accused of _rating his books at
too high a price_: to this the following was his reply, or
rather Dr. Johnson's; for the style of the Doctor is
sufficiently manifest: "If, therefore, I have set a high
value upon books--if I have vainly imagined literature to be
more fashionable than it really is, or idly hoped to revive
a taste well nigh extinguished, I know not why I should be
persecuted with clamour and invective, since I shall only
suffer by my mistake, and be obliged to keep those books
which I was in hopes of selling."--_Preface to the 3d
volume._ The fact is that Osborne's charges were extremely
moderate; and the sale of the books was so very slow that
Johnson assured Boswell "there was not much gained by the
bargain." Whoever inspects Osborne's catalogue of 1748 (four
years after the Harleian sale), will find in it many of the
most valuable of Lord Oxford's books; and, among them, a
copy of the Aldine Plato of 1513, _struck off upon vellum_,
marked at 21_l._ only: for this identical copy Lord Oxford
gave 100 guineas, as Dr. Mead informed Dr. Askew; from the
latter of whose collections it was purchased by Dr. Hunter,
and is now in the Hunter Museum. There will also be found,
in Osborne's catalogues of 1748 and 1753, some of the
scarcest books in English Literature, marked at 2, or 3, or
4_s._, for which three times the number of _pounds_ is now
given.

ANALYSIS OF THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY.

I shall take the liberty of making an arrangement of the
books different from that which appears in the Harleian
catalogue; but shall scrupulously adhere to the number of
departments therein specified. And first of those in

1. _Divinity._

In the _Greek_, _Latin_, _French_, and _Italian_ languages,
there were about 2000 theological volumes. Among these, the
most rare and curious were Bamler's bible of 1466,
beautifully illuminated, in 2 volumes: Schaeffer's bible of
1472. The famous Zurich bible of 1543, "all of which, except
a small part done by Theodoras Bibliander, was translated
from the Hebrew by a Jew, who styled himself Leo Judae, or
the Lion of Judah. The Greek books were translated by Petrus
Cholinus. The New Testament is Erasmus's." The Scrutinium
Scripturarum of Rabbi Samuel, Mant., 1475; a book which is
said "