bibliomaniac--and, perhaps, as a metaphysician may think--as
a fool! but let it pass!) with these invaluable
purchases:--his Majesty, in his directions to Mr. Nicol,
forbade any competition with those purchasers who wanted
books of science and belles-lettres for their _own
professional_ or _literary_ pursuits: thus using, I ween,
the powers of his purse in a manner at once merciful and
wise.--"O si sic"--may we say to many a heavy-metalled
book-auction bibliomaniac of the present day!--Old Tom
Payne, the father of the respectable Mr. Payne, of
Pall-Mall, used to tell Mr. Nichol--_pendente hasta_--that
he had been "raising all the CAXTONS!" "Many a copy," quoth
he, "hath _stuck_ in my shop at two guineas!" Mr. NICHOLS,
in his amusing biography of Bowyer, has not devoted so large
a portion of his pages to the description of Mr. West's
collection, life, and character, as he has to many
collectors who have been less eminently distinguished in the
bibliographical world. Whether this was the result of the
paucity, or incongruity, of his materials, or whether, from
feelings of delicacy he might not choose to declare all he
knew, are points into which I have neither right nor
inclination to enquire. There seems every reason to conclude
that, from youth, West had an elegant and well-directed
taste in matters of literature and the fine arts. As early
as the year 1720, he shewed the munificence of his
disposition, in these respects, by befriending Hearne with a
plate for his _Antiquities of Glastonbury_; see p.
285--which was executed, says Hearne, "Sumptibus ornatissimi
amicissimique Juvenis (multis sane nominibus de studiis
nostris optime meriti) JACOBI WEST," &c. So in his pref. to
_Adam de Domerham de reb. gest. Glaston_:--"antiquitatum ac
historiarum nostrarum studiosus in primis--Jacobus West." p.
xx. And in his _Walter Hemingford_, we have:--"fragmentum,
ad civitatem Oxoniensem pertinens, admodum egregium, mihi
dono dedit amicus eximius Jacobus West--is quem alibi
juvenem ornatissimum appellavi," &c., p. 428. How the
promise of an abundant harvest, in the mature years of so
excellent a young man, was realized, the celebrity of West,
throughout Europe, to his dying day, is a sufficient
demonstration. I conclude with the followi