wo 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,