rooms (one of which was his lordship's bedchamber), was fitted up as
a library. The earl was very fond of the culture of fruit-trees, and
his gardens were planted with the choicest sorts, particularly every
kind of vine which would bear the open air of this climate. It
appears by Lord Shaftesbury's letters to Sir John Cropley that he
dreaded the smoke of London as so prejudicial to his health, that
whenever the wind was easterly he quitted Little Chelsea," where he
generally resided during the sitting of Parliament.

In 1710 the noble author of 'Characteristics,' then about to proceed to
Italy, sold his residence at Little Chelsea to Narcissus Luttrell, Esq.,
who, as a book-collector, is described by Dr. Dibdin as "ever ardent in
his love of past learning, and not less voracious in his bibliomaniacal
appetites" than the Duke of Marlborough. Sir Walter Scott acknowledges
in his preface to the works of Dryden the obligations he is under to the
"valuable" and "curious collection of fugitive pieces of the reigns of
Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne," "made by Narcissus
Luttrell, Esq., under whose name the editor quotes it. This industrious
collector," continues Sir Walter, "seems to have bought every poetical
tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his
time, marking carefully the price and the date of the purchase. His
collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent
poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of
Grub Street. It was dispersed on Mr. Luttrell's death," adds Sir Walter
Scott, and he then mentions Mr. James Bindley and Mr. Richard Heber as
having "obtained a great share of the Luttrell collection, and liberally
furnished him with the loan of some of them in order to the more perfect
editing of Dryden's works."

This is not exactly correct, as Mr. Luttrell's library descended with
Shaftesbury House to Mr. Sergeant Wynne, and from him to his eldest son,
after whose death it was sold by auction in 1786. On the title-page of
the sale-catalogue the collection is described as "the valuable library
of Edward Wynne, Esq., lately deceased, brought from his house at Little
Chelsea. Great part of it was formed by an eminent and curious collector
in the last century." At the sale of Mr. Wynne's library, Bindley
purchased lot '209, Collection of Poems, various, Latin and English, 5
vols.