The late Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte was a giant among book-collectors, but his books were almost exclusively philological. Mr. Victor Collins, who has compiled an 'Attempt' at a catalogue, in which there are no less than 13,699 entries, states that 'as a young man the Prince was fond of chemistry, and on one occasion he was desirous of reading a chemical work that happened to exist only in Swedish. He learned Swedish for the purpose, and this gave him a taste for languages, very many of which he studied. His object in forming the library was to discover, rather perhaps to show, the relationship of all languages to each other. Nor was it only distinct languages he included in his plan, but their dialects, their corruptions, even slang, thieves' slang--slang of all kinds. In carrying out his idea the Prince had of course the advantages of exceptional abilities, and, until the fall of the Empire, of unlimited money. Some of the bindings are very beautiful. As to the printing, the Prince for long had a fully-fitted printing-office on the basement floor of his house in Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater. The Prince being a Senator of France, a cousin of Louis Napoleon, and a well-known philologist, people brought him all sorts of interesting books. Therefore it is not surprising to find that the library includes rare works not present, for instance, in the British Museum. There are three early German Bibles which Mr. Gladstone, visiting the Prince once, thought should be presented to the British Museum. To the best of Mr. Gladstone's knowledge, one of the three did not exist anywhere else, and either of the three would be worth about L500. They are remarkable specimens of early German printing, and are profusely illustrated.' Mr. Collins calculates that there are at least 25,000 volumes in the collection, and that fully thirty alphabets are spread through them. This extraordinary collection, like the Shakespearian one formed by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, is still awaiting a purchaser (see the _Times_, July 25, 1895).