ler, who was Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme from
1847 to 1859, and on his death on the 5th of April 1889 to Mr. Wakefield
Christie-Miller, who died at Dublin on the 22nd of February 1898. Many
rare books have been added to the Britwell Library by its later
possessors. The additions made by the last owner were especially
important, notably that of the larger portion of the Elizabethan
rarities discovered in 1867 at Lamport Hall, the seat of Sir Charles
Isham; and the collection may now be considered unrivalled among private
libraries for the number of choice examples of English and Scottish
literature which it contains, particularly in the division of English
poetry. The finest copy known of the _Dictes or Sayings of the
Philosophers_, one of the three extant copies of the _Morale Prouerbes
of Cristyne_, and nine other works printed by Caxton, are to be found on
the shelves of the library, as well as a large number of books from the
presses of Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Julyan Notary, and other early
English printers. Among them are many editions of the grammatical
treatises of Robert Whitinton and John Stanbridge, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde, and unique copies of Fitzherbert's _Boke of Husbandrie_, the
romance of _Oliver of Castile_, and _Fysshynge with an Angle_, all by
the same printer. The library contains also a fine series of the early
editions of the English Chronicles, and of the works of Chaucer. Among
the treasures of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods are the first
Shakespeare folio (the second, third, and fourth folios are also in the
library); an unique copy of an edition of _Venus and Adonis_, printed
for William Leake at London in 1599, from the Isham collection; all the
early editions of Sidney's _Arcadia_; fine examples of the early
editions of the works of Edmund Spenser; the only perfect copy known of
the first edition of the _Paradyse of Daintie Devises_; and remarkably
complete sets of the works of Churchyard, Breton, Greene, Dekker, Wither
and Brathwaite. Other notable books in this splendid library are a copy
on vellum, with coloured maps, of Ptolemy's _Cosmographia_, printed at
Ulm in 1482, and bound by Derome; the Aldine edition of _Poliphili
Hypnerotomachia_, in the original binding, and an unique copy of the
English translation printed in London by Samuel Waterson in 1592; a fine
and perfect set in nine parts of the _Mirrour of Princely Deedes and
Knighthood_ (a translation of the Spanish _Espejo