ale excited great interest, and many of the books went for large
sums; but the prices obtained for others were small compared with those
the volumes would fetch at the present time: a fine copy of the first
edition of Walton's _Compleat Angler_ realised no more than twenty-seven
pounds, ten shillings. All the Shakespeares sold well. The first folio,
probably the finest example extant, was bought by the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts for six hundred and eighty-two guineas, till recently the
highest price ever obtained for a copy;[94] and the second, third and
fourth folios fetched respectively one hundred and forty-eight pounds,
forty-six pounds, and twenty-one pounds, ten shillings. The third folio
was a good copy, but had the title in facsimile, which accounts for the
small sum it realised. Of the quarto plays, the first edition of _King
Richard the Third_--a very fine copy--sold for three hundred and
fifty-one pounds, fifteen shillings; the first editions of the _Merry
Wives of Windsor_ and _Love's Labour Lost_ for three hundred and
forty-six pounds, ten shillings each, and the first edition of _King
Richard the Second_ for three hundred and forty-one pounds, five
shillings. The 1594 and 1596 editions of _Venus and Adonis_ realised two
hundred and forty pounds and three hundred and fifteen pounds; a copy of
the _Sonnets_ two hundred and twenty-five pounds, fifteen shillings; and
the first edition of _Lucrece_ one hundred and fifty-seven pounds, ten
shillings. The copy of _Love's Labour Lost_, and the 1596 edition of
_Venus and Adonis_, of which the Bodleian Library possesses the only
other copy, were secured for the British Museum.

The following are a few of the other more notable books in the library,
together with the prices they fetched at the sale:--Unique copy of _The
Boke of Hawkynge and Huntynge and Fysshynge_, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde, without date, one hundred and eight pounds; _Rychard Cuer de
Lyon_, also printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1528, ninety-two pounds;
_Complaynt of a Dolorous Lover_, printed by Robert Wyer about 1550,
unique, sixty-seven pounds, four shillings; _The Tragicall Historie of
Romeus and Juliet_ (London, 1562), seventy-seven pounds, fourteen
shillings; _Merry Jeste of a shrewde and curste Wyfe_ (London, about
1575), unique, sixty-four pounds; Munday's _Banquet of Daintie
Conceits_ (London, 1588), unique, two hundred and twenty-five pounds;
Chute's _Beawtie Dishonoured_, written under the title of