ight years fetched L10. The library has been
formed by the taste and learning of several generations of the Cavendish
family, from the middle of the sixteenth century to the present day. The
rarest book which it contains is the 'Liber Veritatis,' or collection
of original designs of Claude Lorraine. The greatest additions were
made to the library by William Spencer, sixth Duke, who, indeed, may be
called its founder in its present form. This nobleman, on the advice of
Tom Payne, offered L20,000 for the purchase of Count McCarthy's
celebrated collection. The offer was declined, but the Duke was a
purchaser to the extent of L10,000 of the choicer portions of the
library of Thomas Dampier, Bishop of Ely, composed, for the most part,
of Greek and Latin classics. The Duke bought largely at the Stanley,
Horn Tooke, Towneley, Edwards, and Roxburghe sales. The library
possesses the unique collection of plays formed by John Philip Kemble,
and for which L2,000 were paid in 1821. The chief features of the
library comprise a fine series of the editions of the Bible and of
Boccaccio; there are also twenty-three works of Caxton, the most
extensive in private hands, now that the Althorp collection has, or is
about to, become public property. There are two dozen books from the
press of Wynkyn de Worde, and no less than 200 editions of Cicero,
including a magnificent copy of the _editio princeps_.

The libraries of two members of the Roxburghe Club have been dispersed
by auction during the last few years--the Earl of Crawford's, in 1887
and 1889, to which reference has already been made; and Mr. Thomas
Gaisford's, in 1890. The former has still a considerable number of
important books, to which he is constantly adding; whilst his eldest son
is worthily sustaining the reputation of the family for its love of rare
and beautiful books. Mr. Gaisford has also a very large library, but he
himself describes the books as of no special interest.

The Marquis of Salisbury possesses, at Hatfield, a fine library, which,
like that of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, is rather the
accumulation of centuries than the formation of any particular head of
the house. Many of the oldest and rarest books were at one time the
properties of either Lord Burghley, Sir Robert Cecil, or of some other
distinguished member of the family. We may mention a few of the
_incunabula_: AEneas Silvius, 'Epistolae,' 1496; St. Augustine, 'De
Civitate Dei,' 1477; a copy o