's History of England' is rather suggestive
of a scathing indictment of English misrule by an author from the
'distressful country' than of the picturesque prose of the whilom Whig
statesman and book-collector.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

SOME MODERN COLLECTORS.

WE have already referred, in a preceding chapter, to the origin and
early history of the Roxburghe Club, and also to the disrepute in which
its too zealous members, Hazlewood and Dibdin, contrived to place it.
The club still exists, and flourishes in a manner which renders it
unique among book-clubs. A complete set of its privately-printed
booklets is an almost impossible feat of book-collecting, and an
expensive luxury in which but few can afford to indulge. The present
constitution of the club, the members of which dine together once a
year, is as follows: President: The Marquis of Salisbury, K.G.; S.A.R.
le Duc D'Aumale; the Duke of Buccleuch, K.T.; the Duke of Devonshire,
K.G.; the Marquis of Bute, K.T.; the Marquis of Lothian, K.T.; the
Marquis of Bath; Earl Cowper, K.G.; Earl of Crawford; Earl of Powis;
Earl of Rosebery; Earl of Cawdor; Lord Charles W. Brudenell Bruce; Lord
Zouche; Lord Houghton; Lord Amherst of Hackney; the Lord Bishop of
Peterborough; the Lord Bishop of Salisbury; the Right Hon. A. J.
Balfour, M.P.; Sir William R. Anson, Bart.; Charles Butler, Esq.; Ingram
Bywater, Esq.; Richard Copley Christie, Esq.; Charles I. Elton, Esq.;
Sir John Evans, K.C.B.; George Briscoe Eyre, Esq.; Sir Augustus
Wollaston Franks; Thomas Gaisford, Esq.; Henry Hucks Gibbs, Esq.
(vice-president); Alban George Henry Gibbs, Esq.; A. H. Huth, Esq.
(treasurer); Andrew Lang, Esq.; J. Wingfield Malcolm, Esq.; John Murray,
Esq.; Edward James Stanley, Esq.; Simon Watson Taylor, Esq.; Sir Edward
Maunde Thompson (principal librarian of the British Museum); Rev. Edward
Tindal Turner, Esq.; V. Bates Van de Weyer, Esq.; and W. Aldis Wright,
Esq.

[Illustration: _The late Henry Huth, Book-collector._]

The finest and most select, and perhaps the most extensive, collection
of books owned by any member of the Roxburghe Club is the noble library
of Mr. Huth, whose father, the late Henry Huth, founded it. A very
interesting account of this library, from two points of view--Mr. F. S.
Ellis's and Mr. A. H. Huth's--appears in Part II. of Quaritch's
'Dictionary of English Book-collectors,' whilst the fullest account of
all the rarities which it contains is comprise