'
The Earls of Pembroke were for several generations the patrons of
learning. 'Thomas, the eighth Earl, was contemporary with those
illustrious characters, Sunderland, Harley, and Mead, during the Augustan
age of Britain'; he added a large number of classics and early printed
books to the library at Wilton, and his successor Earl Henry still
further improved it by adding the best works on architecture, on
biographies, and books of numismatics; 'the Earl of Pembroke is stored
with antiquities relating to medals and lives.'
Lord Somers had the rare pieces in law and English history which have
been published in a well-known series of tracts. Lord Carbury loved
mystical divinity; the Earl of Kent was all for pedigrees and
visitations; the Earl of Kinnoul made large collections in mathematics
and civil law; and Lord Coleraine followed Bishop Kennett in forming 'a
library of lives.'
Richard Smith was remembered as having started in the pursuit of Caxtons
in the days of Charles II.; the taste was despised when Oldys wrote, but
it eventually grew into a mania. 'For a person of an inferior rank we
never had a collector more successful. No day passed over his head in
which he did not visit Moorfields and Little Britain or St. Paul's
Churchyard, and for many years together he suffered nothing to escape him
that was rare and remarkable.'
Mr. John Bridges of Lincoln's Inn was another 'notorious book-collector.'
When his books were sold in 1726 the prices ran so high that the world
suspected a conspiracy on the part of the executors.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207