respecting them. Mrs. Chapone, when she heard of
these troubles, proved herself no bibliophile, for she exclaimed, "Twenty
thousand volumes! bless me! why, how can he so encumber himself? Why does
he not burn half? for how much must be to spare that never can be worth
his looking at from such a store! and can he want to keep them all?"

The love of books will often form a tie of connection between very
divergent characters, and in dealing with men who have formed libraries we
can bring together the names of those who had but little sympathy with
each other during life.

George III. was a true book collector, and the magnificent library now
preserved in the British Museum owes its origin to his own judgment and
enthusiastic love for the pursuit. Louis XVI. cared but little for books
until his troubles came thick upon him, and then he sought solace from
their pages. During that life in the Temple we all know so well from the
sad reading of its incidents, books were not denied to the persecuted
royal family. There was a small library in the "little tower," and the
king drew up a list of books to be supplied to him from the library at the
Tuileries. The list included the works of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and
Terence; of Tacitus, Livy, Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Eutropius, Cornelius
Nepos, Florus, Justin, Quintus Curtius, Sallust, Suetonius and Velleius
Paterculus; the _Vies des Saints_, the _Fables de la Fontaine_,
_Telemaque_, and Rollin's _Traite des Etudes_.[6]

The more we know of Napoleon, and anecdotes of him are continually being
published in the ever-lengthening series of French memoirs, the less
heroic appears his figure, but he could not have been entirely bad, for he
truly loved books. He began life as an author, and would always have books
about him. He complained if the printing was bad or the binding poor, and
said, "I will have fine editions and handsome binding. I am rich enough
for that."[7] Thus spoke the true bibliophile. Mr. Edwards has collected
much interesting information respecting Napoleon and his libraries, and of
his labours I here freely avail myself. Bourrienne affirms that the
authors who chiefly attracted Napoleon in his school days were Polybius,
Plutarch, and Arrian. "Shortly before he left France for Egypt, Napoleon
drew up, with his own hand, the scheme of a travelling library, the charge
of collecting which was given to John Baptist Say, the Economist. It
comprised about three hundred and twe