Can, like their owner's self, enjoy them?'

In addition to this reference, Scott, in one of his letters, speaks of
'Heber the magnificent, whose library and cellar are so superior to all
others in the world.' Frequent mention is made of Heber in the notes to
the Waverley novels. At one period of his life Heber was a Member of
Parliament, and throughout his career it seems that he found recreation
from the sport of collecting in the sport of the fields. He has been
known to take a journey of four or five hundred miles to obtain a rare
volume, 'fearful to trust to a mere commission.' He bought by all
methods, in all places, and at all times, a single purchase on one
occasion being an entire library of 30,000 volumes. Curiously enough, he
disliked large-paper copies, on account of the space they filled. When
he died, he had eight houses full of books--two in London, one in
Oxford, and others at Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent, besides
smaller collections in Germany. When sold, the number of lots was
52,000, and of volumes about 147,000, and the total amount realized
L57,000, or about two-thirds of the original expenditure. The sale,
which commenced in 1834, lasted over several years, and the catalogue
alone comprises six thick octavo volumes. He is described as a tall,
strong, well-made man.

Writing to Sir Egerton Brydges, the Rev. A. Dyce observes concerning
Heber's death: 'Poor man! He expired at Pimlico,[47:A] in the midst of
his rare property, without a friend to close his eyes, and from all I
have heard I am led to believe that he died broken-hearted. He had been
ailing some time, but took no care of himself, and seemed, indeed, to
court death. Yet his ruling passion was strong to the last. The morning
he died he wrote out some memoranda for Thorpe about books which he
wished to be purchased for him' (Fitzgerald, 'The Book-Fancier,' p.
230).

In noticing Scott's edition of Dryden, and in alluding to the help which
Scott obtained from Heber and Bindley, the _Edinburgh Review_ speaks of
the two as 'gentlemen in whom the love of collecting, which is an
amusement to others, assumes the dignity of a virtue, because it gives
ampler scope to the exercise of friendship, and of a generous sympathy
with the common cause of literature.'

[Illustration: _William Beckford, Book-collector._]

William Beckford (1761-1844) and the tenth Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852),
for several reasons, may be bracketed together as boo