time to an affection for
cheap and useful literature.

The fever was still high in 1810 when Mr. Heath's plain classics were
snatched up at very extravagant terms. Colonel Stanley's library was
typical of the taste of the day. His selection comprised rare Spanish and
Italian poetry, novels and romances, 'De Bry's voyages complete, fine
classics, and a singular set of _facetiae_.' It was sold in 1813, a few
weeks after the dispersal of Mr. John Hunter's very similar collection.
This was immediately followed by an auction of Mr. Gosset's books, which
lasted for twenty-three days: they seem to have chiefly consisted of
divinity and curious works on philology. Mr. John Towneley's library was
sold a few months afterwards. Mr. Towneley was the owner of a fine
'Pontifical' of Innocent IV., and a missal by Giulio Clovio from the
Farnese palace; his celebrated MS., known as the 'Towneley Iliad,' was
bought by Dr. Charles Burney, and passed with the rest of his books to
the British Museum. In 1816 Mr. Michael Wodhull died, after
half-a-century spent in the steady collection of good books in the
auctions of London and Paris: the recent sale of his library has made all
the world familiar with his well-selected volumes, bound in russia by his
faithful Roger Payne, and annotated on their fly-leaves with valuable
memoranda of book-lore. We shall not repeat the story of Mr. Beckford's
triumphant career, of the glories of Fonthill or the later splendours of
the Hamilton Palace collection. We should note his purchase of Gibbon's
books 'in order to have something to read on passing through Lausanne.'
'I shut myself up,' said Mr. Beckford, 'for six weeks from early in the
morning till night, only now and then taking a ride; the people thought
me mad; I read myself nearly blind.' Beckford never saw the books again
'after once turning hermit there.' He gave them to his physician, Dr.
Scholl, and they were sold by auction in 1833; most of them were
scattered about the world, but some are said to be still preserved at
Lausanne in the public library.

This period was marked by the rivalry between bibliophiles of high rank
and great wealth, whose Homeric contests have been worthily described by
Dibdin in his history of the Bibliomania. A note in one of the Althorp
Caxtons records a more amicable arrangement. The book belonged to Mr.
George Mason, at whose sale it was bought by the Duke of Roxburghe: 'The
Duke and I had agreed not to oppose one