ptain Cox (see page -- ante), entwined some whip-cord
around them--setting them apart for the consideration of the Dean and
Chapter, whether a _second_ time, I might not become a purchaser of
some of their book-treasures? I had valued them at fourscore guineas.
The books in question will be found mentioned in a note at page 267 of
the third volume of the Bibliographical Decameron.

I had observed as follows in the work just referred to, "What would
Hortensius say to the gathering of such flowers, to add to the
previously collected _Lincoln Nosegay_?" The reader will judge of my
mingled pleasure and surprise (dashed however with a few grains of
disappointment on not becoming the proprietor of them _myself_) when
the Baron, one day, after dining with him, led me to his book-case,
and pointing to these precious tomes, asked me if I had ever seen them
_before_? For a little moment I felt the "Obstupui" of Aeneas. "How is
this?" exclaimed I. "The secret is in the vault of the Capulets"--replied
my Friend--and it never escaped him. "Those ARE the identical books
mentioned in your Decameron." Not many years afterwards I learnt from
the late Benjamin Wheatley that _he_ had procured them on a late visit
to Lincoln; and that _my_ price, affixed, was taken as their just
value. Of these Linclonian [Transcriber's Note: Lincolnian] treasures,
one volume alone--the Rape of Lucrece--brought ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS at
the sale of the Judge's library, beginning on the 18th of November,
1840. See No. 2187; where it should seem that only four other perfect
copies are known.

The library of the late Mr. Baron Bolland, consisting of 2940
articles, brought a trifle _more_ than a guinea per article. It was
choice, curious, and instructively miscellaneous. Its owner was a man
of taste as well as a scholar; and the crabbed niceties of his
profession had neither chilled his heart nor clouded his judgment. He
revelled in his small cabinet of English Coins; which he placed, and
almost worshipped, among his fire-side lares. They were, the greater
part of them, of precious die--in primitive lustre; and he handled
them, and expatiated on them, with the enthusiasm of a Snelling, and
the science of a Foulkes. His walls were covered with modern pictures,
attractive from historical or tasteful associations. There was nothing
but what seemed to

"point a moral, or adorn a tale."

His passion for books was of the largest scale and dimensions, and
mark