th, of 'Some Curiosities and Manuscripts omitted in the previous Catalogue.' A copy of the sale catalogue, with the prices and the names of some of the purchasers in manuscript, is to be found in the British Museum.

Although Le Neve was an ardent collector and compiled a considerable number of works on heraldry and topography, many of which are preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, Heralds' College, and the Record Office, he does not appear to have printed anything. His list of _Pedigrees of Knights made by King Charles II., King James II., King William III. and Queen Mary, King William alone, and Queen Anne_, was edited by Dr. G.W. Marshall for the Harleian Society in 1873.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59: Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, p. 308.]

[Footnote 60: _Memoir of Oldys_, etc. London, 1862, p. 76.]

ROBERT HARLEY, FIRST EARL OF OXFORD, 1661-1724

AND

EDWARD HARLEY, SECOND EARL OF OXFORD, 1689-1741

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was born in Bow Street, Covent Garden, on the 5th of December 1661, was the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, K.B., who was Governor of Dunkirk after the Restoration. Entering Parliament in 1689, in 1701 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons; in 1710 he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in 1711 he was created Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, and made Lord High Treasurer, from which post he was dismissed in 1714. In 1713 he received the Order of the Garter. He was impeached by the House of Commons in 1715; acquitted without being brought to a trial in 1717, and died at his house in Albemarle Street, London, on the 21st of May 1724.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE BOOK-PLATES OF ROBERT HARLEY AS A COMMONER.]

Harley was the greatest collector of his time, and formed a splendid library, which, at the time of his death, besides the printed books, contained more than six thousand volumes of manuscripts, and an immense number of charters, rolls, and deeds. This noble collection was inherited by Lord Oxford's son Edward, second Earl, by whom it was very considerably augmented in every department; and when he died in June 1741, the volumes of manuscripts amounted to seven thousand six hundred and thirty-nine volumes, exclusive of fourteen thousand two hundred and thirty-six original rolls, deeds, charters, and other legal documents. The printed books were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, the pamphlets at about three hundred and fifty thousand, and the prints at forty-one thousand. In the _Account of London Libraries_, by Bagford and Oldys, it is stated:--

[Illustration: ROBERT HARLEY'S BOOK-STAMP.]

'For libraries in more expressly particular hands, the first and most universal in England, must be reckoned the Harleian, or Earl of Oxford's library, begun by his father and continued by himself. He has the rarest books of all countries, languages, and sciences, and the greatest number of any collector we ever had, in manuscript as well as in print, thousands of fragments, some a thousand years old; vellum books, some written over; all things especially respecting English History, personal as well as local, particular as well as general. He has a great collection of Bibles, etc., in all versions, and editions of all the first printed books, classics, and others of our own country, ecclesiastical as well as civil, by Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, Rastall, Grafton, and the greatest number of pamphlets and prints of English heads of any other person. Abundance of ledgers, chartularies, old deeds, charters, patents, grants, covenants, pedigrees, inscriptions, etc., and original letters of eminent persons, as many as would fill two hundred volumes; all the collections of his librarian Humphrey Wanley, of Stow, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, Prynne, Bishop Stillingfleet, John Bagford, Le Neve, and the flower of a hundred other libraries.'

The library was remarkably rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin classics (there were as many as one hundred and fifteen volumes of various works by Cicero printed in the fifteenth century), English early poetry and romances, and books of prints, sculpture and drawings. The collection of Caxtons was both large and fine, and it comprised the only perfect copy known of the _Book of the Noble Histories of King Arthur_, which, nearly a century and a half after the dispersion of the Harleian library, was purchased for nineteen hundred and fifty pounds, at the sale of the Earl of Jersey's books in 1885, by Mr. Quaritch for a New York collector.

The volumes in the library were all handsomely bound; mostly in red morocco, and tooled with a distinctive kind of ornamentation, which has since been known as the Harleian Style. This commonly consisted of a centrepiece, generally of a lozenge form, surrounded by a broad and elegant border. Eliot and Chapman were the binders of the greater portion of the books, at a cost, it is said, of upwards of eighteen thousand pounds.

Humphrey Wanley was for several years librarian to both the first and the second Earls, and he commenced the compilation of the catalogue of the manuscripts, which was finally completed by the Rev. Thomas Hartwell Horne in 1812. Among the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum is a diary,[61] kept by Wanley, which contains much interesting information respecting the library. Some time after Wanley's decease, William Oldys was appointed librarian at a salary of two hundred pounds per annum.

The second Earl of Oxford had a passion for building and landscape gardening, as well as for collecting books, paintings and curiosities, and some years before his death these expensive tastes involved him in pecuniary difficulties. George Vertue, the eminent engraver, in one of his commonplace-books, now preserved in the British Museum,[62] thus feelingly refers to the embarrassed circumstances of the Earl:--'My good Lord, lately growing heavy and pensive in his affairs, which for some late years have mortify'd his mind.... This lately manifestly appeared in his change of complexion; his face fallen less; his colour and eyes turned yellow to a great degree; his stomach wasted and gone; and a dead weight presses continually, without sign of relief, on his mind.'

A fortnight after this was written Vertue had to lament his loss.

Lord Oxford died in Dover Street, London, on the 16th of June 1741, and on his decease the library became the property of Margaret, Duchess of Portland, the only daughter and heiress of the Earl, who sold the printed books to Mr. Thomas Osborne, the bookseller of Gray's Inn, for about thirteen thousand pounds. The manuscripts were purchased by Parliament in 1753 for the sum of ten thousand pounds, and were placed in the library of the British Museum four years later. The portraits, coins, and miscellaneous curiosities were sold by auction in March 1742.

Osborne bought Lord Oxford's books with a view of disposing of them by sale, and engaged Dr. Johnson and Oldys to compile a catalogue of them, which was printed in four volumes octavo in the years 1743-44. A fifth volume was issued in 1745, but this is nothing more than an enumeration of Osborne's unsold stock. Osborne also published in eight volumes quarto, '_The Harleian Miscellany: or, a Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts_, as well as in Manuscript as in Print, found in the late Earl of Oxford's library, interspersed with Historical, Political and Critical notes. London 1744-46.' This work, which was edited by Oldys, was republished by Thomas Park in 1808-12, with two supplemental volumes. A catalogue of the pamphlets contained in the _Harleian Miscellany_ was also prepared by Oldys, and printed in a quarto volume, which appeared in 1746; and a _Collection of Voyages and Travels_, compiled from the _Miscellany_, was published in two volumes folio in 1745.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: Lansdowne MSS. 771, 772.]

[Footnote 62: Add. MS. 23,093.]

JOHN BRIDGES, 1666-1724

John Bridges, the author of _The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire_, was born in 1666 at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire. He was appointed Solicitor of the Customs in 1695, a Commissioner of the Customs in 1711, and in 1715 a Cashier of the Excise. He was a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He died on the 16th of March 1724.

Bridges, who is mentioned with great respect by Hearne and other antiquaries, was, says Dibdin, 'a gentleman, a scholar, and a notorious book-collector.' His library, which consisted of 'above 4000 Books and Manuscripts in all languages and faculties, particularly in Classics and History, and especially the History and Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland,'[63] was sold at his chambers, No. 6 Lincoln's Inn, by Mr. Cock, on the 7th of February 1726, and twenty-six following days. The number of lots was four thousand three hundred and thirteen, and the total proceeds of the sale were four thousand one hundred and sixty pounds, twelve shillings. The books sold well, and Hearne, in his _Diary_, under February 15th, 1726, writes: 'My late friend John Bridges esqr.'s books being now selling by auction in London (they began to be sold on Monday the 7th inst.). I hear they go very high, being fair books, in good condition, and most of them finely bound. This afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls' College, I suppose Dr. Clarke, that gave a commission of 8s. for an Homer in 2 vols., a small 8 deg. if not 12 deg.. But it went for six guineas. People are in love with good binding more than good reading.' Humphrey Wanley, who was a buyer at the sale for Lord Oxford's library, was much dissatisfied with the large sums which the books fetched, and suspected there was a conspiracy to run up the prices. He writes in his _Diary_ (February 9, 1725-26): 'Went to Mr. Bridges's chambers, but could not see the three fine MSS. again, the Doctor his brother having locked them up. He openly bid for his own books, merely to enhance their price, and the auction proves to be, what I thought it would become, very knavish'; and on the 11th of February he adds: 'Yesterday at five I met Mr. Noel and tarried long with him; we settled then the whole affair touching his bidding for my Lord [Oxford] at the roguish auction of Mr. Bridges's books. The Reverend Doctor one of the brothers hath already displayed himself so remarkably as to be both hated and despised, and a combination among the booksellers will soon be against him and his brother-in-law, a lawyer. These are men of the keenest avarice, and their very looks (according to what I am told) dart out harping-irons. I have ordered Mr. Noel to drop every article in my Lord's commissions when they shall be hoisted up to too high a price. Yet I desired that my Lord may have the Russian Bible, which I know full well to be a very rare and a very good book.'

A copy of the sale catalogue, with the prices in manuscript, is preserved in the library of the British Museum.

Bridges expended several thousand pounds in making collections for his _History of Northamptonshire_, which, after many delays, was published under the editorship of the Rev. Peter Whalley in 1791.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 63: Description of library in sale catalogue.]

JOHN MURRAY, 1670-1748

John Murray of Sacombe in Hertfordshire, who was born on the 24th of January 1670, and died on September 13, 1748, was an indefatigable collector of books. In the _Account of London Libraries_, by Bagford and Oldys, we read that he 'made scarce publications of English authors his inquiry all his life,' and that he had been 'a collector above forty years at all sales, auctions, shops, and stalls, partly for his own curiosity, and partly to oblige such authors and gentry as have commissioned him.' He was a friend of Hearne, who frequently mentions him in his works and _Diary_. Hearne states that Murray told him he began to collect books at thirteen years of age. Dr. Rawlinson possessed a painting of him, which was engraved by Vertue. He is leaning on three books, inscribed 'T. Hearne, V. III., Sessions Papers, and Tryals of Witches,' and holding a fourth under his coat. Underneath are the following lines, signed G.N.:--

'Hoh Maister John Murray of Sacomb! The Works of old Time to collect was his pride, Till Oblivion dreaded his Care: Regardless of Friends, intestate he dy'd, So the Rooks and the Crows were his Heir.'

DR. MEAD, 1673-1754

Dr. Richard Mead, the eminent physician and collector, was born at Stepney, Middlesex, on the 11th of August 1673. His father, Matthew Mead, was a divine of some eminence among the dissenters, and during the Commonwealth was minister of Stepney, but was ejected for nonconformity in 1662. Richard Mead was first educated at home, and at a private school kept by Mr. Thomas Singleton, who was at one time second master at Eton. At the age of sixteen he entered the University of Utrecht, where he remained three years, and then proceeded to the University of Leyden for the purpose of qualifying himself for the medical profession. In 1695 he made a tour in Italy, and after taking the degree of doctor of philosophy and physic at Padua, he visited Naples and Rome. In 1696 he returned to England, and began to practise at Stepney, in the house in which he was born. In 1703 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year he was chosen Physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, and took a house in Crutched Friars, in the City of London, where he resided until 1711, when he removed to one in Austin Friars, which had formerly been inhabited by Dr. Howe. In 1707 the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and in the following year he was admitted a member of the College of Physicians, of which institution he was elected a Fellow in 1716. On the death of Dr. Radcliffe in 1714, Mead removed to the residence which had been occupied by that distinguished physician in Bloomsbury Square, and in 1720 he took a house in Great Ormond Street, which he filled with books, pictures and antiquities, and where he lived until his death on the 16th of January 1754. In 1727 he was appointed Physician-in-Ordinary to King George II., and in 1734 he was offered the post of President of the College of Physicians, but this he declined, being desirous of retirement. He was twice married. Dr. Mead was the foremost medical man of his time, and his professional income was a very large one. The greater part of his wealth he devoted to the patronage of science and literature, and to the acquisition of his valuable collections, which were always open to students who wished to consult them. He had a very large circle of attached friends, amongst whom were Newton, Halley, Pope, Bentley, and Freind; and Dr. Johnson said of him that he 'lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any other man.' Pope refers to his love of books in his epistle to Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington, _Of the Use of Riches_:--

'Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone, And books for Mead and butterflies for Sloane.'

[Illustration: DR. MEAD.]

Dr. Mead's library consisted of upwards of ten thousand printed volumes, and many rare and valuable manuscripts. The collection was especially rich in medical works, and in early editions of the classics. Among the latter were to be found the Spira Virgil of 1470 on vellum, and the 1469 and 1472 editions of the _Historia Naturalis_ of Pliny; the former of which was bought at the sale of his books by the King of France for eleven guineas, and the latter by a bookseller named Willock for eighteen guineas. One of the choicest manuscripts was a missal said to have been illuminated by Raphael and his pupils for Claude, wife of Francis I., King of France. This was acquired by Horace Walpole for forty-eight pounds, six shillings. It was bought at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842 by Earl Waldegrave for one hundred and fifteen pounds, ten shillings. The books were generally very fine copies and handsomely bound. After Mead's death they were sold by auction by Samuel Baker of Covent Garden, in two parts, and realised five thousand five hundred and eighteen pounds, ten shillings and elevenpence, including nineteen pounds, six shillings and sixpence for fifteen bookcases. The sale of the first part commenced on the 18th November 1754, and lasted twenty-eight days; that of the second part began on the 7th of April 1755, and lasted twenty-nine days. The pictures, prints and drawings, antiquities and coins and medals, were sold in the early part of 1755 for ten thousand five hundred and fifty pounds, eighteen shillings; the pictures fetching three thousand four hundred and seventeen pounds, eleven shillings--about six or seven hundred pounds more than Mead gave for them. Some portions of his collections were sold during his lifetime.

Dr. Mead was the author of several medical works, of which his _Discourse on the Plague_, published in 1720, was the best. The magnificent edition of De Thou's _Historia Sui Temporis_, in seven folio volumes, London, 1733, edited by Samuel Buckley; and the _Opus Majus_ of Roger Bacon, London, 1733, edited by Dr. Samuel Jebb, were produced partly at his expense. Collected editions of his medical works were published in London in 1762, and in Edinburgh in 1765. His life has been written by Dr. Maty, the second Principal Librarian of the British Museum; and a very interesting account of his library, by Mr. Austin Dobson, will be found in the first volume of _Bibliographica_. A portrait of him by Allan Ramsay, painted in 1740, is in the National Portrait Gallery, and a bust of him by Roubillac is preserved in the College of Physicians. His gold-headed cane, given him by Dr. Radcliffe, is also kept in that institution.

[Illustration: EARL OF SUNDERLAND.]

CHARLES SPENCER, THIRD EARL OF SUNDERLAND, 1674-1722

Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland, who was born in 1674, was the second son of Robert, second Earl, by Anne, daughter of George Digby, second Earl of Bristol. He appears, even when a boy, to have displayed much ability, for as early as 1688, Evelyn, who was on very intimate terms with the Spencer family, mentions him as 'a youth of extraordinary hopes, very learned for his age, and ingenious, and under a governor of great merit.' This governor appears to have been Dr. Trimnell, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. When quite young, Lord Spencer manifested a great love for books, and already possessed a considerable collection of them, for he was but twenty years of age when Evelyn wrote to him: 'I was with great appetite coming to take a repast in the noble library which I hear you have lately purchased.' Evelyn's Diary also contains several notices of the collection, and particularly mentions the purchase of the books of Sir Charles Scarborough, an eminent physician, which were at one time destined for the Royal Library.

At the general election in 1695 Lord Spencer was returned both for Tiverton in Devonshire, and for Heydon in Yorkshire. He elected to sit for Tiverton, which he represented in Parliament until the death of his father in 1702, when he succeeded to the title, his elder brother having died in 1688. While a member of the House of Commons he appears to have held opinions of a somewhat republican nature; and Swift tells us, 'he would often, among his familiar friends, refuse the title of Lord (as he had done to myself), swear he would never be called otherwise than Charles Spencer, and hoped to see the day when there should not be a peer in England.' These views, however, were very considerably modified on his succession to the title. In 1705 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Court of Vienna, to congratulate the Emperor Joseph on his accession to the crown. Shortly after his return to England, Sunderland, notwithstanding the opposition of Queen Anne, who always entertained a great antipathy for him, was made one of the Secretaries of State, an office which he held until June 1710, when he was dismissed by the Queen, who wished, however, to bestow on him a pension of three thousand pounds a year. This he refused, with the remark, 'I am glad your Majesty is satisfied I have done my duty. But if I cannot have the honour to serve my country, I will not plunder it.' He remained out of office during the remainder of Anne's reign, but on the accession of George I. to the throne he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. This post, however, was by no means agreeable to him, for he regarded it as a kind of banishment, and during the short time he held it he never crossed the Channel. In 1715 he was appointed Lord Privy Seal, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland in 1716, and in April 1717 he was a second time made a Secretary of State, his friend Addison receiving a like appointment. On the 16th of March 1718 he became Lord-President of the Council, and on the 21st of the same month First Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, which office he resigned on the 3rd of April 1721. He died, after a short illness, on the 19th of April 1722.

Lord Sunderland was thrice married, and had children by all his wives. By his second wife, Anne, daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, he had four sons and a daughter. The eldest son died in infancy; Robert, the second, succeeded to the earldom, and died unmarried on the 15th of September 1729; Charles, the third, became Earl of Sunderland on the death of his elder brother, and in 1733 second Duke of Marlborough, but he did not obtain the Marlborough estates until the demise of the Dowager Duchess in 1744; John, the youngest son, who, by a family arrangement, then succeeded to the Spencer estates, was the father of the first Earl Spencer.

Lord Sunderland was a most liberal patron of literature, and the splendid library which he commenced in his early youth, and sedulously augmented till the time of his death, bore witness for several generations to his love of books. This noble collection was kept in his town house, which stood between Sackville Street and Burlington House, where it occupied five large rooms, and at the time of the Earl's death in 1722 consisted of about twenty thousand printed volumes, together with some choice manuscripts, and was valued at upwards of thirty thousand pounds; the King of Denmark being anxious to purchase it of his heirs for that sum. Charles, the fifth Earl, also took great interest in the library, and added a considerable number of books to it, among which was a copy on vellum of the Livy of 1470, printed at Venice by Vendelin de Spira. Only one other perfect copy on vellum of this edition is known to exist. In 1749 the library was removed to Blenheim, where it remained until 1881. It was sold by Puttick and Simpson in five portions in 1881, 1882 and 1883, and the entire sale, which consisted of thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight lots, realised fifty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one pounds, six shillings.

Lord Sunderland was always very liberal in his dealings with booksellers, and the prices which he gave for his books frequently gave umbrage to other collectors. Humphrey Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, when giving in his Diary an account of a book-sale which took place in 1721, mentions that: 'Some books went for unaccountably high prices, which were bought by Mr. Vaillant, the bookseller, who had an unlimited commission from the Earl of Sunderland. The booksellers upon this sale intend to raise the prices of philological books of the first editions, and indeed of all old editions, accordingly. Thus Mr. Noel told me that he has actually agreed to sell the Earl of Sunderland six ... printed books, now coming up the river, for fifty pounds per book, although my Lord gives no such prices.' And on the demise of the Earl, Wanley wrote: 'This day died the Earl of Sunderland, which I the rather note here, because I believe by reason of his decease some benefit may accrue to this Library, even in case his relatives will part with none of his books. I mean, by his raising the price of books no higher now; so that, in probability, this commodity may fall in the market, and any gentleman be permitted to buy an uncommon old book for less than forty or fifty pounds.'

BRIAN FAIRFAX, 1676-1749

Brian Fairfax, who was the eldest son of Brian Fairfax, author of the _Life of the Duke of Buckingham_ and other works, was born on the 11th of April 1676. He received his early education at Westminster School, where he entered as a Queen's Scholar, and from whence he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, taking the degrees of B.A. in 1697 and M.A. in 1700. He became a Fellow of his College in 1698. In 1723 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Customs, a post he held until his death on the 9th of January 1749.

Fairfax collected in his house in Panton Square a very valuable library, which, together with a considerable fortune, a gallery of pictures, a fine collection of Greek, Roman, and English coins and medals, and other curiosities, he bequeathed to his relative, the Hon. Robert Fairfax, of Leeds Castle, Kent, afterwards seventh Lord Fairfax. Robert Fairfax intended to sell the library by auction on the 26th of April 1756, and the seventeen following days; but after having advertised it, he privately disposed of it for two thousand pounds to his kinsman, Mr. Francis Child,[64] of Osterley Park, Isleworth, Middlesex, and the printed catalogues, with the exception of twenty, were suppressed.[65] The title to the catalogue of the intended sale reads: 'A Catalogue of the Entire and Valuable Library of the Honourable Bryan Fairfax, Esq., one of the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs, Deceased: which will be sold by Auction, by Mr. Prestage, at his great room the end of Savile Row, next Conduit Street, Hanover Square. To begin selling on Monday, April 26, 1756, and to continue for seventeen days successively. Catalogues to be had at the Place of Sale, and at Mr. Barthoe's, Bookseller in Exeter Exchange in the Strand. Price Six-pence, pp. 68. 8 deg..' In a copy of the catalogue mentioned by Dibdin in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, the price at which each article was valued is given for the express purpose of the purchase of the whole by Mr. Child. Among the prices thus noted are those of the nine Caxtons which the library contained, which altogether amounted to thirty-three pounds, four shillings. _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_ was valued at eight guineas, the _Confessio Amantis_ at three pounds, and the _Histories of King Arthur_ at two pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence. The prices obtained for these books at the sale of the Osterley library in 1885 were eighteen hundred and twenty pounds, eight hundred and ten pounds, and nineteen hundred and fifty pounds, respectively. The collection became part of the Osterley library, of which a catalogue was made in 1771 by Dr. Thomas Morell, assisted by the preceding labours of the Rev. Dr. Winchester. Only twenty-five copies of this catalogue were printed.

Brian Fairfax's pictures, statues, urns, and other antiquities were sold by auction on April the 6th and 7th, and the prints and drawings on May the 4th and 5th, 1756.

In 1819 the library passed by marriage into the family of the Earls of Jersey, and on the 6th of May 1885 and seven following days it was sold by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge. The sale consisted of one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven lots, which realised the large sum of thirteen thousand and seven pounds, nine shillings.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 64: The first wife of the Hon. Robert Fairfax was Martha Collins, niece to Sir Francis Child, Bart.]

[Footnote 65: Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. v. p. 326.]

THOMAS HEARNE, 1678-1735

Thomas Hearne, the eminent antiquary, was born in July 1678 at Littlefield Green in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire, where his father, George Hearne, was the parish clerk. At a very early age he showed such marked ability that Francis Cherry, the nonjuror, who resided at Shottesbrooke in the same neighbourhood, undertook to defray the cost of his education, and first sent him to the free school of Bray, and afterwards, in 1695, to St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. This kindness is frequently referred to by Hearne, who speaks of his benefactor as 'my best friend and patron.' He took the degrees of B.A. in 1679, and M.A. four years later. While an undergraduate, Dr. John Mill, the Principal of St. Edmund Hall, and Dr. Grabe employed him in the collation of manuscripts; and Hearne tells us in his _Autobiography_ that, after taking his B.A. degree, 'he constantly went to the Bodleian Library every day, and studied there as long as the time allowed by the Statutes would admit.' His industry and learning attracted the notice of Dr. Hudson, who had been recently elected Keeper of the Bodleian Library, and, in 1701, by his influence Hearne was made Janitor, or Assistant, in the Library, succeeding to the post of Second Librarian in 1712. The duties of this appointment he continued to perform until the 23rd of January 1716, the last day fixed by the Act for taking the oaths to the Hanoverian dynasty. These oaths as a nonjuror he could not conscientiously take, and he was in consequence deprived of his office on the ground of 'neglect of duty'; but the Rev. W.D. Macray, in his _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, tells us that 'to the end of his life he maintained that he was still, _de jure_, Sub-librarian, and with a quaint pertinacity, regularly at the end of each term and half-year, up to March 30, 1735, continued to set down, in one of the volumes of his Diary, that no fees had been paid him, and that his half-year's salary was due.' Hearne continued a staunch nonjuror to the end of his days, and refused many University appointments, including the Keepership of the Bodleian Library, which he might have had, had he been willing to take the oath of allegiance to the government; but he preferred, to use his own words, 'a good conscience before all manner of preferment and worldly honour.' The Earl of Oxford offered to make him his librarian on Wanley's death, but this post he also declined, and continued to reside to the end of his life at St. Edmund Hall, engaged in preparing and publishing his various antiquarian and historical works. He died on the 10th of June 1735, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's-in-the-East at Oxford. Hearne, who was a man of unwearied industry, and a most devoted antiquary, is described by Pope in the _Dunciad_, under the title of Wormius--

'But who is he, in closet close ypent, Of sober face, with learned dust besprent? Right well mine eyes arede the myster wight, On parchment scraps y-fed, and Wormius hight.'

[Illustration: _THOMAS HEARNE M.A. of Edmund Hall Oxon._]

Hearne amassed a considerable collection of manuscripts and printed books, of which he made a catalogue, with the prices he gave for them. This manuscript came into the possession of Mr. Beriah Botfield, M.P., of Norton Hall, Northamptonshire, who privately printed some extracts from it in 1848.

Hearne left all his manuscripts and books with manuscript notes to Mr. William Bedford, son of the nonjuring bishop, Hilkiah Bedford, whose widow sold them to Dr. Richard Rawlinson for one hundred guineas, and by him they were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. Hearne's diary and note-books, in about one hundred and fifty small duodecimo volumes, were among them.[66] His printed books were sold by Thomas Osborne on the 16th of February 1736, and following days. The title-page of the catalogue reads: 'A Catalogue of the Valuable Library of that great Antiquarian Mr. Tho. Hearne of Oxford: and of another Gentleman of Note. Consisting of a very great Variety of Uncommon Books, and scarce ever to be met withal.

Which will begin to be sold very cheap, the lowest Price mark'd in each Book, at T. Osborne's Shop in Gray's Inn, on Monday the 16th day of February 1735-36.'

The title-page has also a small portrait of Hearne, with the following lines below it:--

'Pox on't quoth time to Thomas Hearne, Whatever I forget, you learn.'

The catalogue contains six thousand seven hundred and seventy-six lots.

Hearne's publications, which were almost all printed by subscription at Oxford, are very numerous. Among the most valuable are an edition of Livy in 6 vols., 1708; the _Life of Alfred the Great_, from Sir John Spelman's manuscript in the Bodleian Library, 1710; Leland's _Itinerary_, 9 vols., 1710; Leland's _Collectanea_, 6 vols., 1715; Roper's _Life of Sir Thomas More_, 1716; Camden's _Annals_, 3 vols., 1717; _Curious Discourses by Eminent Antiquaries_, 1720; Robert of Gloucester's _Chronicle_, 2 vols., 1724; Peter of Langtoft's _Chronicle_, 2 vols., 1725; _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, 2 vols., 1728; and Walter of Hemingford's _History_, 2 vols., 1731.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 66: Extracts from these volumes were published by Dr. Bliss in 1857, and again in 1869, under the title of _Reliquiae Hearnianae_; and Hearne's _Remarks and Collections_ are now being printed by the Oxford Historical Society.]

THOMAS RAWLINSON, 1681-1725

Thomas Rawlinson, who, Dibdin says, 'may be called the Leviathan of book-collectors during nearly the first thirty years of the eighteenth century,' was born in the Old Bailey on the 25th of March 1681. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Rawlinson, Lord Mayor of London in 1705-6, by Mary, eldest daughter of Richard Tayler, of Turnham Green, Middlesex, who kept the Devil Tavern near Temple Bar. He was also an elder brother of Dr. Richard Rawlinson, the nonjuring bishop, who was himself an ardent collector. In 1699 he matriculated at the University of Oxford from St. John's College, having been previously educated at Cheam under William Day, and at Eton. He was called to the bar in 1705, and applied himself to the study of municipal law; but three years later, on the death of his father in 1708, who left him a large estate, he devoted himself to the collection of books, manuscripts and pictures. His love for books appears to have been early fostered by his grandfather, Richard Tayler, who settled upon him, while a schoolboy at Eton, an annuity of fourteen pounds per annum for his life to buy books with; 'which,' Hearne informs us in his Diary, 'he not only fully expended, and nobly answered the end of the donor, but indeed laid out his whole fortune this way, so as to acquire a collection of books, both for number and value, hardly to be equalled by any one study in England.' For some years Rawlinson resided in Gray's Inn, but in 1716, having filled his four rooms so completely with books that he was obliged to sleep in the passage, he was compelled to move, and he took lodgings at London House, in Aldersgate Street, an ancient palace of the bishops of London, but at that time the residence of Mr. Samuel May, a wealthy druggist. Here he lived, says Oldys, 'in his bundles, piles, and bulwarks of paper, in dust and cobwebs,' until the 6th of August 1725, when he died, and was buried in St. Botolph's Church, Aldersgate Street.

Rawlinson was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries. He was also a Governor of Bridewell and Bethlehem Hospitals. About a year before his decease he married his servant, Amy Frewin, but left no issue.

Towards the end of his life Rawlinson became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and he sold a portion of his collection by auction to meet his liabilities. Prior to his death there were five sales, the first of which took place on the 4th of December 1721, which realised two thousand four hundred and nine pounds. But when he died an enormous number of books were still left, and it required eleven additional sales, which extended to March 1734, to dispose of them and the manuscripts, of which there were upwards of a thousand. These sales lasted on an average for more than twenty-one days each, but it should be observed that they took place in the evening, generally commencing at five o'clock. All Rawlinson's books were sold by Thomas Ballard, the bookseller, at the St. Paul's Coffee House, with the exception of those disposed of at the seventh and eighth sales, which were sold by Charles Davis, the bookseller; the former at London House, and the latter at the Bedford Coffee House, in the great Piazza, Covent Garden. In addition to the printed books and manuscripts, Rawlinson's gallery of paintings was sold at the Two Golden Bulls in Hart Street, Covent Garden, on April the 4th and 5th 1734, in one hundred and seventeen lots. Among the portraits was one in crayons of Rawlinson by his brother Richard.

Copies of the sale catalogues of Thomas Rawlinson's books are very rare, but the Bodleian Library possesses an entire set of them, almost all of which are marked with the prices which the books fetched, while two or three have also the names of the purchasers. A fairly correct list of them is given by Dibdin in his _Bibliomania_, which he made from a complete collection of them in the Heber library. The catalogue of the manuscripts was compiled by Rawlinson's brother Richard.

Rawlinson's books appear to have realised but poor prices, for Hearne writes in his Diary (Nov. 10th, 1734), that 'Dr. Rawlinson by the sale of his brother's books hath not rais'd near the money expected. For, it seems, they have ill answer'd, however good books; the MSS. worse, and what the prints will do is as yet undetermin'd.' No doubt the low prices were caused by the immense number of books thrown upon the market by Rawlinson's sales; for, as early as April 1723, Hearne tells us in his Diary that 'the editions of classicks of the first print (commonly called _Editiones Principes_), that used to go at prodigious prices, are now strangely lowered; occasioned, in good measure, by Mr. Tho. Rawlinson, my friend's, being forced to sell many of his books, in whose auction these books went cheap, tho' English history and antiquities went dear: and yet this gentleman was the chief man that raised many curious and classical books so high, by his generous and couragious way of bidding.' It is quite possible too that Rawlinson's books were not always in the finest condition, and had suffered from the dust and cobwebs of which Oldys speaks.

The Caxtons, of which there were upwards of five and twenty (perfect and imperfect), realised but very moderate prices. _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_ sold for two pounds, seven shillings; Gower's _Confessio Amantis_ for two pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence; _The Golden Legend_ for three pounds, twelve shillings; and Lydgate's _Life of Our Lady_ for two pounds, thirteen shillings. _The Histories of King Arthur and his Knights_, for which Mr. Quaritch, at the Earl of Jersey's sale in 1885, gave as much as nineteen hundred and fifty pounds, fetched no more than two pounds, four shillings and sixpence. These were the highest prices obtained. Many of the volumes went for a few shillings--the first edition of _The Dictes or Sayings_ for fifteen shillings, Chaucer's _Book of Fame_ for nine shillings and twopence, and _The Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan_ for four shillings and tenpence. Mr. Blades does not make any mention of Thomas Rawlinson's Caxtons in his life of the printer.

Rawlinson appears to have greatly increased the number of separate works in his library by breaking up the volumes of tracts; for Oldys complains, 'that out of one volume he made many, and all the tracts or pamphlets that came to his hands in volumes and bound together, he separated to sell them singly, so that what some curious men had been pairing and sorting half their lives to have a topic or argument complete, he by this means confused and dispersed again.'

Dr. Richard Rawlinson said of his brother that he collected in almost all faculties, but more particularly old and beautiful editions of the classical authors, and whatever directly or indirectly related to English history. As early as 1712 Rawlinson told Hearne that his library had cost him two thousand pounds, and that it was worth five thousand. Among many other choice and rare books in the collection were three copies of Archbishop Parker's _De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae_. Two of them are now in the Bodleian Library, and the Rev. W.D. Macray, in his _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, states that 'one of these is the identical copy described by Strype in his Life of Parker, and which was then in possession of Bp. Fleetwood of Ely.'

Rawlinson's passion for collecting books was evidently well known to his contemporaries, for Addison, who disliked and despised bibliomaniacs, gives a satirical account of him, under the name of 'Tom Folio,' in No. 158 of _The Tatler_. Hearne, who was greatly indebted to Rawlinson for assistance in his antiquarian labours, warmly defends his friend:--'Some gave out,' he writes, 'and published it too in printed papers, that Mr. Rawlinson understood the editions and title-pages of books only, without any other skill in them, and thereupon they styled him TOM FOLIO. But these were only buffoons, and persons of very shallow learning. 'Tis certain that Mr. Rawlinson understood the titles and editions of books better than any man I ever knew (for he had a very great memory), but besides this, he was a great reader, and had read abundantly of the best writers, ancient and modern, throughout, and was entirely master of the learning contained in them. He had digested the classicks so well as to be able readily and upon all occasions (what I have very often admired) to make use of passages from them very pertinently, what I never knew in so great perfection in any other person whatsoever.'[67]

A poem of twenty-six lines by Rawlinson on the death of the Duke of Gloucester in 1700 was printed in a collection of verses written by members of the University of Oxford on that event. This appears to be his only publication with his name attached. The pretty edition of the _Satires of Juvenal and Persius_, published at London in 1716, and edited by Michael Maittaire, was dedicated by him to Rawlinson.

It is stated in Nichols's _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_ (vol. v. p. 704) that the following inscription was found among the papers of Rawlinson, written with his own hand, and in all probability designed by him for part of an epitaph on himself:--

'Hic jacet----Vir liberrimi Spiritus qui omnes Mortales pari ratione habuit; tacuisse de Criminibus non auro vendidit. Qui, Rege dempto, neminem agnovit superiorem; illum vero, O infortunium! nunquam potuit inspicere.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 67: _Diary_, Sept. 4, 1725.]

JOSEPH SMITH, 1682-1770

[Illustration: BOOK-PLATE OF JOSEPH SMITH.]

Joseph Smith, a portion of whose collection formed the foundation of King George III.'s library, now in the British Museum, was born in 1682. Nothing appears to be known about his parents and his early years, but at the age of nineteen he took up his residence at Venice, where he spent his life, apparently engaged in commerce.[68] In 1740 he was appointed British Consul in that city, and he died there on the 6th of November 1770, aged eighty-eight.

Smith was well known as a collector of books, manuscripts, and works of art. In 1762 George III. purchased all the books Smith had amassed up to that time for about ten thousand pounds, and at a later period the king also bought his pictures, coins, and gems for the sum of twenty thousand pounds. After the sale of his library Smith still continued to collect, and the books which he subsequently acquired were sold after his death, partly by auction by Baker and Leigh at their house in York Street, Covent Garden, on Monday, January 25th, 1773, and the thirteen following days, and partly in the shop of James Robson, bookseller, in New Bond Street. Those sold by Baker and Leigh realised two thousand two hundred and forty-five pounds. A portion of his manuscripts was purchased by the Earl of Sunderland for one thousand five hundred pounds. Smith's library was rich in the best and scarcest editions of Latin, Italian and French authors. It also contained a considerable number of fine manuscripts, some of them beautifully illuminated, and many valuable books of prints and antiquities.

About 1727 Smith compiled a catalogue, which was limited to twenty-five copies, of some of the rarest books in his collection, of which a second edition with additions was published in 1737. A catalogue of his entire library was printed at Venice in 1755, and in 1767 an account of his antique gems in two volumes folio, written by Antonio Francesco Gori, was published in the same city under the title of _Dactyliotheca Smithiana_. An edition of Boccaccio's _Decamerone_ was brought out by Smith in 1729.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 68: _Dictionary of National Biography._]

DR. RICHARD RAWLINSON, 1690-1755

Richard Rawlinson was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Rawlinson, Lord Mayor of London in 1705-6, and younger brother of Thomas Rawlinson the collector. He was born in the Old Bailey on the 3rd of January 1690, and, after having received his early education at St. Paul's School and Eton, matriculated as a commoner of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1708; but, in consequence of the death of his father, he became a gentleman-commoner in the following year. He took the degrees of B.A. in 1711, M.A. in 1713, and in 1719 he was created D.C.L. On the 21st of September 1716 he was ordained deacon, and two days later, priest among the nonjurors by Bishop Jeremy Collier, in Mr. Laurence's chapel on College Hill, London.[69] After his ordination he travelled through a great part of England, and in 1719 paid a visit to France, and afterwards to the Low Countries, where he was admitted into the Universities of Utrecht and Leyden. Towards the end of the year he returned home, but in 1720 he again left England, and spent several years in France, Germany, Italy, and other parts of the Continent. In April 1726 he again came home, in consequence of the death of his brother, which took place in the preceding year. During his travels he kept a series of note-books, some of which are preserved among his miscellaneous manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. In 1728 he was consecrated bishop by the nonjuring bishops Gandy, Doughty and Blackbourne in Gandy's chapel, but he appears to have been always desirous of concealing both his clerical and episcopal character, for in a letter written in 1736 to Mr. T. Rawlins of Pophills, Warwickshire, he requests him not to address him as 'Rev.'[70] Dr. Rawlinson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1714, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1727, but later he quarrelled with both these Societies, and stipulated in his will that the recipients of his bequests should not be Fellows. He was also a Governor of Bridewell, Bethlehem, and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals.

Dr. Rawlinson lived for some time in Gray's Inn, but shortly after the death of his brother Thomas he took up his abode in the rooms which had been occupied by him in London House in Aldersgate Street. He died at Islington on the 6th of April 1755, and was buried, in accordance with a direction in a codicil to his will, in St. Giles's Church, Oxford. His heart, which he bequeathed as a token of affection to St. John's College, Oxford, is preserved in a marble urn in the chapel of that College, inscribed with the text 'Ubi thesaurus, ibi cor,' and with his name and the date of his death. It is said that Rawlinson also left instructions that a head, which he believed to be that of Counsellor Christopher Layer, the Jacobite conspirator, who was executed in 1723, should be buried with him, placed in his right hand; but this injunction, if really made, does not appear to have been complied with.[71]

[Illustration: DR. RICHARD RAWLINSON.]

Rawlinson devoted himself to antiquarian pursuits, and, like his brother Thomas, was an enthusiastic collector of manuscripts and books. The Rev. W.D. Macray, in his _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, says that his collections were 'formed abroad and at home, the choice of book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers' and grocers' waste-paper, everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from early copies of Classics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books of sailors' voyages. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London, during his time, at which he was not an omnigenous purchaser; so that students of every subject now bury themselves in his stores with great content and profit. But history in all its branches, heraldry and genealogy, biography and topography, are his especially strong points.'

Rawlinson bequeathed all his manuscripts, with the exception of private papers and letters, 'to the chancellor, masters and scholars of the University of Oxford, to be placed in the Bodleian Library, or in such other place as they should deem proper'; and he further directed that they should be 'kept separate and apart from any other collection.' All his deeds and charters, his books printed on vellum or silk, and those containing MS. notes, together with some antiquities and curiosities, were also left by him to the University. His manuscript and printed music he bequeathed to the Music School. The number of manuscripts left by him exceeded four thousand eight hundred in number, together with a large collection of charters and deeds. A catalogue of them has been made by the Rev. W.D. Macray, the author of the _Annals of the Bodleian Library_. The printed books which he selected from his library for the University amounted to between eighteen and nineteen hundred.[72] Other books and manuscripts, together with some valuable pictures and coins, were given by him to the Bodleian Library during his lifetime. The remainder of his printed books, with the exception of a few which he bequeathed to St. John's College, were sold by auction by Samuel Baker, of York Street, Covent Garden, at two sales. The first commenced on the 29th of March 1756, and lasted fifty days. It consisted of nine thousand four hundred and five lots, which fetched one thousand one hundred and sixty-one pounds, eighteen shillings and sixpence. The second sale, which, as the preface to the catalogue informs us, consisted of 'upwards of Twenty Thousand Pamphlets ... and his most Uncommon, Rare and Old Books,' began on Thursday, March 3rd, 1757, and was continued on the nine following evenings. It realised but two hundred and three pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence. These were followed by a sale of prints, books of prints and drawings, upwards of ten thousand in number. One hundred and sixty-three pounds, ten shillings and threepence, however, was all that could be obtained for them. Marked catalogues of the three sales are preserved in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum. The prices at all the sales were very low. There were three Caxtons in the first sale--_Tully of Old Age_, _Curia Sapientiae_, and the _Order of Chivalry_, which fetched respectively one pound five shillings, six shillings, and eleven shillings. The prints and drawings fared even worse than the printed books. One hundred and three prints by Albert Duerer, in two lots, sold for one pound, ten shillings and sixpence, and a large collection of woodcuts by the same artist for half a crown. Twenty-four etchings by Rembrandt, in four lots, realised but three pounds, five shillings; while eleven shillings and sixpence was all that could be got for thirty-four heads and thirty-five views by Hollar.

The collection of manuscripts which Dr. Rawlinson bequeathed to the University of Oxford is a magnificent one, and Mr. Macray gives a long and very interesting account of it in his _Annals of the Bodleian Library_. It contains some fine Biblical manuscripts, and about one hundred and thirty Missals, Horae, and other Service-books, many of them from the library of the celebrated collector Nicolas Joseph Foucault. It is rich in early copies of the classics, and there are upwards of two hundred volumes of poetry, including the works of Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, etc. English history is remarkably well represented. Among the manuscripts of this division of the collection are the _Thurloe State Papers_ in sixty-seven volumes, which were published by Dr. Birch in 1742, and the _Miscellaneous Papers_ of Samuel Pepys in twenty-five volumes. The Pepys papers, among other very interesting matter, comprise many curious dockyard account-books of the reigns of King Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth. This division also contains some important letters of King Charles II., King James II., and the Duke of Monmouth, together with an acknowledgment by Monmouth that Charles II. had declared that he was never married to Lucy Walters, the Duke's mother. This was written and signed by him on the day of his execution, and witnessed by Bishops Turner and Ken, and also by Tenison and Hooper. As might be expected, the number of works relating to topography, heraldry and genealogy is very large. The collection also comprises many Irish manuscripts, a considerable number of Italian papers bearing on English history, and the valuable collections made by Rawlinson for a continuation of Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, and for a History of Eton College. There are one hundred volumes of letters, two hundred volumes of sermons, and the immense quantity of ancient charters and deeds already mentioned.

Rawlinson also bequeathed to the University Hearne's daily diary and note-books in about one hundred and fifty small duodecimo volumes, which he had bought of the widow of Mr. William Bedford.

Among the printed books is a magnificent collection of the original broadside proclamations issued during the reign of Elizabeth, and a set of almanacs extending from 1607 to 1747, bound in one hundred and seventy-five volumes.[73]

To St. John's College, Rawlinson bequeathed a large portion of his estate, amounting to about seven hundred pounds a year, a few of his printed books, a collection of coins, etc.; and to the College of Surgeons he gave some anatomical specimens. He also left property to endow a professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, and to provide a salary for the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum. But all his endowments were accompanied by eccentric restrictions, which remained in force until a few years ago, when they were annulled by statute. He directed 'that no native of Scotland or Ireland, or of any of the plantations abroad, or any of their sons, or any present or future member of the Royal or Antiquary societies,' should hold these endowments; and in the case of the Ashmolean Museum, he further enjoined that the Keeper 'is not to be a doctor in divinity or in holy orders ... neither born nor educated in Scotland, neither a married man nor a widower, but one who hath regularly proceeded in Oxford to the degrees of master of arts or bachelor of law.'

Rawlinson wrote a considerable number of works, chiefly of an antiquarian or topographical nature. Among the more important are _The English Topographer_, _The History and Antiquities of the City and Cathedral Church of Hereford_, _The History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Rochester_, _The History and Antiquities of Glastonbury_; and a _Life of Anthony a Wood_. He also edited Aubrey's _Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey_, and other books.

Although Dr. Rawlinson, like his father and his brother, was a warm Jacobite, he does not appear to have taken part in any of the movements for the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne. He entirely occupied himself with antiquarian and literary pursuits, and the formation of his noble collections. In order that he might devote as much as possible of his income to the purchase of books and antiquities, he denied himself the luxuries, and even the comforts of life; and he went about so meanly clad, that the coachman of his late father happening to meet him one day, and judging from his appearance that he was in a destitute condition, begged his acceptance of half a crown to relieve his distress. The story is told by Dr. Rawlinson himself.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 69: Rev. W.D. Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_. London, etc., 1868, p. 168.]

[Footnote 70: _Ibid._ p. 168.]

[Footnote 71: When the head of Layer was blown off from Temple Bar (where it had been placed after his execution), it was picked up by a gentleman in that neighbourhood, who showed it to some friends at a public-house; under the floor of which house, I have been assured, it was buried. Dr. Rawlinson, mean-time, having made enquiry after the head, with a wish to purchase it, was imposed on with another instead of Layer's, which he preserved as a valuable relique, and directed it to be buried in his hand.--Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. v. p. 497.]

[Footnote 72: Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, p. 170.]

[Footnote 73: Rawlinson also left to the University some autograph writings of King James I. The existence of these had been forgotten, and has only been recently discovered.]

MARTIN FOLKES, 1690-1754

Martin Folkes, the eminent antiquary and scientist, was the eldest son of Martin Folkes, a Bencher of Gray's Inn. He was born in Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, on the 29th of October 1690, and after receiving his early education at the University of Saumur, was sent, in 1707, to Clare Hall, Cambridge, where he so greatly distinguished himself in all branches of learning, and more particularly in mathematics and philosophy, that in 1714, when only twenty-three years of age, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and two years later was chosen one of its Council. In 1723 he was appointed a Vice-President of the Society, and on the retirement of Sir Hans Sloane in 1741 he became President, a post he held until 1753, when he resigned it on account of his health. Folkes was also elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1720, and in 1750 he succeeded the Duke of Somerset as President, an office he filled during the remainder of his life. His attainments were also recognised by the French Academy, which elected him in 1742 one of its members. He was a D.C.L. of the University of Oxford, and LL.D. of the University of Cambridge. He died on the 28th of June 1754, and was buried in the chancel of Hillington Church, Norfolk. In 1792 a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

Folkes, who was the author of two works on English coins, and several papers in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society and the _Archaeologia_ of the Society of Antiquaries, formed a fine collection of books, prints, drawings, pictures, gems, coins, etc., a considerable portion of which he acquired during his travels in Italy and Germany. His library, which was very rich in works on natural history, coins, medals, inscriptions, and the fine arts, was sold by Samuel Baker, York Street, Covent Garden, on Monday, February the 2nd 1756, and forty following days. The sale consisted of five thousand one hundred and twenty-six lots, which produced three thousand and ninety-one pounds, six shillings. A catalogue, marked with the prices, is preserved in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum. A copy of the first Shakespeare folio fetched but three guineas. The sale of Folkes's prints and drawings occupied eight days, and that of his pictures, gems, coins, and mathematical instruments five days. Dibdin says that 'the MSS. of his own composition, not being quite perfect, were, to the great loss of the learned world, ordered by him to be destroyed.'

WILLIAM OLDYS, 1696-1761

William Oldys, Norroy King-at-Arms, was born on the 14th of July 1696. There is some obscurity respecting his parentage, but there is little doubt he was the natural son of Dr. William Oldys, Chancellor of Lincoln, and Advocate of the Admiralty Court. His father left him some property, which he appears to have lost in the South Sea Bubble. From the year 1724 to 1730 Oldys resided in Yorkshire, but in the latter year he returned to London, and became acquainted with Edward Harley, the second Earl of Oxford, to whom he sold his collection of manuscripts for forty pounds. In 1738 the Earl appointed him his literary secretary and librarian, first at a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds, and afterwards of two hundred pounds, a year. Unfortunately the Earl died in 1741, and Oldys was obliged to earn a precarious livelihood by working for booksellers, and was soon involved in pecuniary difficulties. He was confined in the Fleet prison from 1751 to 1753, when he was released by the kindness of the Duke of Norfolk, who not only paid his debts, but in 1755 procured for him the office of Norroy King-at-Arms, which congenial post he held for six years. He died at his rooms in Heralds' College on the 15th of April 1761, and was buried in the church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf. A portrait of him will be found in the _European Magazine_ for November 1796. The principal works by Oldys are a _Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_, prefixed to an edition of his _History of the World_, printed in 1736; _The British Librarian_, published anonymously in 1738; and _The Harleian Miscellany_, published in 1744-46. He also annotated _England's Parnassus_, and two copies of Langbaine's _Account of the early Dramatick Poets_. One of these copies was purchased by Dr. Birch at the sale of Oldys's books for one guinea, and was bequeathed by him to the British Museum. Twenty-two of the lives in _Biographia Britannica_ were from his pen, and in addition to the works already mentioned he wrote a few minor ones on bibliographical and medical subjects. Oldys's library was not a large one, but it contained some very interesting and scarce books. After his death it was purchased by Thomas Davies, the bookseller, author of _Memoirs of the Life of Garrick_, and was sold by him in 1762. The title of the sale catalogue reads: 'A Catalogue of the Libraries of the late William Oldys, Esq., Norroy King-at-Arms (author of _The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh_); the Rev. Mr. Emms of Yarmouth, and Mr. Wm. Rush, which will begin to be sold on Monday, April 12 [1762] by Thomas Davies.' The books were disposed of for extremely low prices.

JOHN RATCLIFFE, -1776

Nothing appears to be known of the parentage and birth of John Ratcliffe, the collector, who for some years kept a chandler's shop in Southwark, where he seems to have amassed a sufficient competency to enable him to retire from business and devote the remainder of his life to the acquisition of old books. It is said that his passion for collecting them arose from the perusal of some of the volumes which were purchased by him for the purpose of wrapping his wares in. Ratcliffe kept his library at his house in East Lane, Bermondsey, where, Nichols informs us in his _Literary Anecdotes_, 'he used to give Coffee and Chocolate every Thursday morning to Book and Print Collectors; Dr. Askew, Messrs. Beauclerk, Bull, Croft, Samuel Gillam, West, etc., used to attend, when he would produce some of his fine purchases.' Nichols adds, 'he generally used to spend whole days in the Booksellers' warehouses; and, that he might not lose time, would get them to procure him a chop or a steak.' An amusing letter respecting him appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1812. The writer states that 'Mr. John Radcliffe was neither a man of science or learning. He lived in East Lane, Bermondsey; was a very corpulent man, and his legs were remarkably thick, probably from an anasarcous complaint. The writer of this remembers him perfectly well; he was a very stately man, and, when he walked, literally went at a snail's pace. He was a Dissenter, and every Sunday attended the meeting of Dr. Flaxman in the lower road to Deptford. He generally wore a fine coat, either red or brown, with gold lace buttons, and a fine silk embroidered waistcoat, of scarlet with gold lace, and a large and well-powdered wig. With his hat in one hand, and a gold-headed cane in the other, he marched royally along, and not unfrequently followed by a parcel of children, wondering who the stately man could be. A few years before his death, a fire happened in the neighbourhood where he lived; and it became necessary to remove part of his household furniture and books. He was incapable of assisting himself; but he stood in the street lamenting and deploring the loss of his Caxtons, when a sailor, who lived within a few doors of him attempted to console him: "Bless you, Sir, I have got them perfectly safe!" While Ratcliffe was expressing his thanks, the sailor produced two of his fine curled periwigs, which he had saved from the devouring element; and who had no idea that Ratcliffe could make such a fuss for a few books.' He died in 1776.

Ratcliffe's collection, though not large, was marvellously rich in the productions of the early English printers; and the volumes were generally in fine condition, and handsomely bound, though not always in good taste. It contained no less than forty-eight Caxtons, among which were the _Game of the Chesse_, the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, the _History of Jason_, and Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_. It comprised also numerous books from the presses of the Schoolmaster of St. Albans, Lettou, Machlinia, Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, etc., and a few manuscripts. Dibdin in his _Bibliomania_ remarks: 'If ever there was a unique collection, this was one--the very essence of Old Divinity, Poetry, Romances and Chronicles.' Ratcliffe compiled a manuscript catalogue of his library in four volumes, which was disposed of at the sale of his collection for seven pounds, fifteen shillings. It is said that he always wrote on the first fly-leaf of his books 'Perfect'--or otherwise, as the case might be.

After his death his library was sold by auction by Mr. Christie of Pall Mall. The sale, which commenced on the 27th of March 1776 and lasted till April 6th, consisted of one thousand six hundred and seventy-five lots. It does not appear to have been well managed, for Nichols says, 'there were many hundred most rare Black-letter books and Tracts, unbound, with curious cuts. They were sold I remember in large bundles, and were piled under the tables in the Auction Room, on which the other books were exposed to view, and were not seen by the Booksellers who were the purchasers.' A priced copy of the catalogue is preserved in the British Museum, which shows that the Caxtons fetched but two hundred and thirty-six pounds, five shillings and sixpence; the highest prices obtained being sixteen pounds for the _Game of the Chesse_, fifteen guineas for the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, and nine pounds, fifteen shillings for the _Golden Legende_. King George III. bought twenty of the Caxtons at an aggregate cost of about eighty-five pounds. Among them were the _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ of Boethius, _Reynard the Foxe_, the _Golden Legende_, the _Curial_, and the _Speculum Vitae Christi_. The Boethius, which was a fine copy, was acquired for four pounds, six shillings. A copy of the _Bokys of Hawkyng and Huntyng, etc._, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, printed at St. Albans in 1486, sold for nine pounds, twelve shillings, and a manuscript Bible on vellum, finely illuminated, for two pounds, ten shillings.

JAMES WEST, 1704?-1772

James West, who is described by Dibdin as 'a Non-Pareil Collector: the first who, after the days of Richard Smith, succeeded in reviving the love of black-letter lore and of Caxtonian typography,' was born about 1704. He was the son of Richard West of Priors Marston in Warwickshire, said to be descended from Leonard, a younger son of Thomas West, Lord de la Warr, who died in 1525. James West was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, whence he took the degrees of B.A. in 1723 and M.A. in 1726. In 1721 he was admitted as a student at the Inner Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1728. On the 4th of January 1737, while residing in the Temple, he lost a large portion of his collections, valued at nearly three thousand pounds, through a fire in his chambers.[74] In 1741 he was elected one of the representatives in Parliament for St. Albans, and was appointed one of the Joint Secretaries of the Treasury, which post he held until 1762. Three or four years later his patron the Duke of Newcastle obtained for him a pension of two thousand a year. He sat for St. Albans until 1768, and afterwards represented the constituency of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire until his death on July the 2nd, 1772. He was Recorder of Poole for many years, and also High Steward of St. Albans. He married the daughter of Sir Thomas Stephens, timber merchant in Southwark, with whom he had a large fortune in houses in Rotherhithe.

West had a great love for scientific and antiquarian pursuits, and as early as 1726 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the following year a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, of which he became a Vice-President. Of the first-named Society he was chosen Treasurer in 1736 and President in 1768, which office he held during the remainder of his life. In addition to his extensive and valuable library of manuscripts and printed books, West collected paintings, prints, and drawings, coins and medals, plate, and miscellaneous curiosities. His collection of printed books was exceedingly rich in early English ones. It contained no fewer than thirty-four Caxtons, and a large number of works from the presses of Lettou, Machlinia, the anonymous 'Scole mayster' of St. Albans, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, and the rest of the old English typographers, many of which were unique copies. His manuscripts were exceptionally interesting and valuable. These, with some exceptions, were bought by William, Earl of Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, and were subsequently purchased by Parliament, together with the other manuscripts of the Marquis, for the British Museum. Many of the manuscripts had previously belonged to Bishop Kennet.

West's coins, pictures, prints, drawings, and museum of curiosities were disposed of at various sales in the early part of 1773,[75] and on the 29th of March and twenty-three following days in the same year his library was sold by Messrs. Langford[76] at his late dwelling-house in King Street, Covent Garden.[77] There were four thousand six hundred and fifty-three lots, which realised two thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven pounds, one shilling. A copy of the catalogue with the prices and the names of the purchasers is preserved in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum. Many of the more valuable books were purchased by Gough, the antiquary, the greater part of which were bequeathed by him to the Bodleian Library. Although Horace Walpole, in a letter to the Rev. W. Cole, dated April 7th, 1773, writes that he considered 'the books were selling outrageously,' the prices were only fairly good for the time, and not high. The thirty-four Caxtons realised no more than three hundred and sixty-one pounds, four shillings and sixpence. The highest prices obtained were forty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence for the first edition of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, thirty-two pounds, eleven shillings for the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_, thirty-two pounds and sixpence for the first edition of the _Game of the Chesse_, and twenty-one pounds for the second edition of the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_. These four works were purchased for King George III., who bought largely at the sale. Among many other rare English books a fine example of the _Bokys of Hawkyng and Huntyng_, printed at St. Albans in 1486, fetched thirteen pounds, and unique copies of two works from the press of Wynkyn de Worde--_The Passe Tyme of Pleasure_, 1517, and the _Historye of Olyver of Castille_, 1518--three guineas, and one pound, twelve shillings respectively. The latter book was reprinted in 1898 by Mr. Christie-Miller for the Roxburghe Club. It was edited by Mr. R.E. Graves, late Assistant-Keeper, Department of Printed Books, British Museum. West's famous collection of ballads, which was begun by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was bought for twenty pounds by Major Pearson, who made many additions to it. It afterwards came into the possession of the Duke of Roxburghe, by whom it was also greatly enlarged. After passing through the library of Mr. Bright, it was finally acquired in 1845 by the trustees of the British Museum.

Among the manuscripts a beautifully illuminated Missal, made by order of King Henry VII. for his daughter Margaret, afterwards Queen Consort of James IV., King of Scotland, was bought by the Duke of Northumberland for thirty-two pounds, eleven shillings; a Book of Hours sold for forty-three pounds, one shilling; and a manuscript of Boccaccio for twenty-five pounds, four shillings. Both of these manuscripts had exceedingly fine illuminations.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 74: Oldys, _Diary_, London, 1862, p. 3.]

[Footnote 75: Horace Walpole says that the prints sold for the 'frantic sum of L1495, 10s.'--_Letters_, London, 1857-59, vol. v. p. 439.]

[Footnote 76: Nichols states that the books were sold by auction under the name of Messrs. Langford, but actually by Mr. Samuel Paterson, who compiled the catalogue.--_Anecdotes of literature_, vol. vi. p. 345.]

[Footnote 77: West's country residence was Alscot Park, Preston-on-Stour, Gloucestershire.]

BENJAMIN HEATH, 1704-1766

Benjamin Heath, who was born at Exeter on the 20th of April 1704, was the eldest son of Benjamin Heath, a fuller and merchant of that city.[78] He was educated at the Exeter Grammar School, and afterwards studied law, with a view of being called to the Bar; but having inherited a handsome fortune on the death of his father, he abandoned his intention, and devoted himself to literature, and also to the formation of a library, which he had commenced at a very early age. In 1752 Heath was elected town-clerk of Exeter, an appointment he held until his death on the 13th of September 1766. In 1762 the University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. He was the author of several works, principally on the Greek and Latin classics and the text of Shakespeare. Heath in his lifetime divided a portion of his fine library between two of his sons, but retained a large part of it. Dibdin in _Bibliomania_ prints an interesting letter, dated Exeter, March 21st, 1738, from Heath to Mr. John Mann of the Hand in Hand Fire Office, London, asking him to superintend the purchase of some books at a sale which was shortly to take place, and appending a list of those he desired, and the prices he was willing to pay for them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 78: Drake, _Heathiana_. London, 1882.]

HORACE WALPOLE, FOURTH EARL OF ORFORD, 1717-1797

Horatio or Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford (he disliked the name Horatio, and wrote himself Horace), was the fourth and youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford, by his first wife, Catherine Shorter, eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook, near Ashford in Kent. He was born, as he himself tells us, on the 24th of September 1717 O.S. In 1727 he was sent to Eton, where he had for his schoolfellows the future poets Thomas Gray and Richard West; and eight years later he proceeded to King's College, Cambridge. Walpole entered the House of Commons in 1741 as Member for Callington in Cornwall, and afterwards sat for the family boroughs of Castle Rising and King's Lynn, but although he took a considerable interest in politics, public life was not congenial to his pursuits and tastes, and in 1767 he resigned his seat in Parliament. In his earlier days he was a Whig with a strong leaning to republicanism, but the public events of his later years greatly modified his views. It has been well said of him that 'he was an aristocrat by instinct and a republican by caprice.' On the death of his nephew, George, the third Earl, in 1791, he succeeded to the earldom, but he never took his seat in the House of Lords, and seldom signed his name as Orford. He died at his house in Berkeley Square on the 2nd of March 1797, and was buried at Houghton, the family seat in Norfolk.

In 1747 Walpole purchased the remainder of the lease of a small house which stood near the Thames 'just out of Twickenham,' popularly called Chopped-Straw Hall, on account of its having been the residence of a retired coachman of an Earl of Bradford, who was supposed to have made his money by starving his master's horses. On the 5th of June 1747 Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, that although 'the house is so small that I can send it to you in a letter to look at, the prospect is as delightful as possible, commanding the river, the town (Twickenham), and Richmond Park, and being situated on a hill descends to the Thames through two or three little meadows, where I have some Turkish sheep and two cows, all studied in their colours for becoming the view.' This cottage grew into the Gothic mansion of Strawberry Hill, the erection and embellishment of which formed for so many years the principal occupation and amusement of Walpole's life. Here he collected works of art and curiosities of every kind--pictures, miniatures, prints and drawings, armour, coins, and china, together with a fine library of about fifteen thousand volumes, chiefly of antiquarian and historical subjects. These he acquired with the emoluments of three sinecure offices which his father had obtained for him.

[Illustration: VIGNETTE OF STRAWBERRY HILL. Used in books printed at Walpole's Press.]

In 1757 Walpole set up a printing-press in a small cottage adjoining his residence, and this continued in use until his death in 1797. Gray's _Odes_, in a handsome quarto, was the first of a large number of works and fugitive pieces, many from his own pen, which issued from it. An excellent account of the press, by Mr. H.B. Wheatley, F.S.A., will be found in _Bibliographica_, vol. iii., pp. 83-98. Walpole was the author of many works, but his literary reputation now rests mainly on his letters. Mr. Austin Dobson, in his delightful Memoir of Walpole, says of them that 'for diversity of interest and perpetual entertainment, for the constant surprises of an unique species of wit, for happy and unexpected turns of phrase, for graphic characterisation and clever anecdote, for playfulness, pungency, irony, persiflage, there is nothing like his letters in English.' A collected edition of his works, edited by Mary Berry, under the name of her father, Robert Berry, was published in 1798 in five volumes.

Although the library formed by Walpole at Strawberry Hill consisted principally of works 'which no gentleman's library should be without,' it also contained some beautiful manuscripts, a goodly number of rare books of the Elizabethan and Jacobean times, and an immense collection of interesting papers and letters, prints and portraits. Many of the prints were by the great engravers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The most notable of the manuscripts were a copy of the Psalms of David on vellum, with twenty-one illuminations attributed to Giulio Clovio; a magnificent 'Missal,' executed for Claude, Queen Consort of Francis I., King of France; and a folio volume of old English poetry, written on vellum, from the library of Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary. Among the more important of the collections of papers and letters were those of Sir Julius Caesar, which contained letters of James I., Henry, Prince of Wales, the King and Queen of Bohemia, and most of the leading nobility and gentry of the time of Elizabeth and James I.; Sir Sackville Crowe's Book of Accounts of the Privy Purse of the Duke of Buckingham in his different journeys into France, Spain, and the Low Countries with Prince Charles; the manuscripts bequeathed to Walpole by Madame du Deffand, together with upwards of eight hundred letters addressed by her to him; and Vertue's manuscripts in twenty-eight volumes. Sir Julius Caesar's travelling library, consisting of forty-four duodecimo volumes, bound in white vellum, and enclosed in an oak case covered with light olive morocco, elegantly tooled, and made to resemble a folio volume (now in the British Museum); and the identical copy of Homer used by Pope for his translation, with the inscription, 'Finished ye translation in Feb. 1719-20--A. Pope,' and containing a pencil sketch of Twickenham Church by the poet, were among the most interesting printed books in the library. A remarkable and beautiful collection of about forty original drawings, being portraits of Francis the First and Second of France, and the members of their Courts, taken from life in pencil, tinted with red chalk, by Janet; Callot's Pocket Book, with drawings by this master; and fine collections of the works of Vertue and Hogarth also deserve to be mentioned.

After Walpole's death Strawberry Hill and its contents passed to the Hon. Mrs. Damer, the sculptress, daughter of his cousin, Field-Marshal Conway, together with two thousand a year for its maintenance. After residing in it for some time Mrs. Damer found the situation lonely, and gave up the house and property to the Countess Dowager Waldegrave, in whom the fee was vested under Walpole's will. In 1842, George, seventh Earl Waldegrave, to whom Strawberry Hill had descended, ordered the contents to be sold by George Robins, the well-known auctioneer. The sale was advertised to occupy twenty-four days, from April 25th to May 21st. The catalogue was badly compiled, and so much dissatisfaction was expressed at the intention of selling some of the collections _en masse_, that the contents of the seventh and eighth days' sale, which consisted of prints, drawings, and illustrated books, were withdrawn, re-catalogued, and disposed of at a sale at Robins's rooms at Covent Garden, which lasted from the 13th to the 23rd of June. The amount realised at the sale at Strawberry Hill was twenty-nine thousand six hundred and twelve pounds, sixteen shillings and threepence; and at that in London, three thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence. The library, consisting of books, manuscripts, prints, etc., sold for about seven thousand seven hundred and forty pounds. The copy of the Psalms, with illuminations ascribed to Giulio Clovio, fetched four hundred and forty-one pounds; the volume of English poetry, two hundred and twenty pounds, ten shillings; the 'Missal' executed for Queen Claude, one hundred and fifteen pounds, ten shillings; and the manuscripts and letters of Madame du Deffand, one hundred and fifty-seven pounds, ten shillings.

RALPH WILLETT, 1719-1795

Ralph Willett, the collector of the famous Merly Library, was born in 1719. He was the elder son of Henry Willett, of the island of St. Christopher in the West Indies. In 1736 he matriculated at the University of Oxford from Oriel College, but did not take a degree; and in 1739 he was admitted a student at Lincoln's Inn. Willett early developed a taste for books and pictures, and his inheritance of the family estates in the West Indies, on the death of his father in 1740, enabled him to form splendid collections of them. In 1751 he purchased a property at Merly, near Wimborne, Dorsetshire, where in 1752 he built a noble mansion, which later he enlarged by adding two wings, in one of which he constructed a handsome room for a library, which he ornamented with frescoes and arabesque designs. A description of this library, written by Willett in English and French, was printed in 1776 in octavo, and reprinted in 1785 by John Nichols in a large folio volume, with twenty-five illustrations of the designs. His London house was in Dean Street, Soho. Willett was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1763, and contributed two papers on _The Origin of Printing_ to the _Archaeologia_, which were reprinted at Newcastle in 1818-20; and a third on _British Naval Architecture_. In 1764 he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died on the 13th of January 1795. Willett, who was twice married, but left no issue, bequeathed his property to his cousin John Willett Adye, who took the name of Willett, and was M.P. for New Romney from 1796 to 1806. This gentleman, shortly before his death, which occurred on 26th of September 1815, parted with the collections which had been left to him. The pictures were sold by Peter Coxe and Co. on May 31st, 1813, and two following days, and the books by Leigh and Sotheby on December 6th, and sixteen following days. The same auctioneers also sold the botanical drawings, of which there was a large number, on the 20th and 21st of December; and the books of prints on the 20th of February in the succeeding year. The books were disposed of in two thousand seven hundred and twenty lots, and realised thirteen thousand five hundred and eight pounds, four shillings. The sale catalogue states that the library consisted of 'a most rare assemblage of the early printers, fine specimens of block-printing, old English chronicles, etc., in the finest preservation, likewise an extensive and magnificent collection of books in every department of literature, from the earliest period to the present time. All the books are in the finest condition, many printed on vellum and on large paper, and bound in morocco and russia leathers. Likewise a most splendid missal; and a very choice selection of botanical drawings, by Van Huysum, Taylor, Brown, Lee, etc.'

The block-books in the collection comprised a _Biblia Pauperum_, which realised two hundred and fifty-seven pounds, five shillings; the first and another edition of the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, which sold for three hundred and fifteen pounds and two hundred and fifty-two pounds; and the _Apocalypse of St. John_, which fetched forty-two pounds. There were seven Caxtons--the first edition of the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, the _Polychronicon_, the second edition of the _Game of the Chesse_, the _Confessio Amantis_, the second edition of the _Mirrour of the World_, and _Diverse Ghostly Matters_. These realised altogether one thousand three hundred and eighteen pounds, sixteen shillings; the _Dictes_ and the _Confessio Amantis_ fetching the highest prices--three hundred and fifteen pounds, and two hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten shillings.

Some of the many other notable books in the library, and the prices obtained for them, were a copy of the Mentz Psalter of 1459 on vellum, sixty-three pounds; _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus (Mentz, 1459), one hundred and five pounds; the _Catholicon_ of Joannes Balbus (Mentz, 1460), sixty pounds, eighteen shillings; the _Constitutiones_ of Pope Clement V. (Mentz, 1460), sixty-six pounds, three shillings; Latin Bible (Mentz, 1462), one hundred and five pounds; the _Officia_ of Cicero (Mentz, 1465), seventy-three pounds, ten shillings; Latin Bible on vellum (Venice, 1476), one hundred and sixty-eight pounds; _Rhetorica Nova_, by Laurentius de Saona (St. Albans, 1480), seventy-nine pounds, sixteen shillings; a vellum copy of the first edition of Homer (Florence, 1488), eighty-eight pounds, four shillings; a nearly complete set of De Bry's collections in seven volumes, one hundred and twenty-six pounds; and a large paper copy of Prynne's _Records_ in three volumes, London, 1665-70, one hundred and fifty-two pounds, five shillings. The 'splendid' manuscript missal, specially mentioned in the sale catalogue, sold for one hundred and five pounds.

DR. ANTHONY ASKEW, 1722-1774

Dr. Anthony Askew, M.D., was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, in the year 1722. His father was Dr. Adam Askew, an eminent physician of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He received his education at Sedbergh School, the Grammar School of Newcastle, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He took the degree of M.B. in 1745, and that of M.D. five years later. After leaving the University he went to Leyden, where he remained twelve months studying medicine, and then undertook an extensive tour on the Continent, during which he purchased a large number of valuable books and manuscripts. Dibdin says he was well known as a collector in most parts of Europe. In 1750, having finished his travels, Askew returned to Cambridge, where he practised for some time as a physician. He afterwards removed to London, where, aided by the patronage and support of his friend Dr. Mead, he soon acquired a considerable reputation, but he is better known as a scholar than a physician. Dr. Parr entertained a very high opinion of his attainments in Greek and Roman literature. Askew was a Fellow and Registrar of the College of Physicians, and also a Fellow of the Royal Society. He died at Hampstead on the 27th of February 1774.

Dr. Askew was an indefatigable collector, and filled his house from the ground floor to the attics with rare and handsomely bound books. The library, which numbered about seven thousand volumes, was extremely rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin classics, and its owner was ambitious that it should contain every edition of a Greek author. It comprised the first editions of the _De Officiis_ of Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, Cornelius Nepos, the History of Ammianus Marcellinus, the Fables of AEsop, the Works of Plato, and of many other Greek and Latin writers; the greater number of them being printed on vellum. A vellum copy of the _Rationale_ of Durandus, printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; a first edition of the _Teseide_ of Boccaccio, printed on vellum at Ferrara in 1475; a copy of the _Greek Anthology_, also on vellum, printed at Florence in 1494; _Tully of Old Age_, printed by Caxton, and a fine vellum copy of the _Tewrdannck_, were a few of the other notable books in the collection.

The printed books in the library were sold by Baker and Leigh at their auction rooms in York Street, Covent Garden, on the 13th of February 1775, and the nineteen following days. The lots were three thousand five hundred and seventy in number, and realised three thousand nine hundred and ninety-three pounds and sixpence. Among the purchasers at the sale were King George III., Louis XVI., King of France, Dr. Hunter and the Rev. C.M. Cracherode. The British Museum also acquired a considerable number of the books. The manuscripts, and the printed books with manuscript notes, were sold by Leigh and Sotheby in 1785. The sale took place on March the 7th and the eight subsequent days. There were six hundred and thirty-three lots, which produced eighteen hundred and twenty-seven pounds.

[Illustration: REV. C.M. CRACHERODE.]

Askew was the author of a manuscript volume of Greek and Latin Inscriptions, copied by him during his travels in Greece and the Levant. The collection is preserved among the Burney Manuscripts in the British Museum.

REV. C.M. CRACHERODE, 1730-1799

The Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, to whom the British Museum is indebted for some of its most precious collections, was the son of Colonel Mordaunt Cracherode, who commanded the Marines in Anson's voyage round the world. He was born at Taplow in 1730, and was educated at Westminster and Christ Church, Oxford, taking the degree of B.A. in 1750, and that of M.A. in 1753. After leaving the University he took holy orders, and for some time was curate of Binsey, near Oxford, but he did not seek any preferment in the Church. On the death of his father he inherited a fortune of about three thousand pounds a year, which enabled him to acquire a library of not less than four thousand five hundred volumes, remarkable for their rarity and beauty; seven portfolios of drawings by the great masters, and a hundred portfolios of prints, many of which were almost priceless; and in addition to these a splendid collection of coins and gems, and a cabinet of minerals. Mr. Cracherode, who never married, was a shy, retiring man, who lived entirely among his collections, and it is said that he never mounted a horse, nor travelled a greater distance than from London to Oxford. One great drawback to the happiness of his quiet life was the dread that he might possibly be called upon to officiate at a coronation as the King's cupbearer, as his manor of Great Wymondley was held from the Crown subject to the performance of this duty. Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, says of him that he had 'a dash of the primitiveness of the old school about him, and that his manners were easy, polished and engaging. He was a thorough gentleman, and no mean scholar.' He devoted his life to his favourite pursuit, the formation of his collections; and Edwards, in his _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, tells us that--'For almost forty years it was his daily practice to walk from his house in Queen Square, Westminster, to the shop of Elmsly, a bookseller in the Strand, and thence to the still more noted shop of Tom Payne, by the "Mews-Gate." Once a week, he varied the daily walk by calling on Mudge, a chronometer-maker, to get his watch regulated. His excursions had, indeed, one other and not infrequent variety--dictated by the calls of Christian benevolence--but of these he took care to have no note taken.... The ruling passion kept its strength to the last. An agent was buying prints, for addition to the store, when the Collector was dying. About four days before his death, Mr. Cracherode mustered strength to pay a farewell visit to the old shop at the Mews-Gate. He put a finely printed _Terence_ (from the press of Foulis) into one pocket, and a large paper _Cebes_ into another; and then--with a longing look at a certain choice _Homer_, in the course of which he mentally, and somewhat doubtingly, balanced its charms with those of its twin brother in Queen Square--parted finally from the daily haunt of forty peripatetic and studious years.' Mr. Cracherode is also mentioned in the _Pursuits of Literature_, by T.J. Mathias:--

'Or must I, as a wit, with learned air, Like Doctor Dibdin, to Tom Payne's repair, Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode there? "Hold!" cries Tom Payne, "that margin let me measure, And rate the separate value of the treasure." Eager they gaze. "Well, Sirs, the feat is done. Cracherode's _Poetae Principes_ have won."'

Mr. Cracherode, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Trustee of the British Museum, died at Queen Square on the 5th of April 1799, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He bequeathed the whole of his collections to the nation, with the exception of two books. A copy of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible was given to Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, and a _princeps_ Homer, once the property of De Thou, to Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church; but these volumes ultimately rejoined their former companions in the British Museum.

The library formed by Mr. Cracherode is marvellously rich in choice copies of rare and early editions of the classics; a large proportion of them being printed on vellum. The volumes are almost always in faultless condition, and beautifully bound. Many of them were once to be found in such renowned collections as those of Grolier, Maioli, Henry II. of France and Diana of Poitiers, Katharine de' Medici, De Thou, Longepierre, Count von Hoym, etc.; and have bindings by Nicolas and Clovis Eve, Le Gascon, Padeloup, Derome, and Roger Payne. Among them are magnificent copies of the editions of _Pliny_ printed at Venice by Joannes de Spira in 1469, and by Nicolas Jenson in 1476. The latter formerly belonged to Grolier, and the binding bears his well-known motto. A copy of the first edition of _AEsop's Fables_, printed at Milan about 1480, and a very beautiful example of the first edition of the _Greek Anthology_, on vellum, printed in capitals by Laurentius de Alopa at Florence in 1494, in the original binding, are also deserving of special notice. Other remarkable and interesting books are the _Greek Grammar_ of Lascaris, printed at Milan in 1476; the _Liber Psalmorum_, printed at Milan in 1481; Maioli's copy of the _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_, printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499; and a fine copy of Petrarch's _Sonetti e Canzoni_, on vellum, printed by Aldus in 1501, which formerly belonged to Isabella d'Este, wife of Gian-Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. This was the first Italian book printed in italic type.

[Illustration: ARMORIAL BOOK-STAMP OF THE REV. C.M. CRACHERODE.]

The library contains three Caxtons: _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, the _Mirrour of the World_, and the _Boke of Eneydos_.

A copy of Tyndale's New Testament on vellum, which once belonged to Queen Anne Boleyn, with her arms emblazoned on the title-page, and the words 'Anna Regina Angliae' painted in gold on the edges of the leaves, and a handsome Shakespeare first folio, ought also to be mentioned.

Mr. Cracherode's classical attainments were by no means inconsiderable, but his only writings were a Latin poem printed in the _Carmina Quadragesimalia_ of 1748, and some Latin verses in the collection of the University of Oxford on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1751.

A portrait of Mr. Cracherode appears in Clarke's _Repertorium Bibliographicum_, and in Dibdin's _Bibliographical Decameron_. This was engraved, contrary to his express wishes, from a drawing made by Edridge for Lady Spencer. An explanation is given by Dr. Dibdin of the circumstances under which the likeness was reproduced.

JOHN TOWNELEY, 1731-1813

John Towneley, who was born on the 15th of June 1731, and died on the 13th of May 1813, was the younger son of Richard Towneley of Towneley, in the county of Lancaster, and Mary, daughter of William, Lord Widdrington. He married Barbara, fourth daughter of Edward Dicconson of Wrightington, in the county of Lancaster, by whom he had a daughter, Barbara, who married Sir William Stanley, Bart., of Hooton, and a son, Peregrine Edward, who succeeded to the estates. Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, informs us that 'Mr. Towneley had one of the finest figures, as an elderly gentleman (for he died at 82), that could possibly be seen. His stature was tall and frame robust; his gait was firm; his countenance was Roman-like; his manners were conciliatory, and his language was unassuming. His habits were simple and perhaps severe. He generally rose at five, and lighted his own library fire--and his health was manifest in his person and countenance. He was entirely an unpretending man--and may be said to have collected rather from the pleasure and reputation attached to such pursuits than from a thorough and keen relish of the kind of taste which it imparts. He had an ample purse, and it was most liberally unstrung when there was occasion for effectual aid. This observation may equally apply to matters out of the _bibliomaniacal_ record; but as a book-purchaser he was considered among the most heavy-metalled and determined champions in the field.'

[Illustration]

The library formed by Mr. Towneley was a particularly good one, and it was remarkable for the large number of rare and fine examples it possessed of books from the presses of Caxton, Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, Julian Notary, and other early English printers. No fewer than nine Caxtons were to be found on its shelves, and Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde were especially well represented. Among the Caxtons were the first edition of the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, the _Fayts of Arms_, and _Troilus and Creside_, together with the _Life of St. Katherine_, published by Caxton's executors. Perhaps the most important of the other early English books were Boccaccio's _Falle of Princis_, translated by Lydgate, and Froissart's _Cronycle_, both printed by Pynson; and the _Vitas Patrum_ and the _Kalender of Shepeherdes_ by Wynkyn de Worde. The library also contained some exceedingly rare and valuable manuscripts, of which some of the most notable were a famous copy of the _Iliad_, a _Pontificale_ of Pope Innocent IV., and a very interesting and curious collection of English Miracle-Plays acted at Wakefield in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[79] Of the copy of the _Iliad_, Clarke in his _Repertorium Bibliographicum_ remarks:--'This is the identical manuscript which was formerly in the possession of Victorius and Salviati at Florence, the supposed loss of which had been deplored for more than two centuries. Critics have unanimously assigned to it a very remote period of antiquity. It is written upon vellum in a very fair and legible hand, and the margins are replete with most valuable and important scholia. Heyne has given a facsimile of it in his Homer. It was purchased by the late Rev. Dr. Burney, whose entire collection is now deposited in the British Museum.'

Towneley's books were sold after his death, in three portions, by Evans of Pall Mall. The first sale took place on June 8th, 1814, and six following days. It comprised nine hundred and five lots, which realised five thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven pounds, four shillings. The second sale occurred on June 19th, 1815, and nine following days, and the seventeen hundred and three lots in it fetched two thousand seven hundred and seven pounds, sixteen shillings. The third sale consisted only of a few remaining books, which were disposed of in conjunction with the library of Mr. Auditor Harley on May 22nd, 1817, and six following days. Eleven hundred and twenty-seven pounds, two shillings were obtained for the nine Caxtons; the _Troilus and Creside_, the _Life of St. Katherine_, and the _Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_ fetching the highest prices, viz. two hundred and fifty-two pounds, two shillings, two hundred and thirty-one pounds, and one hundred and eighty-nine pounds. Bochas's _Falle of Princis_ and Froissart's _Cronycle_ realised twenty-seven pounds, sixteen shillings and sixpence, and forty-two pounds; and the _Vitas Patrum_ and the _Kalender of Shepeherdes_ fifty-three pounds, eleven shillings and nineteen pounds. Eighty-five pounds were obtained for Henry Boece's _Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland_, translated by Bellenden, and printed by Davidson at Edinburgh in 1536; thirty-three pounds, sixteen shillings for Ricraft's _Survey of England's Champions_, etc., London, 1647; and forty-eight pounds, six shillings for a Book of Hours printed on vellum by Julian Notary in 1503. Among the manuscripts the _Iliad_ sold for six hundred and twenty pounds, the Wakefield Miracle-Plays for one hundred and forty-seven pounds, and the _Pontificale Innocentii IV._ for one hundred and twenty-seven pounds, one shilling. The drawings, prints, etc., belonging to Towneley were sold by King of 38 King Street, Covent Garden, in May 1816 for fourteen hundred and fourteen pounds, five shillings and sixpence; and his magnificent collection of Hollar's works was disposed of by the same auctioneer for two thousand one hundred and eight pounds, eleven shillings and sixpence in May 1818. John Towneley was not the only collector of his family. Charles Towneley, his nephew, formed a celebrated collection of marbles, coins, gems, and drawings, now in the British Museum; and Christopher Towneley, who was born in 1604 and died in 1674, was the collector of many of the old manuscripts disposed of in the second sale of the Towneley library which occurred in 1883 after the death of Colonel John Towneley, when in default of a male heir the estates devolved on his daughters and those of his elder brother, Colonel Charles Towneley.

The second sale of the Towneley library took place in June 1883. The printed books were sold on the 18th and seven following days, and the manuscripts on the 27th and following day, by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge. There were two thousand eight hundred and fifteen lots of printed books, which realised four thousand six hundred and sixteen pounds, three shillings; and two hundred and fifty-one lots of manuscripts, for which the sum of four thousand and fifty-four pounds, six shillings and sixpence was obtained. Among the printed books the very rare _York Manual_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509; the _Pilgrymage of Perfection_ of 1531, by the same printer, with the Towneley arms worked in silver on the covers of the binding; and a large paper copy of Nichols's _History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester_, in eight volumes, were the most deserving of special notice. These sold respectively for fifty-nine pounds, twenty-seven pounds, ten shillings, and two hundred and thirty-five pounds. The two principal manuscripts in the sale were a _Vita Christi_, beautifully illuminated by Giulio Clovio for Alexander, Cardinal Farnese, for which Mr. Quaritch gave two thousand and fifty pounds, and the collection of Wakefield Plays, which was also purchased by the same great bookseller for six hundred and twenty pounds.[80]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 79: These plays were printed for the Surtees Society in 1836, and re-edited by George England, with side-notes and introduction by Alfred W. Pollard, M.A., in 1897, for the Early English Text Society.]

[Footnote 80: This collection was re-purchased for the Towneley library at the sale of Mr. North's books in May 1819 for ninety-four pounds, ten shillings.]

SIR JOHN THOROLD, BART., 1734-1815

Sir John Thorold, Bart., of Syston Park, Grantham, Lincolnshire, who was born in 1734, and succeeded his father, Sir John Thorold, eighth baronet, in 1775, was one of the most ardent collectors of his time. The magnificent library which he and his son Sir John Hayford Thorold formed at Syston Park contained some of the rarest incunabula in existence. Among them were copies of the Gutenberg Bible; the Second Mentz Psalter on vellum; the _Catholicon_ of 1460; the Latin Bible of 1462, with the arms and cypher of Prince Eugene on the binding; and the _Mirrour of the World_, printed by Caxton in 1481. It also possessed one of the earliest of the block-books, the _Apocalypse_. The library was extremely rich in first editions of the Greek and Latin classics, some of them on vellum. Other choice and rare books in the collection were a copy of the Greek Bible, printed 'in aedibus Aldi' in 1518, described by Dibdin as 'the largest and finest copy I ever saw'; the Polyglot Bible of Cardinal Ximenez; the first edition of the _Tewrdannck_; the four Shakespeare folios; _Purchas his Pilgrimmes_; and the _Pastissier Francois_, printed by L. and D. Elzevier at Amsterdam in 1655. There were also many editions of _Horae_ and _Officia_ of the Virgin Mary, mostly printed on vellum. Several of the Syston Park books once formed part of the famous libraries of Grolier, Maioli, Diana of Poitiers, Katharine de' Medicis, Count von Hoym, Prince Eugene, and Sir Kenelm Digby. The collection also possessed a number of the beautiful little volumes bound by Clovis Eve, which were once thought to have formed part of the library of Marguerite de Valois, but are now believed to have belonged to that of Marie Marguerite de Valois de Saint-Remy, daughter of a natural son of Henry III., King of France. After the death of Sir John Thorold on the 25th of February 1815, his son and successor Sir John Hayford Thorold, having first sold the duplicates in the library, made many additions to it. He died on the 7th of July 1831, and fifty-three years later a portion of the books was sold by auction by Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge. The sale, which took place on December 12th, 1884, and seven following days, consisted of two thousand one hundred and ten lots, which realised the large sum of twenty-eight thousand and one pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence. For some of the rarest of the books very large prices were obtained. Mr. Quaritch acquired the Gutenberg Bible for three thousand nine hundred pounds, and the Mentz Psalter for four thousand nine hundred and fifty. _The Catholicon_ sold for four hundred pounds, the 1462 Latin Bible for one thousand pounds, _The Mirrour of the World_ for three hundred and thirty-five pounds, the Aldine Greek Bible for fifty-one pounds, and the first Shakespeare folio for five hundred and ninety pounds.

REV. RICHARD FARMER, D.D., 1735-1797

The Rev. Richard Farmer, D.D., was born at Leicester on the 28th of August 1735. He was the second son of Richard Farmer, a wealthy maltster of that town. After receiving his early education in the Free Grammar School of his native place, he was entered in 1753 as a pensioner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1757 and M.A. in 1760. In the latter year he was appointed classical tutor of his College; which post he held until his election to the Mastership in 1775, when he took the degree of D.D. He served the office of Vice-Chancellor of the University in 1775-76 and again in 1787-88, and on the 27th of June 1778 was chosen the Chief Librarian of the University. In 1780 he was collated to a prebendal stall at Lichfield, and two years later became Prebendary of Canterbury, which he resigned in 1788 on being preferred to a residentiary canonry of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. It is said that he twice refused a bishopric which was offered to him rather than forgo the pleasure of witnessing dramatic performances on the stage. He died on the 8th of September 1797, at the Lodge, Emmanuel College, and was buried in the chapel. A monument, with an epitaph by Dr. Parr, was erected to his memory in the cloisters.

Dr. Farmer, who was an elegant scholar and a zealous antiquary, was somewhat eccentric both in his appearance and manners. It is said of him 'that there were three things he loved above all others, namely, old port, old clothes, and old books; and three things which nobody could persuade him to do, namely, to rise in the morning, to go to bed at night, and to settle an account.[81] His reluctance to settle his accounts, however, was not caused by avarice, but indolence, for he spent a considerable portion of his large income in the relief of distress, and in assisting in the publication of literary works; while his pupils frequently borrowed of him sums of money, well knowing there would be but little chance of a demand for repayment. Dr. Parr, who was one of Farmer's intimate friends, remarked of him 'that his munificence was without ostentation, his wit without acrimony, and his learning without pedantry.' Farmer was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries. His only published work was an _Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare_, which appeared in 1767 and went through four editions, besides being prefixed to several issues of Shakespeare's plays.

Dr. Farmer possessed a well-chosen library, which was rich in old English poetry and plays. He himself said of it 'that not many private collections contain a greater number of really curious and scarce books; and perhaps no one is so rich in the ancient philological English literature; but Dibdin tells us that the volumes 'were, in general, in sorry condition; the possessor caring little for large margins and splendid binding.' The collection was sold by auction by Mr. King, of King Street, Covent Garden, on May 7th, 1798, and the thirty-five following days. The catalogue, of which a priced copy is in the British Museum, contains three hundred and seventy-nine pages, and the lots, including a few pictures, number eight thousand one hundred and fifty-five. The sale realised two thousand two hundred and ten pounds, a sum said to be greatly in excess of that which Farmer gave for his books.

There is a portrait of Dr. Farmer by Romney in Emmanuel College, which has been engraved by J. Jones.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 81: _Dictionary of National Biography._]

RICHARD GOUGH, 1735-1809

Richard Gough, the eminent antiquary, was the only son of Harry Gough, of Perry Hall, Staffordshire. He was born in Winchester Street, London, on the 21st of October 1735, and was privately educated until about seventeen years of age, when he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Benet (now Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. He left the University in 1756 without taking a degree, and commenced a series of antiquarian excursions into various parts of the kingdom for the purpose of obtaining information for an enlarged edition of Camden's _Britannia_, which he published in London in 1789. In 1767 Gough was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and in 1771, on the death of Dr. Gregory Sharpe, Master of the Temple, was nominated Director, a post he held until 1797, when he left the Society altogether. He was also chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1775, but resigned in 1795. He died at Enfield on the 20th of February 1809, and was buried in the churchyard of Wormley, Hertfordshire.

Gough wrote, and assisted in the production of numerous topographical and antiquarian works, and contributed many articles to the _Archaeologia_ and the _Vetusta Monumenta_ of the Society of Antiquaries. A history of that institution by him is prefixed to the first volume of the first-named publication. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ also contains many papers and reviews from his pen. In addition to his edition of Camden's _Britannia_, which occupied seven years in translating and in printing, his more important works are _Anecdotes of British Topography_, published at London in 1768, which was afterwards enlarged and reprinted in 1780 under the title of _British Topography: or an historical Account of what has been done for illustrating the Topographical Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland_; and _The Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain_, London, 1786-99.

Gough possessed a considerable fortune, which enabled him to form an extensive library, as well as a fine collection of maps, drawings, prints, coins, and other antiquities. He left to the Bodleian Library 'all his topographical collections, together with all his books relating to Saxon and Northern literature, for the use of the Saxon Professor, his maps and engravings, and all the copper-plates used in the illustration of the various works published by himself.[82] This collection, which numbered upwards of three thousand seven hundred volumes, was placed, in accordance with the wish expressed in his will, in 'The Antiquaries' Closet,' with the collections of Dodsworth, Tanner, Willis, and other antiquaries. Gough also gave to the library a splendid series of early printed Service-books of the English Church, among which is a beautiful vellum copy of the _Hereford Missal_, printed at Rouen in 1502, and which is believed to be unique. A catalogue of the collection was published by Dr. Bandinel in 1814. Gough bequeathed to Mr. John Nichols his interleaved set of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and of the _Anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer_.

The remainder of his books, prints, and drawings, together with his coins, medals, and other antiquities, were sold, according to his directions, by auction by Leigh and Sotheby in 1810. The books realised three thousand five hundred and fifty-two pounds, and the prints, drawings, coins, medals, etc., five hundred and seventeen pounds more.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 82: Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_.]

GEORGE STEEVENS, 1736-1800

George Steevens, the Shakesperian commentator, who was born on the 10th of May 1736, was the only son of George Steevens of Stepney, for many years an East India captain, and afterwards a Director of the East India Company. He received his early education at a school at Kingston-on-Thames and at Eton. In 1753 he was admitted a fellow-commoner of King's College, Cambridge, but left the University without taking a degree. In 1766 he published a reprint in four octavo volumes of _Twenty of the Plays of Shakespeare, being the whole number printed in quarto during his Lifetime, etc._; and in 1773 he brought out, in association with Dr. Johnson, an edition of the whole of Shakespeare's dramatic works. Steevens, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries, died unmarried at Hampstead on the 22nd of January 1800, and was buried in the chapel at Poplar, where a monument by Flaxman was erected to his memory.

Steevens collected a fine library, which was very rich in early English poetry and in the plays and poems of Shakespeare. It contained the first and second folios of the great dramatist, and upwards of forty copies of the separate plays in quarto, many of them being first editions. The second folio formerly belonged to King Charles I., and was given by him on the night before his execution to Sir Thomas Herbert, his Groom of the Bedchamber. This very interesting volume, in which the King has written 'Dum spiro spero C.R.,' was bought at the sale of Steevens's books for King George III. for eighteen guineas, and is now preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor. The collection also comprised some rare plays of Peele, Marlowe, and Nash; Barnabe Googe's _Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonnettes_; Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_, London, 1589; Skelton's _Lyttle Workes and Merie Tales_; Watson's _Passionate Centurie of Love_; _England's Helicon_, collected by John Bodenham, London, 1600; Breton's _Workes of a young Wyt_; _The Paradice of Dainty Devises_, London, 1595; _XII Mery fests of the Wyddow Edyth_, London, 1573; and many other scarce and choice books.

Steevens's library was sold by auction by Mr. King at his great room, King Street, Covent Garden, on May 13th, 1800, and ten following days. The catalogue contained nineteen hundred and forty-three lots, which realised two thousand seven hundred and forty pounds, fifteen shillings. A copy of the catalogue marked with the prices of the books and the names of the purchasers is preserved in the British Museum.

Although Dibdin considered that 'enormous sums were given for some volumes that cost Steevens not a twentieth part of their produce,' the prices were very small compared with those which could be obtained for the same books at the present time. The first folio of Shakespeare's works fetched only twenty-two pounds, and Charles I.'s copy of the second folio, as already mentioned, but eighteen guineas. Of the first editions of the separate quarto plays, _Othello_ sold for twenty-nine pounds, eight shillings; _King Lear_ and the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ for twenty-eight pounds each; _Henry the Fifth_ for twenty-seven pounds, six shillings; _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ for twenty-five pounds, ten shillings; and _Much Ado about Nothing_ for the same sum. The first edition of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_ went for three pounds, nineteen shillings. Steevens's copies of the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ and the _Sonnets_ fetched respectively three hundred and thirty guineas and two hundred and fifteen guineas at the sale of the library of George Daniel in 1864. Other prices obtained for some of the rare books were eleven pounds, fifteen shillings for _England's Helicon_; ten pounds, fifteen shillings for Barnabe Googe's _Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonnettes_; and seven pounds, ten shillings for Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_.

Steevens, who led a very retired life in his house at Hampstead Heath, was the reverse of an amiable man; and while he was very polite and courteous to his literary friends in private, he made bitter attacks upon them in print. Dibdin says of him that 'his habits were indeed peculiar: not much to be envied or imitated; as they sometimes betrayed the flights of a madman, and sometimes the asperities of a cynic. His attachments were warm, but fickle both in choice and duration. He would frequently part from one, with whom he had lived on terms of close intimacy, without any assignable cause; and his enmities, once fixed, were immovable.' Dr. Parr said of him that 'he was one of the wisest, most learned, but most spiteful of men.' Dr. Johnson, however, thought 'he was mischievous, but not malignant.'

JAMES BINDLEY, 1737-1818

Mr. James Bindley was the second son of Mr. John Bindley, distiller, of St. John's Street, Smithfield. He was born in London on the 16th of January 1737, and was educated at the Charterhouse, from whence he proceeded to Peterhouse, Cambridge, taking the degree of B.A. in 1759, and that of M.A. in 1762. Later he became a Fellow of his College. In 1765, through the interest of his elder brother John, he was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Stamp Duties, and in 1781 rose to be the Senior Commissioner, a post he held until his death, which occurred at his apartments in Somerset House on the 11th of September 1818. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries for upwards of fifty-three years. A handsome monument to his memory was erected in the church of St. Mary-le-Strand. Bindley formed a very large and valuable collection of rare books, engravings, and medals, which he commenced at a very early age, and to which he devoted all his spare time and money. When only fifteen years of age he constantly frequented the book-shops, where he bought everything which he considered rare or curious. He was a man of very regular and retired habits, and it is said of him, that during the long period he held the appointment of Commissioner of the Stamp Duties, 'he never once failed in his daily attendance at the Board, or once slept out of his own apartments since he left his house at Finchley to reside in Somerset House.'[83] Bindley published in 1775 _A Collection of the Statutes now in force relating to the Stamp Duties_; and he read all the proof-sheets of Nichols's _Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_, which are dedicated to him, and also of the early volumes of _The Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century_, by the same author. He performed the same work for the _Memoirs of John Evelyn_, edited by William Bray in 1818.

[Illustration]

Bindley's library was a remarkably fine one, and few collections have contained a larger number of works of early English literature, especially of those of the time of Elizabeth and James I. Many of these books were excessively rare, and some of them unique. Among them were the _Venus and Adonis_ of Shakespeare, printed in 1602; his _Poems_ printed in 1640, and several of the first editions of his separate plays in quarto. The library also comprised a large portion of the extraordinary collection of poetical sheets, consisting of ballads, satires, elegies, etc., formed by Narcissus Luttrell, who, Sir Walter Scott says, 'seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked about the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and date of the purchase.'

After Bindley's death his books were sent to Evans of Pall Mall for sale. They were disposed of in five portions. The first sale took place in December 1818, and the fifth, which consisted of omissions, in January 1821. There were nine thousand three hundred and eighty-three lots in the five sales, which occupied forty-six days, and realised upwards of seventeen thousand five hundred pounds. The following are a few of the more notable books, and the prices they fetched in the sales:--_The Temple of Glasse_, printed by Berthelet, forty-six pounds, four shillings; Chute's _Beawtie Dishonoured_ (London, 1529)--Steevens's copy, thirty-four pounds; Lewicke's _Titus and Gisippus_ (London, 1562), twenty-four pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence; Parker, _De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae_ (London, 1572), forty-five pounds, three shillings; Nicolas Breton's _Floorish upon Fancie_ (London, 1577), forty-two pounds; Hunnis's _Hyve full of Hunnye_ (London, 1578), eighteen guineas; _The Forrest of Fancy_ (London, 1579), thirty-eight pounds, six shillings and sixpence; Markham's _Tragedie of Sir Richard Grinvile_ (London, 1595), forty pounds, nineteen shillings; Robert Fletcher's _Nine English Worthies_ (London, 1606), thirty-seven pounds, sixteen shillings; Dolarny's _Primerose_ (London, 1606), twenty-six pounds, ten shillings; and Purchas's _Pilgrimes_, five volumes (London, 1625), thirty-four pounds, thirteen shillings. The first edition of _Othello_ sold for fifty-six pounds, fourteen shillings; of _Love's Labour Lost_ for forty pounds, ten shillings; and the _Venus and Adonis_ of 1602 for forty-two pounds. Seven hundred and eighty-one pounds, one shilling were obtained for the Luttrell collection of poetical sheets; and fifty-two pounds, ten shillings for a little _Manual of Devotions_, one inch and seven-eighths long, and one inch and three-eighths broad, written on vellum, and bound in gold, said to have been given by Anne Boleyn on the scaffold to her Maid of Honour, Mistress Wyatt.

Bindley's portraits, prints, drawings, and medals were sold by Leigh and Sotheby in 1819, and realised seven thousand six hundred and ninety-two pounds.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 83: _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxxviii.