le 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