39]"/> "not to mention the excellent collection of printed books that he also left behind him, both of chemistry and musick. Besides these books that he left, he had some years before his death (1714) sold by auction a noble collection of books, most of them in the Rosicrucian faculty (of which he was a great admirer), whereof there is a printed catalogue extant, as there is of those that were sold after his death, which catalogue I have by me (by the gift of my very good friend Mr. Bagford), and have often looked over with no small surprize and wonder, and particularly for the great number of MSS. in the before-mentioned faculties that are specified in it."[5]

Dr. Johnson, although a great reader, was not a collector of books. He was forced to possess many volumes while he was compiling his Dictionary, but when that great labour was completed, he no longer felt the want of them. Goldsmith, on the other hand, died possessed of a considerable number of books which he required, or had at some time required, for his studies. "The Select Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Valuable Books, in English, Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and other Languages, late the Library of Dr. Goldsmith, deceased," was sold on Tuesday, the 12th of July, 1774, and the Catalogue will be found in the Appendix to Forster's Life. There were 30 lots in folio, 26 in quarto, and 106 in octavo and smaller sizes. Among the books of interest in this list are Chaucer's Works, 1602; Davenant's Works, 1673; Camoens, by Fanshawe, 1655; Cowley's Works, 1674; Shelton's Don Quixote; Raleigh's History of the World, 1614; Bulwer's Artificial Changeling, 1653; Verstegan's Antiquities, 1634; Hartlib's Legacie, 1651; Sir K. Digby on the Nature of Bodies, 1645; Warton's History of English Poetry, 1774; Encyclopédie, 25 vols., 1770; Fielding's Works, 12 vols., 1766; Bysshe's Art of Poetry; Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, 3 vols., 1773; Percy's Reliques, 3 vols., Dublin, 1766; Sir William Temple's Works; and De Bure, Bibliographie Instructive.

A catalogue such as this, made within a few weeks of the death of the owner, cannot but have great interest for us. The library could not have been a very choice one, for there is little notice of bindings and much mention of odd volumes. It was evidently a working collection, containing the works of the poets Goldsmith loved, and of the naturalists from whom he stole his knowledge.

Gibbon was a true collector, who loved his books, and he must have needed them greatly, working as he did at Lausanne away from public libraries. After his death the library was purchased by 'Vathek' Beckford, but he kept it buried, and it was of no use to any one. Eventually it was sold by auction, a portion being bought for the Canton, and another portion going to America. There was little in the man Gibbon to be enthusiastic about, but it is impossible for any true book lover not to delight in the thoroughness of the author of one of the noblest books ever written. The fine old house where the Decline and Fall was written and the noble library was stored still stands, and the traveller may stroll in the garden so beautifully described by Gibbon when he walked to the historical berceau and felt that his herculean labour was completed. His heart must be preternaturally dull which does not beat quicker as he walks on that ground. The thought of a visit some years ago forms one of the most vivid of the author's pleasures of memory.

Charles Burney, the Greek scholar, is said to have expended nearly £25,000 on his library, which consisted of more than 13,000 printed volumes and a fine collection of MSS. The library was purchased for the British Museum for the sum of £13,500.

Charles Burney probably inherited his love of collecting from his father, for Dr. Burney possessed some twenty thousand volumes. These were rather an incumbrance to the Doctor, and when he moved to Chelsea Hospital, he was in some difficulty 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, Cæsar, Marcus Aurelius, Eutropius, Cornelius Nepos, Florus, Justin, Quintus Curtius, Sallust, Suetonius and Velleius Paterculus; the Vies des Saints, the Fables de la Fontaine, Télèmaque, and Rollin's Traité 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 twenty volumes, more than half of which are historical, and nearly all, as it seems, in French. The ancient historians comprised in the list are Thucydides, Plutarch, Polybius, Arrian, Tacitus, Livy, and Justin. The poets are Homer, Virgil, Tasso, Ariosto, the Télèmaque of Fénélon, the Henriade of Voltaire, with Ossian and La Fontaine. Among the works of prose fiction are the English novelists in forty volumes, of course in translations, and the indispensable Sorrows of Werter, which, as he himself told Goethe, Napoleon had read through seven times prior to October, 1808. In this list the Bible, together with the Koran and the Vedas, are whimsically,