[Footnote 5: The Cottonian collection is the richest English historic library we possess, and is now located in the British Museum, having been purchased for the use of the nation by Parliament in 1707, at a cost of 4500_l._ The collection of Sir Hans Sloane was added thereto in 1753, for the sum of 20,000_l._ Dr. Birch and Mr. Cracherode bequeathed their most valuable collections to the British Museum. Mr. Douce is the only collector in the list above who bequeathed his curious gatherings elsewhere. He was an officer of the Museum for many years, but preferred to leave his treasures to the Bodleian Library, where they are preserved intact, according to his earnest wish, a wish he feared might not be gratified in the national building. It is to this scholar and friend, the author of these volumes has dedicated them, as a lasting memorial of an esteem which endured during the life of each.] [Footnote 6: By Mr. Inglis, in 1832. This famous bishop is said to have possessed more books than all the others in England put together. Like Magliabechi, he lived among them, and those who visited him had to dispense with ceremony and step over the volumes that always strewed his floor.] [Footnote 7: The earliest decorated books were the Consular Diptycha, ivory bookcovers richly sculptured in relief, and destined to contain upon their tablets the Fasti Consulares, the list ending with the name of the new consul, whose property they happened to be. Such as have descended to our own times appear to be works of the lower empire. They were generally decorated with full length figures of the consul and attendants, superintending the sports of the circus, or conjoined with portraits of the reigning prince and emblematic figures. The Greek Church adopted the style for the covers of the sacred volume, and ancient clerical libraries formerly possessed many such specimens of early bookbinding; the covers being richly sculptured in ivory, with bas-reliefs designed from Scripture history. Such ivories were sometimes placed in the centre of the covers, and framed in an ornamental metal-work studded with precious stones and engraved cameos. The barbaric magnificence of these volumes has never been surpassed; the era of Charlemagne was the culmination of their glory. One such volume, presented by that sovereign to the Cathedral at Treves, is enriched with Roman ivories and decorative gems. The value of manuscripts in the middle ages, suggested costly bindings for books that consumed the labour of lives to copy, and decorate with ornamental letters, or illustrative paintings. In the fifteenth century covers of leather embossed with storied ornament were in use; ladies also frequently employed their needles to construct, with threads of gold and silver, on grounds of coloured silk, the cover of a favourite volume. In the British Museum one is preserved of a later date--the work of our Queen Elizabeth. In the sixteenth century small ornaments, capable of being