ous Books.

Interesting and important as is the phase of book-collecting which
relates to royal personages, it falls into insignificance beside that of
men who have achieved greatness through their own abilities. The books
collected by Thomas Cranmer, for example, quite overshadow in interest
anything which the whole reign of the Tudors could produce. It has been
well said that his knowledge of books was wide, and his opportunities
for acquiring them unrivalled. Cranmer was a generous collector, for his
library was quite open for the use of learned men. Latimer spent 'many
an hour' there, and has himself told us that he met with a copy of
Dionysius 'in my Lord of Canterbury's library.' We have already seen
that many of Cranmer's books passed into the possession of the Earl of
Arundel, but many were 'conveyed and stolen awaie.' Cranmer's books have
found an enthusiastic historian in Prebendary Burbidge, who has almost
rehabilitated the great ecclesiastic's library in the first part of Mr.
Quaritch's 'Dictionary of English Book-collectors.' Another
book-collector of a very different type was amassing an extensive
library at a somewhat later period than Cranmer: Dr. Dee, the famous
necromancer, had collected '4,000 volumes, printed and unprinted, bound
and unbound, valued at 2,000 lib.,' of which one Greek, two French and
one High Dutch volumes of MSS. alone were 'worth 533 lib.' It occupied
forty years to form this library. Most of his books passed into the
possession of Elias Ashmole--who was another collector with an
insatiable appetite--and now form a part of the Ashmolean Museum. Some
of Dee's singular MSS. were found, long after his death, in the secret
drawer of a chest, which had passed through many hands undiscovered.
Reverting for a moment to Ashmole, he himself tells us that he gave
'five volumes of Mr. Dugdale's' works to the Temple Library. And
further: 'My first boatful of books, which were carried to Mrs.
Tradescant's, were brought back to the Temple.' In May, 1667, he bought
Mr. John Booker's study of books, and gave L140 for them. In 1681 he
bought 'Mr. Lilly's library of books of his widow, for L50.'

A very distinguished book-collector of the Elizabethan period was Sir
Francis Drake, the great Admiral. It did not seem to be at all known
that the distinguished naval hero was also a bibliophile until 1883,
when the collection of books was brought from the old residence of the
Drakes, Nutwell Court, Lympst