etion of Messrs. Payne and Foss--booksellers of long established
eminence and respectability. It was merely intended to be an
alphabetical, sale catalogue, with no other bibliographical details
than the scarcity or curiosity of the article warranted. It was also
of importance to press the sale, or sales, with all convenient
dispatch: but the mass of books was so enormous that two years
(1834-6) were consumed in the dispersion of them, at home; to say
nothing of what was sold in Flanders, at Paris, and at Neuremberg. I
have of late been abundantly persuaded that the acquisition of
books--anywhere, and of whatever kind--became an ungovernable passion
with Mr. Heber; and that he was a BIBLIOMANIAC in its strict as well
as enlarged sense. Of his library at Neuremberg he had never seen a
volume; but he thought well of it, as it was the identical collection
referred to by Panzer, among his other authorities, in his
Typographical Annals. Of the amount of its produce, when sold, I am
ignorant.

I have said that the Catalogue, which consisted of XII parts
(exclusively of a portion of foreign books, which were sold by the
late Mr. Wheatley) was intended merely to be a sale catalogue, without
bibliographical remarks; but I must except Parts II, IV, and XI: the
first of these containing the _Drama_, the second the _English
Poetry_, and the third the _Manuscripts_--which, comparatively,
luxuriate in copious and apposite description. "Si sic omnia!" but it
were impracticable. I believe that the Manuscript Department,
comprised in about 1720 articles, produced upwards of L5000. It may
not be amiss to subjoin the following programme.

Part. I. 7486 articles; Sold by Sotheby
II. 6590 ---- Ditto
III. 5056 ---- Ditto
IV. 3067 ---- Sold by Evans
V. 5693 ---- Sold by Wheatley
VI. 4666 ---- Sold by Evans
VII. 6797 ---- Ditto
VIII. 3170 ---- Ditto
IX. 3218 ---- Sold by Sotheby
X. 3490 ---- Ditto
XI. 1717 ---- Sold by Evans
XII. 1690 ---- Sold by Wheatley

From which it should seem, first that the total number of _articles_
was nearly _fifty three thousand_--a number that almost staggers
belief; and places the collections of Tom Rawlinson and the Earl of
Oxford at a very considerable distance behind; although the latter,
for _condition_ (with ONE exception), has never been equalled, and
perhaps