practically intact until it came under the hammer at Puttick
and Simpson's, occupying fifty-one days in the dispersal at intervals
from December 1, 1881, to March 22, 1883, the total being L55,581 6s. It
is stated that the library originally cost about L30,000.

Dr. David Williams, who from 1688 to the end of his life was minister
of a Presbyterian congregation which met at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate
Street, was a contemporary book-collector and book-hunter. His special
line was theology, and his library, which absorbed that of Dr. Bates,
once Rector of St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, is still preserved intact, and
is now, to a certain degree, a free library. Archbishop Tenison was
another great book-hunter of this period, and his library was preserved
more or less intact until 1861, when it was dispersed at Sotheby's,
under an order of the Charity Commissioners.

The brothers Thomas and Richard Rawlinson were, probably, the most
omnivorous collectors of the earlier part of the last century.
Everything in the shape of a book was welcomed. The former (1681-1725),
whose 'C. & P.' (collated and perfect) appears on the frontispiece,
title-page, or fly-leaf of books, when he lived in Gray's Inn, had so
filled his set of four rooms with books that he was obliged to sleep in
the passage. He is said to be the original study for the 158th _Tatler_,
in which 'Tom Folio' and other _soi-disant_ scholars are trounced. 'He
has a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir than for Virgil and Horace.'
It is very doubtful whether Addison (who wrote this particular _Tatler_)
really had Thomas Rawlinson in mind, whom he describes as 'a learned
idiot.' Swift has declared that some know books as they do lords; learn
their titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaintance. But neither
description is applicable to Rawlinson, who, for all that, may have
known much more about Aldus or the Elzevirs than about Virgil or Horace.
With a pretty taste for epithets, in which our forefathers sometimes
indulged, Hearne has defended his friend from Addison's sarcasms by
declaring that the mistake could only have been made by a 'shallow
buffoon.' That Rawlinson was a bibliomaniac there can be no question,
for if he had a score copies of one book, he would purchase another for
the mere gratification of possessing it. When he removed to the large
mansion in Aldersgate Street, which had been the palace of the Bishops
of London, and which he shared with his brother, 'th