pparently had been given by the author to Fox, who wrote
on the fly-leaf this note: 'The author at Brooks' said there was no
salvation for this country, until six heads of the principal persons in
the administration were laid on the table. Eleven days after, this same
gentleman accepted a place of "lord of trade" under those very
ministers, and has acted with them ever since.' This peculiarly nasty
little note sent the value of the odd volume up to L3 3s. Gibbon,
writing in his 'Autobiography' of Fox, says, 'I admired the powers of a
superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the
softness and simplicity of a child,' an opinion which he might have
modified if he had lived to read the foregoing note. When Canning's
books, for the most part of an exceedingly commonplace and uninteresting
character, came under the hammer at Christie's in 1828, the competition
was extremely keen for all volumes which bore the great statesman's
autograph, and as most of the books contained more or less elaborate
indications of Canning's proprietorship, his executors received nearly
double the sum which they could reasonably expect. Similar illustrations
occur every year at book-auctions.

The idiosyncrasies of collectors might make quite as long a chapter as
that of books which have belonged to famous persons, and it is for the
same reason that we have to deal briefly with each. It is curious that
almost as soon as book-collecting became at all general, the 'faddy' man
came into existence. Dr. John Webster, of Clitheroe, who died June 18,
1682, aged seventy-two, for example, had a library which was rich in
books of romance, and what was then termed 'the black art'; but Webster
was the author of a rare volume on witchcraft, so that his books were
his literary tools--just as, a century later, John Rennie, the
distinguished civil engineer, made a speciality of mathematical books,
of which he had a collection nearly complete in all languages. Dr.
Benjamin Moseley's library, which was sold by Stewart in March, 1814,
was composed for the most part of books on astrology, magic, and
facetiae. The Rev. F. J. Stainforth, whose library was sold at Sotheby's
in 1867, collected practically nothing but books written by or relating
to women; he aimed to secure not only every book, but every edition of
such books. He was a most determined book-hunter, and when Holywell
Street was at its lowest moral ebb, this eccentric gentleman used t