The late George Daniel (who was born about 1790) may be regarded as the connecting link between the collectors of the early part of the present century and those of to-day. When, for example, Perry and Bindley left off, Daniel commenced. There was no great rush after Shakespeare quartos in the earlier part of the present century, and book-collecting for a time ceased to be the pet hobby of wealthy members of the peerage. When George Daniel, a critic and bibliographer of exceptional abilities, began to collect, he soon made Shakespeare, as well as the earlier English poets, objects of solicitude. He resided for many years in the historic old red-brick tower at Canonbury.[72:A] The sale of Daniel's extraordinary collection was held at Sotheby's in July, 1864, when a First Folio, one of the finest in the world--now in the possession of Baroness Burdett-Coutts--sold for L716 2s., and when twenty of the Shakespeare quartos realized a total of about L3,000. [Illustration: _Canonbury Tower, George Daniel's Residence._] George Daniel is now remembered by but few book-collectors. Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt knew him very well, and describes him as a retired accountant, whose idiosyncrasy consisted of _rares morceaux_, _bonnes bouches_, uniques--copies of books with a _provenance_, or in jackets made for them by Roger Payne--nay, in the original parchment or paper wrapper, or in a bit of real mutton which certain men call sheep. He was a person of literary tastes, and had written books in his day. But his chief celebrity was as an acquirer of those of others, provided always that they were old enough or rare enough. An item never passed into his possession without at once _ipso facto_ gaining new attributes, almost invariably worded in a holograph memorandum on the fly-leaf. Daniel was in the market at a fortunate and peculiar juncture, just when prices were depressed, about the time of the great Heber sale. His marvellous gleanings came to the hammer precisely when the quarto Shakespeare, the black-letter romance, the unique book of Elizabethan verse, had grown worth ten times their weight in sovereigns. Sir William Tite, J. O. Halliwell, and Henry Huth were to the front. It was in 1864. What a wonderful sight it was! No living man had ever witnessed the like. Copies of Shakespeare, printed from the prompters' MSS. and published at fourpence, fetched L300 or L400. I remember old Joseph Lilly, when he had secured the famous Ballads, which came from the Tollemaches of Helmingham Hall, holding up the folio volume in which they were contained in triumph as someone whom he knew entered the room. Poor Daniel! he had no mean estimate of his treasures--what he had was always better than what you had. Books, prints, autographs--it was all the same. I met him one morning in Long Acre. I had bought a very fine copy of Taylor, the Water Poet. "Oh, yes, sir," he said, "I saw it; but not quite so fine as mine." He went up to Highgate to look through the