Among the most famous of the seventeenth-century collectors were the two brothers Francis, Baron Guilford, Lord Keeper (1637-1685), and Dr. John North, master of Trinity College (1645-1683). Of these two there are some very entertaining facts in Roger North's 'Lives of the Norths' (1742-44). Dr. John North, we are told, 'very early in his career began to look after books and to lay the foundation of a competent library . . . buying at one lift a whole set of Greek classics in folio, in best editions. This sunk his stock [of money] for the time; but afterwards for many years of his life all that he could (as they say) rap or run went the same way. But the progress was small, for such a library as he desired, compared with what the pittance of his stock would purchase, allowing many years to the gathering, was of desperate expectation. . . . He courted, as a fond lover, all best editions, fairest characters, best-bound and preserved. . . . He delighted in the small editions of the classics by Seb. Gryphius, and divers of his acquaintance, meeting with any of them, bought and brought them to him, which he accepted as choice presents, although, perhaps, he had one or two of them before. . . . His soul was never so staked down as in an old bookseller's shop. . . . He was for the most part his own factor, and seldom or never bought by commission, which made him lose time in turning over vast numbers of books, and he was very hardly pleased at last. I have borne him company in shops for many hours together, and, minding him of the time, he hath made a dozen proffers before he would quit. By this care and industry, at length he made himself master of a very considerable library, wherein the choicest collection was Greek.' At his death the collection came to his brother, the Lord Keeper.