llectors possessed
of common sense and liberal sentiment will be pleased to see
their own portraits so faithfully drawn therein. It is taken
from the prefatory address,

"TO THE READER.

The character of the person whose collection this was, is so
well known, that there is no occasion to say much of him,
nor to any man of judgment that inspects the catalogue of
the collection itself. Something, however, it becomes us to
say of both; and this I think may with truth and modesty
enough be said, that as few men knew books, and that part of
learning which is called _Historia Litteraria_, better than
himself, so there never yet appeared in England so choice
and valuable a catalogue to be thus disposed of as this
before us: more especially of that sort of books which are
out of the common course, which a man may make the business
of his life to collect, and at last not to be able to
accomplish. A considerable part of them being so little
known, even to many of the learned buyers, that we have
reason to apprehend this misfortune to attend the sale, that
there will not be competitors enough to raise them up to
their just and real value. Certain it is this library
contains not a few which never appeared in any auction here
before; nor indeed, as I have heard him say, for ought he
knew, (and he knew as well as any man living) _in any
printed catalogue in the world_."--"We must confess that,
being a person who collected his books for use, and not for
ostentation or ornament, he seemed no more solicitous about
_their_ dress than _his own_; and therefore you'll find that
a _gilt back_, or a _large margin_, was very seldom any
inducement to him to buy. 'Twas sufficient that he had the
book." "Though considering that he was so unhappy as to want
heirs capable of making that use of them which he had done,
and that therefore they were to be dispersed after this
manner; I have heard him condemn his own negligence in that
particular; observing, that the garniture of a book was as
apt to recommend it to a great part of our _modern
collectors_ (whose learning goes not beyond the edition, the
title-page, and the printer's name) as the intrinsic value
could. But that he himself was not a mere nomenclator, and
versed only in title-pages, but h