table reserved for himself. =Lenox Library.=—James Lenox, a shy recluse, a bachelor, born to a wealthy inheritance, found his chief joy in the collecting of books, manuscripts, and objets d’art. He first collected early editions of the Bible in all languages; then Americana, including the original editions of the works of the great travelers and discoverers. John Bunyan and Milton received much attention from Mr. Lenox, and he succeeded in garnering a vast array of editions of those two authors. “This mode of collecting has certainly its advantages,” said Henry Stevens, “but it can hardly be denied that it is attended with serious disadvantages. The result of all Mr. Lenox’s enormous study and labor, to say nothing of his vast expenditures, it must be confessed, is a patchy library as he left it. His favorite subjects and authors he rendered astonishingly rich, but the subjects and authors he neglected at the same time are also astonishingly numerous.” In 1870 Mr. Lenox presented the collection to the city of New York, together with a block on Fifth Avenue and a sufficient fund to erect a library building. =Tilden Bequest.=—Samuel J. Tilden was not, according to his biographer, John Bigelow, a book collector in the ordinary sense of the term. “Mr. Tilden had a very fastidious taste for books, which he indulged without much regard to expense. He bought books for his immediate use and enjoyment, and apparently with no thought of collecting a library that should be complete in any department.” For the purpose of establishing and maintaining a free library and reading room in the city of New York he established the “Tilden Trust,” to which he bequeathed the sum of nearly four million dollars. By long litigation it was reduced about one-half. The trustees were anxious to apply this fund in a way that should prove most advantageous to the people of New York City and at the same time strictly conform to the wishes of the testator. The endowment was accordingly offered to the Municipal Building Committee of the city in 1893, to be devoted to the construction of a public library in a new City Hall, at that time planned for Bryant Park. This plan had to be given up the next year when the act authorizing the removal of the old City Hall was repealed, but the expectations of the testator were carried out later by merging the Tilden Trust with the Astor and Lenox bequests into one grand “New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.” This consolidation was effected on May 23, 1895, when the Board of Trustees, composed of seven members from each of the three foundations, proceeded to plan the organization of a comprehensive library system. An appeal to the municipal authorities was made in 1896 stating that if the city would furnish a proper site and provide the money to locate thereon a building suitable for the purposes of the New York Public Library, then the library through the sale of its present sites, could obtain such an