(or for) persons in various parts of the country. Among the bidders were
(I am told) Geoffrey Crayon,--Mr. Sparrowgrass,--Clark, of the
"Knickerbocker" magazine,--that lover of the angle and true disciple of
Izaak Walton, the late Rev. Dr. Bethune,--Burton, the comedian,--and
other well-known authors, actors, and divines. The black-letter
Chaucer--Speght's edition, folio, London, 1598,--the identical copy
spoken of by Elia in his letter to Ainsworth, the novelist--was knocked
down to Burton for twenty-five dollars. I know not who was the fortunate
purchaser of "The Works of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Newcastle,"--an especial favorite of Lamb's. Neither do I know the name
of the buyer of "The Works of Michael Drayton." They brought
twenty-eight dollars. A number of volumes (one of them my correspondent
opines was "The Dunciad," _variorum_ edition) were bought by an
enthusiastic lover of Elia who came all the way from St. Louis on
purpose to attend this auction. The English nation should have purchased
Lamb's library. But instead of comfortably filling an alcove or two in
the British Museum, it crossed the Atlantic and was widely scattered
over the United States of America. Will it ever be brought together
again? Ah, me! such things do not happen in the annals of books.

'Tis no wonder that the old blind scholar, Bardo de' Bardi, in George
Eliot's grand story of "Romola," knowing as he did the usual fate of
private libraries, manifested a constant fear that his noble collection
of books would be merged in some other library after his death. Every
generous soul must heartily despise Tito Melema for basely disposing of
Bardo's library for lucre. There are plenty of good people, however, who
would uphold him in that transaction. Indeed, do not most of us with
unseemly haste and unnatural greed dispose of the effects of our
deceased friends and relations? The funeral is hardly over before we
begin to get ready for the auction. "I preserve," says Montaigne, "a bit