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 stuck at nothing to embrace them! Do not let it hence be said that black letter lore is the only fashionable pursuit of the present age of book collectors. This sale may be hailed as the omen of better and brighter prospects in literature in general; and many a useful philological work, although printed in the Latin or Italian language--and which had been sleeping unmolested upon a bookseller’s shelf these dozen years--will now start up from its slumber, and walk abroad in a new atmosphere, and be noticed and ‘made much of.’” We now arrive at the year 1812, which will ever be memorable in bibliographical annals on account of the sale of the grand library of the Duke of Roxburghe during forty-six days. The catalogue was arranged by Messrs. G. & W. Nicol, and in the preface we read-- “When literature was deprived of one of its warmest admirers by the death of the Duke of Roxburghe, his grace was in full pursuit of collecting our dramatic authors. But when his collection of English plays is examined, and the reader is informed that he had only turned his mind to this class of literature for a few years, his indefatigable industry will be readily admitted.” Mr. Robert H. Evans, the bookseller of Pall Mall, was induced to commence the business of auctioneer with his sale, and he continued to sell by auction for over thirty years.