The purchase by the British Museum of the library of Dr. Charles Burney greatly added to the completeness of the collections of Greek Classics. Among the manuscripts is the wonderful Iliad of Homer on vellum, formerly belonging to Mr. Towneley, which, although it cannot be dated further back than the beginning of the fourteenth century, is supposed to be of the earliest date of the MSS. of the Iliad known to scholars. A committee appointed to consider the purchase of the library stated in their report: “With respect to the value of the manuscripts, the Homer is rated by the different witnesses at from £600 to £800, and one of them supposed it might even reach so high a price as £1000;[25] the Greek rhetoricians are estimated at from £340 to £500; the larger copy of the Greek Gospels at £200; the geography of Ptolemy at £65; and the copy of Plautus at £50. One witness estimates the whole of the ancient manuscripts at upwards of £2500, and an eminent bookseller at £3000.” “The books with manuscript notes, together with Dr. Burney’s _Variorum Compilation_, including the _Fragmenta Scenica Græca_, are estimated by one at £1000, and by another as high as £1340.” It must be remembered that this was written in 1818, and these prices may be multiplied considerably at the present day. Even those large private collections which have been in the market of late years have mostly been sold in bulk, so that little light has been thrown upon the current value of fine manuscripts. One of the best sources of information respecting present prices is to be found in Mr. Quaritch’s admirable catalogues of his collections of literary treasures. When the treasures of Hamilton Palace were dispersed by public auction, the priceless collection of manuscripts was sold by private contract to the German Government. The amount paid has never been officially announced, but it is believed to have reached the sum of £75,000. Some of these manuscripts were not required at Berlin, and they were sold in May 1889 by Messrs. Sotheby for £15,189. The gem of the collection was the fifteenth-century manuscript of Dante’s _Divina Commedia_, illustrated with upwards of eighty drawings, attributed to Sandro Botticelli. Of it a writer in the _Times_ said, “This priceless volume may, without exaggeration, be described as the most valuable manuscript in existence, from its artistic interest, for it stands alone as an example of a literary work of the first order illustrated by an artist of the highest rank.” It is impossible here even to register some of the many beautiful works that made the manuscripts of the Duke of Hamilton so famous. Great dissatisfaction was felt by the British public when it was found that these treasures were to be transported to Berlin. Before the final decision was made, Mr. Ruskin, in a “General statement explaining the nature and purposes of St. George’s Guild,” wrote--