ctor of Middleton-Cheney, Banbury,
and vice-president of the Roxburghe Club, was a veritable Heber in a
small way. Besides the enormous quantity of books sold in two portions
(twenty-two days in all) in February, 1893, and April, 1894, several
vanloads were disposed of locally, as not being worth the cost of
carriage to London. His library must have comprised nearly 100,000
volumes, of which only a small proportion had any commercial importance.
He managed, however, in his long career, to pick up a few bargains,
notably the Columbus 'Letter' ('Epistola Christofori Colom.,' four
leaves, 1493, with which was bound up Vespucci, 'Mundus novus Albericus
Vesputius,' etc., 1503, also four leaves), which cost him less than L5,
and which realized L315; he also possessed a first edition of
Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield,' 1766, L39 10s.; Keats's 'Poems,' first
edition, 1817, in the original boards, L23 10s.; Fielding's 'Tom Jones,'
1749, first edition, uncut, in the original boards, L69. The two
portions of the Buckley library sold at Sotheby's realized L9,420 9s.
6d. The smallest, as well as the choicest, library sold in 1894 (June
11) comprised the most select books from the collection of Mr. Birket
Foster, the distinguished artist. The first, second, third, and fourth
folio Shakespeares sold for L255, L56, L130, and L25 respectively; the
quarto editions of the great dramatist included 'A Midsummer Night's
Dream,' 1600, large copy, L122; 'Merchant of Venice,' 1600, L146; 'King
Lear,' 1608, L100. Mr. Foster also possessed John Milton's copy of
'Lycophronis Alexandra,' which realized L90; an incomplete copy of
Caxton's 'Myrrour of the World,' 1491, L77. The valuable and interesting
dramatic and miscellaneous library of the late Frederick Burgess, of the
Moore and Burgess minstrels, was sold at Sotheby's, in May-June, 1894,
and included many choice editions of modern authors.

The late Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte was a giant among
book-collectors, but his books were almost exclusively philological. Mr.
Victor Collins, who has compiled an 'Attempt' at a catalogue, in which
there are no less than 13,699 entries, states that 'as a young man the
Prince was fond of chemistry, and on one occasion he was desirous of
reading a chemical work that happened to exist only in Swedish. He
learned Swedish for the purpose, and this gave him a taste for
languages, very many of which he studied. His object in forming the
library was to discover,