ales being
L15,509 4s. 6d. The library of the Earl of Aylesford was sold at
Christie's, March 6-16, 1888; and in June and November of the same year,
the extensive collection of the late R. S. Turner, of the Albany,
occupied Messrs. Sotheby twenty-eight days, 7,568 lots realizing a total
of over L16,000. A previous sale of 774 items of his books occurred in
France in 1878, and realized 319,100 francs. Turner's books included
many exceedingly choice volumes bound by the most eminent craftsmen,
such as Clovis Eve, Deseuil, Bozet, Derome, Padeloup, Cape,
Trautz-Bauzonnet, Roger Payne, Bedford, and Riviere. Turner was born in
1819, and died in June, 1887. Perhaps the great book sensation of 1888
occurred in the sale at Christie's when a portion of the library of the
late Lord Chancellor Hardwicke ('The Wimpole Library') was sold, and
when a dozen tracts relating to America, bound together in a quarto
volume, realized the unheard-of sum of L555. In the same sale also there
were three Caxtons: the 'Game and Play of Chesse,' 1475-76, first
edition, but not quite perfect, L260; and 'The Myrrour of the Worlde;'
and Tullius 'De Amicitia,' both imperfect, in one volume, L60.

We can only briefly allude here to some of the more important
collections which have been sold in London during the past six years. In
the majority of instances they were the possession of deceased
individuals, who for the most part lived out of London. In February,
1889, the Hopetoun House Library, the property of the Right Hon. the
Earl of Hopetoun, was sold at Sotheby's, 1,263 lots realizing L6,117
6s., the most important items in the sale being a copy of the
Gutenberg-Fust Latin Bible, 1450-55, L2,000, and the _editio princeps_
Virgil, 1469, L590. The library of Mr. John Mansfield Mackenzie, of
Edinburgh, sold at the same place in the following March (2,368 lots =
L7,072), was one of the most important collections dispersed in recent
years; it was especially rich in first editions of modern writers, in
_curious_ books, and in literature relating to the drama; it included an
exceedingly extensive series of Cruikshankiana, many of which realized
prices which have not since been maintained. The most important lots in
the sale of a selection from the library of the Duke of Buccleuch, at
Sotheby's, March 25-27, 1889, were five Caxtons, viz.: 'Dictes and
Sayengis of the Philosophirs,' 1477, first edition, L650; 'The
Chronicles of England,' first edition, 1480, L