I do not, however, grieve much—­indeed, to state the precise truth, I do not grieve at all—­at the dismantling of Strawberry Hill, or at the sale of the Roxburghe library; but at the vendition of Samuel Johnson’s dusty and dearly loved books (they were sold by Mr. Christie, “at his Great Room in Pall-Mall,” on Wednesday, February 16, 1785) I own to being a trifle sad and sentimental.  For Walpole, with all his cleverness, is a man one cannot love; and as for the bibliographical Duke, he evidently thought more of a rare edition or a unique copy than of all the charms of wit, poetry, or eloquence.  I suspect that a splendid binding would please him more than a splendid passage.  Whereas Johnson (he was never without a book in his pocket to read at by-times when he had nothing else to do) had a scholar’s love for books, and liked them for what they contained, and not merely because they were rare and costly.

Neither can I think unmoved of the dispersion “under the hammer” of the fine library at Greta Hall, which Southey had taken so much pains and pleasure in collecting, and which was, as his son has observed, the pride of his eyes and the joy of his heart,—­a library which contained many a “monarch folio,” and many a fine old quarto, and thousands of small, but precious volumes of ancient lore, and which was particularly rich in rare old Spanish and Portuguese books.  Many of the old volumes in this library had seen such hard service, and had been so roughly handled by former owners, that they were in a very ragged condition when they came into Southey’s possession; and as he could not afford to have them equipped in serviceable leather, his daughters and female friends comfortably and neatly clothed them in colored cotton prints.  The twelve or fourteen hundred volumes thus bound filled an entire room, which the poet designated as the “Cottonian Library.”  I saw, a year or two ago, among the costly and valuable works upon the shelves of a Boston bookstore, two or three volumes of this “Cottonian Library.”  They are not there now.  Perhaps the lucky purchaser of them may be a reader of this article.  If so, let me congratulate him upon possessing such rare and interesting memorials of the famous and immortal biographer of Doctor Daniel Dove of Doncaster.

And sure I am that no gentle reader can contemplate the fate of Charles Lamb’s library without becoming a prey to

    “Mild-eyed melancholy.”

Elia’s books,—­his “midnight darlings,” his “folios,” his “huge Switzer-like tomes of choice and massy divinity,” his “kind-hearted play-books,” his book of “Songs and Posies,” his rare old treatises, and quaint and curious tractates,—­the rich gleanings from the old London book-stalls by one who knew a good book, as Falstaff knew the Prince, by instinct,—­books that had been the solace and delight of his life, the inspirers and prompters of his best and noblest thoughts, the food of his mind, and the nourishers of his fancies, ideas, and