ecial
line being Early English literature, then scarcely at all appreciated;
it is stated that the collection, which cost him less than L500,
realized, when sold by auction by King in 1798, upwards of L2,000. Dr.
Farmer is better remembered by posterity as a Shakespearian critic or
commentator. He was a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, and appears to
have had what Dibdin describes as 'his foragers, his jackalls, and his
_avant-couriers_,' who picked up for him every item of interest in his
particular lines. As becomes the true bibliophile, he was peculiarly
indifferent to his dress, but he was a scholar of great abilities. A
glance at a priced copy of his sale catalogue is enough to turn any
book-lover green with envy. For example, his copy of Richard Barnfield's
'Encomion of Lady Pecunia, or the Praise of Money' (1598), sold for
19s., Malone being the purchaser. That copy is now in the Bodleian. In
1882, the Ouvry copy of the same book realized 100 guineas! A copy of
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' (1667), with the first title-page, sold for
11s.; a volume of twelve poems, chiefly printed by Wynkyn de Worde and
Pynson, realized 25 guineas. Each item would probably realize the
amount paid for the whole, should they again occur for sale, which is
most unlikely. Both his friends, George Steevens and Isaac Reed, were
equally zealous collectors, and each had a strong weakness for the same
groove of collecting. The library of Steevens was sold, also by King, in
1800, and the 1,943 items realized L2,740 15s.; whilst that of Reed,
sold seven years later, contained 8,957 articles, and realized L4,387.

Both Steevens and Isaac Reed call for a much more extended notice than
it is possible to give them here. Many of Steevens' books realized
twenty times the amount which he paid for them. Steevens, who was born
in 1736, resided in a retired house 'just on the rise of Hampstead
Heath,' so Dibdin tells us, the house being formerly known as the Upper
Flask Tavern, to which 'Richardson sends Clarissa in one of her escapes
from Lovelace.' Here, as Dibdin further tells us, Steevens lived,
embosomed in books, shrubs, and trees. 'His habits were indeed peculiar;
not much to be envied or imitated, as they sometimes betrayed the
flights of a madman, and sometimes the asperities of the cynic. His
attachments were warm, but fickle, both in choice and duration.' Several
of his letters are printed in Dibdin's 'Bibliomania' (edit. 1842), in
which will