Moses Pitt made up another sale in February 1678-79, chiefly of books printed at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, which took place in Petty Canons Hall, near St. Paul’s Churchyard. In June 1679 William Cooper sold the libraries of Stephen Watkins and Dr. Thomas Shirley (the catalogue of which contained an appendix of Richard Chiswell’s books) at the Golden Lion, over against the Queen’s Head Tavern, in Paternoster Row. John Dunsmore sold in November 1679 the library of Sir Edward Bysshe, Clarenceux King at Arms, at his house, near the sign of the Woolpack, in Ivy Lane. This library was more varied in its character than many of those that were sold before it, and it contained a considerable amount of French, Italian, and Spanish literature, including some early editions of Molière. This catalogue is deserving of particular attention, because the books are described as “curiously bound and richly gilt.” Hitherto no mention had been made of bindings in the various catalogues. This attention to binding was to grow, and Thomas Hearne protested against it some years after. In his memoranda under date 15th February 1725-26 he wrote respecting the sale of John Bridges’ library: “I hear they go very high, being fair books in good condition, and most of them finely bound. This afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls’ College (I suppose Dr. Clarke) that gave a commission of eight shillings for a Homer in two vols., a small 8vo, if not 12mo. But it went for six guineas. People are in love with good binding more than good reading.”[38] The British Museum Library contains a valuable collection of early sale catalogues, and one of the volumes, containing the first eleven sales from Seaman to Bysshe, is of considerable interest from having the following note in Richard Heber’s handwriting-- “This volume, which formerly belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, and since to Mr. Gough, is remarkable for containing the eleven first Catalogues of Books ever sold by auction in England. What renders it still more curious, is that the prices of nearly all the articles are added in MS. When it came into my possession it had suffered so much from damp, and the leaves were so tender and rotten, that every time the volume was opened, it was liable to injury. This has been remedied by giving the whole a strong coat of size. At Willett’s sale, Booth, the bookseller of Duke Street, Portland Place, bought a volume of old catalogues for £2, 3s. (see Merly Catalogue, 531), and charged the same in his own shop catalogue for 1815, £21 (6823). It contained merely the eight which stand first in the present collection, of which Greenhill’s and Godolphin’s were not priced at all; and Voet’s and Sangar’s only partially. However, it enabled me to fill up a few omissions in the prices of my copy of Sangar’s.--_N.B._ The prices of Willett’s and the present copy did not always tally exactly.”