In an edition of Donne [? 1669] which belonged to Lamb, Coleridge scrawled: 'I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not be vexed that I have be-scribbled your book. S. T. C., 2nd May, 1811.' Lamb was too good-natured to be a book-collector. On one occasion William Hazlitt[77:A] sent Martin Burney to Lamb to borrow Wordsworth's 'Excursion,' and Lamb being out, Burney took it, a high-handed proceeding which involved the borrower in a blowing-up. Coleridge at another time helped himself to Luther's 'Table-Talk,' and this also called forth a great outcry. A copy of Chapman's Homer, which passed through the hands of Wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge, eventually turned up in one of Lilly's catalogues. This identical copy is noticed in an account of Rydal Mount which appeared in the first volume of _Once a Week_. Coleridge, of course, has made a number of notes in it, and in one of these he describes the translation as 'an exquisite poem, spite of its frequent and perverse quaintness and harshnesses, which are, however, amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness and beauty of language.' [Illustration: _William Hazlitt._] The difference between a bibliophile and a bibliomaniac has been described as between one who adorns his mind, and the other his book-cases. Of the bibliomaniac as here characterized, we can suggest no better type than Thomas Hill, the original of Poole's 'Paul Pry,' and of Hull in Hook's novel, 'Gilbert Gurney.' Devoid as Hill was of intellectual endowments, he managed to obtain and secure the friendship of many eminent men--of Thomas Campbell, the poet, Matthews and Liston, the comedians, Hook, Dubois, John and Leigh Hunt, James and Horace Smith, John Taylor, editor of the _Sun_, Horace Twiss, Baron Field, Sir George Rose, Barnes, subsequently editor of the _Times_, Cyrus Redding, and many others. That he was kind-hearted and hospitable nearly everyone has testified, and his literary parties at his Sydenham Tusculum were quite important events, in spite of the ponderosity of his well-worn stories. During the more acute stages of bibliomania in this country at the latter part of the last century and the beginning of this, 'when the Archaica, Heliconia, and Roxburghe Clubs were outbidding each other for old black-letter works . . . when books, in short, which had only become scarce because they were always worthless, were purchased upon the same principle as that costly and valueless coin, a Queen Anne's farthing,' Hill had been a constant collector of rare and other books which were in demand. That he knew nothing of the insides of his books is very certain; but he knew how much each copy would bring at an auction, and how much it had brought at all previous sales. When the bibliomania had reached its height, Messrs. Longman and Co. determined upon embarking in such a lucrative branch of the trade; they applied to Hill for advice and assistance, offering to begin by the purchase of his entire