r! Dr. Henry has spoken so handsomely
of him, and Mr. Park, in his excellent edition of Walpole's Royal and
Noble Authors,[278] has made his literary character so interesting
that, considering the dearth of early good English authors,[279] I
know of no other name that merits greater respect and admiration.

[Footnote 278: Vol i., p. 200, &c. _History of Great
Britain_, by Dr. Henry, vol. x., p. 143, &c.]

[Footnote 279: "In the library of Glastonbury abbey, in
1248, there were but four books in Engleish, &c. We have not
a single historian, in Engleish prose, before the reign of
Richard the Second; when John Treviza translateed the
Polychronicon of Randal Higden. Boston of Bury, who seems to
have consulted all the monasterys in Engleland, does not
mention one author who had written in Engleish; and Bale, at
a lateer period, has, comparatively, but an insignificant
number: nor was Leland so fortunate as to find above two or
three Engleish books, in the monastick and other librarys,
which he rummage'd, and explore'd, under the king's
commission." Ritson's Dissertation on Romance and
Minstrelsy: prefixed to his _Ancient Engleish Metrical
Romancees_, vol. i., p. lxxxi.]

LYSAND. True; and this nobleman's attention to the acquisition of fine
and useful books, when he was abroad, for the benefit of his own
country,[280] gives him a distinguished place in the list of
BIBLIOMANIACS. I dare say Lisardo would give some few hundred guineas
for his bust, executed by Flaxman, standing upon a pedestal composed
of the original editions of his works, bound in grave-coloured morocco
by his favourite Faulkener?[281]

[Footnote 280: Dr. Henry's _History of Great Britain_;
_ibid._: from which a copious note has been given in the new
edition of our _Typographical Antiquities_; vol. i., p. 127,
&c.]

[Footnote 281: Henry Faulkener, no. 4, George Court, near
the Adelphi, in the Strand. An honest, industrious, and
excellent book-binder: who, in his mode of re-binding
ancient books is not only scrupulously particular in the
preservation of that important part of a volume, the margin;
but, in his ornaments of tooling, is at once tasteful and
exact. Notwithstanding these hard times, and rather a
slender bodily frame, and yet more slender purse--with five
children, and the prospect of five more--ho