sh authors had
not lived fruitlessly, and that the widest human heart the world has
known had not poured out its treasure in vain." So successful had the
attempts of the collectors been that nearly 7,000 volumes had been
brought together, many of them coming from the most distant parts of the
globe. The collection included 336 editions of Shakspeare's complete
works in English, 17 in French, 58 in German, 3 in Danish, 1 in Dutch, 1
in Bohemian, 3 in Italian, 4 in Polish, 2 in Russian, 1 in Spanish, 1 in
Swedish; while in Frisian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Greek, Servian,
Wallachian, Welsh, and Tamil there were copies of many separate plays.
The English volumes numbered 4,500, the German 1,500, the French 400.
The great and costly editions of Boydell and Halliwell, the original
folios of 1632, 1664, and 1685, the very rare quarto contemporary issues
of various plays, the valuable German editions, the matchless collection
of "ana," in contemporary criticism, reviews, &c., and the interesting
garnering of all the details of the Tercentenary Celebration--
wall-posters, tickets, pamphlets, caricatures, &c., were all to be found
here, forming the largest and most varied collection of Shakspeare's
works, and the English and foreign literature illustrating them, which
has ever been made, and the greatest literary memorial which any author
has ever yet received. So highly was the library valued that its
contents were consulted from Berlin and Paris, and even from the United
States, and similar libraries have been founded in other places. Only
500 of the books were preserved, and many of them were much damaged. The
loss of the famed Staunton or Warwickshire collection was even worse
than that of the Shakespearean, rich and rare as that was, for it
included the results of more than two centuries' patient work, from the
days of Sir William Dugdale down to the beginning of the present
century. The manuscript collections of Sir Simon Archer, fellow-labourer
of Dugdale, the records of the Berkeley, Digby, and Ferrers families,
the valued and patient gatherings of Thomas Sharpe, the Coventry
antiquarian, of William Hamper, the Birmingham collector, and of William
Staunton himself, were all here, forming the most wonderful county
collection ever yet formed, and which a hundred years' work will never
replace. The books, many rare or unique, and of extraordinary value,
comprised over 2000 volumes; there were hundreds of sketches and
water-colour