onstantly cast a fond and faithful eye. How
admirably well-calculated he was for filling the situation
of librarian to Lord Oxford is abundantly evinced by his
catalogue of the Harleian MSS.; vide p. 89, ante. Of his
attachment to the Bibliomania there are innumerable proofs.
Take this, _inter alia_; "I spoke to Mr. Wanley, who is not
unmindful of his promise, but says he will not trouble you
with a letter, till he has something better to present you,
which he doubts not he shall have this winter _among Mr.
Harley's MSS._ Mr. Wanley has the greatest collection of
_English Bibles, Psalters, &c._, that ever any one man had.
They cost him above 50_l._, and he has been above twenty
years in collecting them. He would part with them, I
believe, but I know not at what price." _Masters's Life of
Baker_, p. 27. Consult also the preface to the _Catalogue of
the Harleian MSS._, 1808, 3 vols., folio, p. 6.]

A softer noise succeeds; and the group becomes calm and attentive, as
if some grand personage were advancing. See, 'tis HARLEY, EARL OF
OXFORD![377]

[Footnote 377: There was an amusing little volume, printed
in 1782, 8vo., concerning the library of the late King of
France; and an equally interesting one might have been
composed concerning the HARLEIAN COLLECTION--but who can now
undertake the task?--who concentrate all the rivulets which
have run from this splendid reservoir into other similar
pieces of water? The undertaking is impracticable. We have
nothing, therefore, I fear, left us but to sit down and
weep; to hang our harps upon the neighbouring willows, and
to think upon the Book "SION," with desponding sensations
that its foundations have been broken up, and its wealth
dissipated. But let us adopt a less flowery style of
communication. Before HARLEY was created a peer, his library
was fixed at Wimple, in Cambridgeshire, the usual place of
his residence; "whence he frequently visited his friends at
Cambridge, and in particular Mr. BAKER, for whom he always
testified the highest regard. This nobleman's attachment to
literature, the indefatigable pains he took, and the large
sums he expended in making the above collection, are too
well known to stand in need of any further notice."
_Masters's life of Baker_, p. 107. The eulogies of Maittaire