a collection of antiques that were
unrivalled by any subject. His learning made him a fit
companion for the literati. Wilton will ever be a monument
of his extensive knowledge; and the princely presents it
contains, of the high estimation in which he was held by
foreign potentates, as well as by the many monarchs he saw
and served at home. He lived rather as a primitive
christian; in his behaviour, meek; in his dress, plain:
rather retired, conversing but little." Burnet, in the
_History of his own Times_, has spoken of the Earl with
spirit and propriety. Thus far the first edition of the
Bibliomania. From an original MS. letter of Anstis to Ames
(in the possession of Mr. John Nichols) I insert the
following memoranda, concerning the book celebrity of Lord
Pembroke. "I had the book of Juliana Barnes (says Anstis)
printed at St. Albans, 1486, about hunting, which was
afterwards reprinted by W. de Worde at Westminster,
1496--but the EARL OF PEMBROKE would not rest till he got it
from me." From a letter to Lewis (the biographer of Caxton)
by the same person, dated Oct. 11, 1737, Anstis says that
"the Earl of Pembroke would not suffer him to rest till he
had presented it to him." He says also that "he had a later
edition of the same, printed in 1496, _on parchment_, by W.
de Worde, which he had given away: but he could send to the
person who had it." From another letter, dated May 8, 1740,
this "person" turns out to be the famous JOHN MURRAY; to
whom we are shortly to be introduced. The copy, however, is
said to be "imperfect; but the St. Albans book, a fair
folio." In this letter, Lord Pembroke's library is said to
hold "the greatest collection of the first books printed in
England." Perhaps the reader will not be displeased to be
informed that in the _Antiquities of Glastonbury_, published
by Hearne, 1722, p. LVIII, there is a medal, with the
reverse, of one of the Earl's ancestors in Queen Elizabeth's
time, which had escaped Evelyn. It was lent to Hearne by Sir
Philip Sydenham, who was at the expense of having the plate
engraved.]

While this nobleman was the general theme of literary praise there
lived a _Bibliomaniacal Triumvirate_ of the names of BAGFORD, MURRAY,
and HEARNE: a triumvirate, perhaps not equalled, in the mere love of
book-