[27:B] At the Cambridge University Library there are some very interesting diaries of this famous book-lover, styled 'Father of Black Letter Collectors,' chiefly relating to the purchases of books. All the more important facts have been published in the pages of the _Bibliographer_. [Illustration] FROM THE OLD TO THE NEW. I. IN few phases of human action are the foibles and preferences of individuals more completely imbricated than in that of book-collecting. Widely different as were the book-hunters' fancies at the beginning and at the end of the eighteenth century, yet it would not be possible to draw a hard and fast line. For the greater part of that time the classics of every description and of every degree of unimportance held their own. Reluctant, therefore, to abandon the chief stimulant of their earlier book-hunting careers, many collectors still took a keen interest in their _primi pensieri_. But their real passion found a vent in other and less beaten directions. In addition to this, during the eighteenth century a large number of small working libraries were formed by men who _used_ books. Henry Fielding, Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson, David Hume, Smollett, Gibbon, Pope, and many others, are essentially figures in the history of book-hunting in London, but they had neither the means nor, so far as we are aware, the inclination to indulge in book-collecting as a mere fashionable hobby. Mr. Austin Dobson has lately published an interesting account of Fielding's library, in which he proves not only that Fielding had been a fervent student of the classics in his youth and that he remained a voracious reader through life, but that he made good use of a large collection of Greek and Latin authors, which was sold at his death. [Illustration: _Mr. Austin Dobson._ From a photograph by E. C. Porter, Ealing.] The eighteenth century may be regarded as the Augustan age so far as book-hunting in London is concerned. A large percentage of the most famous collections were either formed, or the collectors themselves were either born or died, in that period. The Beckford and Hamilton, the Heber, the Sunderland, the Althorp, and the King's Library, all had their origins prior to 1800.