92:[88] and all the ALDINE CLASSICS
produced such an electricity of sensation that buyers stuck at nothing
to embrace them!'[89]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 85: Dibdin, _Bibliographical Decameron_, vol. iii. p. 368.]

[Footnote 86: Dibdin, _Bibliographical Decameron_, vol. iii. p. 369.]

[Footnote 87: _Ibid._, iii. 370.]

MAJOR THOMAS PEARSON, 1740?-1781

Major Thomas Pearson was born about the year 1740 at Cote Green, near
Burton-in-Kendal, Westmoreland. He was educated at Burton, and came to
London about 1756 to fill a post in the Navy Office, which he resigned
in 1760. In the course of the following year he left England, having
obtained a cadetship on the Bengal Establishment, in which he rose to
the rank of Major. He distinguished himself on several occasions, and
was particularly noticed by Lord Clive, to whom he adhered during the
mutiny fomented by Sir Robert Fletcher, at whose trial he held the
office of Judge Advocate. In 1767 Pearson married a sister of Eyles
Irwin, the traveller and writer. This lady died in the following year,
and an epitaph inscribed to her memory may be found, together with other
poetical pieces by Pearson, in vol. iv. of Pearch's _Collection of
Poems_. Pearson returned to England in August 1770 with Governor
Verelst, under whom he had acted as Military Secretary, and built a
house for himself at Burton, in which he collected a very extensive
library, consisting of works on the history, antiquities, topography,
and heraldry of Great Britain and Ireland, foreign history, voyages and
travels, natural history, etc., but it was principally remarkable for
the large number of books in all branches of old English literature, and
it was especially rich in the works of the early poets and dramatists.
In 1776 Pearson again went to India, but after a residence there of five
years he fell a victim to the effects of the climate, and died at
Calcutta on the 5th of August 1781. Some years after his death his
library was brought from Westmoreland, and sold on April 14th, 1788, and
twenty-two following days, by T. and J. Egerton at their room in
Scotland Yard. The prices obtained at the sale, in which there were
five thousand five hundred and twenty-five lots, were very
small:--Boccaccio's _The Falle of Princis and Princesses and other
Nobles_, translated by Lydgate, and printed by Pynson in 1494, fetched
but one pound, twelve shillings; _The Castell of Laboure_, also printed
by Pynson, two guine