-door
through which fame can escape its penalties. On coming out, Mr.
Gladstone, looking, as a working man standing on the kerb expressed it,
'as straight as a new nail,' received quite an ovation, the people
waving their hats and cheering vigorously as he drove away in a cab. Mr.
Gladstone's marked catalogues are a familiar and a peculiarly welcome
feature with second-hand booksellers, who proudly expose them in their
windows. A bookseller who exhibited one of these catalogues before the
Old Man retired from the Premiership was accosted by a strong Tory with
the remark: 'I see you've got a list marked by Gladstone's initials in
the window;' and then, whispering fiercely in the bookseller's ear, he
added, 'Does he pay you?' We give a facsimile of one of Mr. Menken's
catalogues with an order for books from Mr. Gladstone.

[Illustration: '_An Order from Mr. Gladstone._']

Mr. Henry Spencer Ashbee, of Bedford Square, has a small but charming
library, nearly every volume being beautifully bound. The books are, for
the most part, modern, and chiefly French. There are, for example,
Sainte-Beuve's 'Livre d'Amour,' which was suppressed after a few copies
were struck off, with the author's own corrections; the Fortsas
'Catalogue,' the cruel joke of M. Renier Chalon; first editions of 'The
English Spy,' an exceptionally fine copy; Coryat's 'Crambe, or, his
Colwork,' 1611; Roger's 'Poems' and 'Italy'; a number of books
illustrated by Chodowiecki, the Cruikshank of Germany; practically all
the books published by M. Octave Uzanne and Paul Lacroix in the finest
possible states. Mr. Ashbee possesses several extra-illustrated or
grangerized books of exceptional interest--the nine volumes of Nichols'
'Literary Anecdotes' are extended to thirty-four, there being upwards of
5,000 additional portraits, views, and so forth. Mr. Ashbee's library
comprises several thousand volumes, the binding alone of which must have
cost a small fortune.

[Illustration: _Portrait Bookplate of Mr. H. S. Ashbee._]

[Illustration: _Mr. T. J. Wise, Book-collector._]

The libraries of Mr. Thomas J. Wise and Mr. Walter Slater may be
bracketed together, partly because they have been formed side by side.
They differ in many respects, however. Mr. Wise's is a small but choice
collection of books, autographs, and manuscripts of modern writers. He
possesses, for the most part, in first editions of the finest quality,
practically everything written by Matthew Arno