ege. While
still young Wodhull inherited a considerable fortune from his father,
and he built a fine mansion on the family estate at Thenford, in which
he kept his library. He was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783.
Wodhull married a daughter of the Rev. J. Ingram of Wolford,
Warwickshire, by whom he had three children, who all predeceased him.
He died on the 10th of November 1816. In addition to his translations of
the tragedies of Euripides, Wodhull was the author of several poems.
From 1764 to his death Wodhull was an indefatigable collector of rare
and curious books, and Dibdin says of him that 'a better informed or
more finished bibliographer existed not either in France or England.'

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF MICHAEL WODHULL.]

His splendid library, which was a great consolation and pleasure to him
in the solitude of the last years of his life, was particularly rich in
early editions of the Greek and Latin classics, and in works printed in
the fifteenth century. All the books--many of which were bound by Roger
Payne--were in fine condition, and some of them had once formed part of
the libraries of Francis I., Grolier, Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers,
Longepierre, and other famous French collectors, and were bound by such
fine craftsmen as Boyet, Derome, Monnier, etc. The covers of the volumes
bound for Wodhull are mostly impressed with a stamp of his arms, impaled
with those of his wife. A portion of Wodhull's books, principally
duplicates, was sold by Leigh, Sotheby and Son, of York Street, Covent
Garden, at two sales in 1801 and 1803. The first sale consisted of a
thousand and fifty-nine lots, which realised three hundred and sixty-one
pounds, ten shillings; and the second of one thousand six hundred and
thirty-nine lots, for which the sum of eight hundred and fifteen pounds
was obtained. The remainder of the library appears to have been kept at
Thenford until 1886, when Mr. J.E. Severne, M.P., to whom it had
descended, determined to part with it, and it was sold by Wilkinson,
Sotheby and Hodge on January 11th, 1886, and nine following days. There
were two thousand eight hundred and four lots in the sale, which
produced the large sum of eleven thousand nine hundred and seventy-two
pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence.

The following are a few of the rarest and most interesting books in this
splendid collection, with the prices they fetched:--the _Catholicon_ of
Joannes Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1