nd other large ventures embarrassed him much in later
years. He became the owner of the Franklin manuscripts, left in London by
the great man's grandson, and collected during many years a library of
Frankliniana, which came to the Library of Congress when the Franklin
manuscripts were purchased for the State Department in 1881.

He was proud of his country and his State, always signing himself "Henry
Stevens, of Vermont." His book-plate had engraved beneath his name, the
titles, "G. M. B.: F. S. A." The last, of course, designated him as
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but the first puzzled
even his friends, until it was interpreted as signifying "Green Mountain
Boy." His brother used jocosely to assure me that it really meant
"Grubber of Musty Books."

As to his prices for books, while some collectors complained of them as
"very stiff," they appear, when compared with recent sales of Americana,
at auction and in sale catalogues, to be quite moderate. The late
historian Motley told me that Mr. Stevens charged more than any one for
Dutch books relating to America; but Mr. Motley's measure of values was
gauged by the low prices of Dutch booksellers which prevailed during his
residence in the Netherlands, for years before the keen demand from
America had rendered the numerous Dutch tracts of the West India Company,
etc., more scarce and of greater commercial value than they bore at the
middle of this century.

As treating of books by American authors, though not so much a complete
bibliography of their works, as a critical history, with specimens
selected from each writer, Duyckinck's "Cyclopaedia of American
Literature" deserves special mention. The last edition appeared at
Philadelphia, in 1875, in two large quarto volumes. Equally worthy of
note is the compilation by E. C. Stedman and Ellen M. Hutchinson, in
eleven volumes, entitled "Library of American Literature," New York,
1887-90. A most convenient hand-book of bibliographical reference is
Oscar F. Adams's "Dictionary of American Authors," Boston, 1897, which
gives in a compact duodecimo volume, the name and period of nearly every
American writer, with a brief list of his principal works, and their date
of publication, in one alphabet.

Of notable catalogues of books relating to America, rather than of
American publications, should be named White Kennet's "Bibliotheca
Americana primordia," the earliest known catalogue devoted to American
bibliogr