the library from Somerset House, where Brand lived as secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, Stewart, the auctioneer, found by accident in an old waste-paper volume seventy guineas wrapped up in paper and placed in various parts of the book. The money was handed to Mr. Brand’s executor.
Isaac Reed’s interesting library of old English literature was sold by King & Lochée in November and December 1807. The sale occupied thirty-nine days, and consisted of 8957 lots, which realised £4386.
A five days’ sale of Lord Penrhyn’s library at Leigh & Sotheby’s in March 1809 brought £2000.
In June 1809 Leigh & Sotheby sold the library of Richard Porson, which consisted of 1931 lots, and realised £1254. A list of the prices given for the principal classics in this sale is printed in the Classical Journal (i. 385-90).
The eminent antiquary Richard Gough bequeathed his collection of British topography to the Bodleian Library, but the rest of his library was sold by Leigh & Sotheby in April 1810 during twenty days. There were 4373 lots, which sold for £3552.
The Rev. Benjamin Heath, D.D., sold his very fine library during his lifetime to Joseph Johnson, bookseller, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, who consigned it to Mr. Jeffery in 1810 to be sold by auction. The sale consisted of 4786 lots, and realised £8899. Dibdin describes this sale in enthusiastic terms in his Bibliomania. He writes—
“Never did the bibliomaniac’s eye alight upon ‘sweeter copies,’ as the phrase is, and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy characterised it. A copy of the editio princeps of Homer (by no means a first-rate one) brought £92, and all the Aldine classics produced such an electricity of sensation, that buyers