icitous about Rochester's _Poems_.

Pepys' books were numbered consecutively throughout the library, and
therefore, when rearranged, they needed to be all renumbered. This was
done by Pepys himself, his wife, and Deb Willett, who were busy until
near midnight 'titleing' the books.

With so many references to Pepys and his book-collecting as we find in
the _Diary_, it is puzzling to read, under date, October 5, 1665, after
references to 'Sister Poll,' 'I abroad to the office, and thence to the
Duke of Albemarle, all my way reading a book of Mr. Evelyn's translating
and sending me as a present, about directions for gathering a library,
_but the book is above my reach_.' Pepys, one would think, had by this
time gone far enough in himself gathering a library to understand the
little pamphlet by Naudeus, librarian to Cardinal Mazarin, which Evelyn
translated, and which was issued in 1661, and which is now very rare.
There is a charming letter from Evelyn to Pepys, dated 12th August,
1689, giving very many interesting details of the private libraries of
the seventeenth century, and which goes a very long way to modify
Macaulay's rather overdrawn picture of the scarcity of books and private
libraries in 1685. This letter of Evelyn's might be compared with
Addison's picture of 'Tom Folio' in the _Tatler_.[36] Tom Folio stood
for a great book collector, Thomas Rawlinson.

The eighteenth century produced a host of great book collectors. William
Oldys, Humphrey Wanley, and Thomas Rawlinson just mentioned. These men
were great experts, who infected with enthusiasm many great patrons of
letters, such as Charles, Earl of Sunderland, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord
Somers, Lord Oxford, Topham Beauclerk, Colonel Stanley, and George Earl
Spencer, whose famous Library now at Manchester has been called the
finest private library in Europe. In his _Life of Sir Walter Scott_,
Lockhart has inserted a visitor's impression of the library at
Abbotsford. 'The visitor might ransack a library, unique, I suppose, in
some of its collections, and in all departments interesting and
characteristic of the founder. So many of the volumes were enriched with
anecdotes or comments in his own hand, that to look over his books was,
in some degree, conversing with him.' The catalogue of the Abbotsford
library was printed by the Maitland Club in 1838, and is one of the best
catalogues of a private collection ever printed.

FOOTNOTE:

[27] _Nineteenth Century_