some general principle, with or without an eye to cost. Under either
of these conditions the motive is usually personal, and the ultimate
transfer in some instances to a public institution an accident or
afterthought.

P. 38. _Harleian Library._--The taste of the Harley family for books
dated from the time of Charles I. Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton
Castle, is credited with the possession of "an extraordinary library
of manuscript and printed books, which had been collected from one
descent to another." The house was besieged and burned in 1643, and
these literary and bibliographical treasures probably perished with
it. But his grandson, the first Earl of Oxford, restored the library;
and we all know that the second earl, who survived till 1741, elevated
it to the rank of the first private collection in England, while he
unconsciously sacrificed it to the incidence of a languid and falling
market.

P. 42. Mr. William Henry Miller of Craigentinny was originally a
solicitor in Edinburgh.

P. 65. _Books of Emblems._--Besides those described is the translation
executed by Thomas Combe, and licensed in 1593, of the _Theatre des
Bons Engins_ of Guillaume de la Perriere, of which no perfect copy of
any edition had been seen till the writer met with one of 1614 among
the Burton-Constable books.

P. 103. _Books Appreciable on Special Grounds._--Among these
are--Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_, 1769, and White's _Selborne_, 1785.
Everybody is aware that there are better works on Scotland than
Pennant's, and better accounts of birds, those of Selborne included,
than White's. But we desire the two heirlooms, as their authors left
them, pure and simple. We prefer not to have to disentangle the two
pieces of eighteenth century workmanship from the editorial and
artistic improvements which have overlaid them. A much-edited writer
becomes a partner in a limited company without a vote. His pages are
converted by degrees into an arena where others commend him above his
deserts, or what might have been his wishes, while here and there he
finds a commentator, whose aim is to convince you how superior a job
he would have made of it had it been left to him.

P. 109. _Translations._--It is remarkable that Aulus Gellius makes the
same complaint as is embodied in the text, about the lame versions of
Latin writers from the Greek.

P. 117. Howell's _New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets_.--The Huth
fragment seems as if it would complete the uni