Archbishop Tenison had furnished another noble library near St. Martin's Lane 'with the best modern books in most faculties'; 'there any student might repair and make what researches he pleased'; and there too were deposited Sir James Ware's important Irish mss. and many other portions of the Clarendon Collection, until offence was taken at their having been catalogued among the papers of the Archbishop.

In Dulwich College there was another library to which Mr. Cartwright the actor gave a collection of plays and many excellent pictures; and 'here comes in,' says Oldys, 'the Queen's purchase of plays, and those by Mr. Weever the dancing-master, Sir Charles Cotterell, Mr. Coxeter, Lady Pomfret, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague'; and here we might mention the sad case of Mr. Warburton the herald, whose forte was to find out valuable English plays. Shortly before his death in 1759 he discovered that the cook had used up about fifty of the mss. for covering pies, and that among them were 'twelve unpublished pieces by Massinger.' Something may be said too as to the older collections formed in London for the use of schools. At Westminster, it has been well said, Dean Williams 'enlarged the boundaries of learning.' According to Hackett, he converted a waste room into a noble library, modelling it 'into a decent shape,' and furnishing it with a vast number of learned volumes. The best of them came from the library of Mr. Baker of Highgate, who throughout a very long life had been gathering 'the best authors of all sciences in their best editions.' Dean Colet had endowed St. Paul's School with philological works in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; but these were destroyed in the great fire, together with the whole library of the High Master. This was Mr. Samuel Cromleholme, who had the best set of neatly-bound classics in London; 'he was a great lover of his books, and their loss hastened the end of his life.' The shelves at Merchant Taylors and in the Mercers' Chapel were almost as well filled as those at St. Paul's; and Christ's Hospital at that time had a good plain library in the mathematical school, with globes and instruments, 'and ships with all their rigging for the instruction of lads designed for the sea.'

In the College of Physicians was a fine collection 'in their own and the other faculties.' Selden bequeathed to it his 'physical books,' and it was enriched by a gift of the whole library of Lord Dorchester, 'the pride and glory of the College.' We can only mention a few of the libraries described by Oldys. The Jews, he says, had a collection at Bevis Marks relating to the Talmud and Mischna and their ceremonial worship: the French Protestants had another at the Savoy, and the Swedes another at their Church in Trinity Lane. The Baptists owned a great library in the Barbican. The Quakers had been for some years furnishing a library with all the works written by the Friends. John Whiting published the catalogue in 1708; 'and in my opinion,' says our critic, ''tis more accurately and perfectly drawn up than the Bodleian Library at Oxford is by Dr. Hyde, for the Quaker does not confound one man with another as the scholar does.' Francis Bugg, he adds, 'the scribbler against them,' had a better collection of their writings than any of the brethren; 'but I think I have read in some of his rhapsodies that he either gave or sold it to the library at Oxford.'

Charles Earl of Sunderland was the greatest collector of his time. He bought the whole library of Hadrian Beverland, 'which was very choice of its kind,' and a great number of Pétau's books as mentioned before; 'no bookseller,' it was said, 'hath so many editions of the same book as he, for he hath all, especially of the classics.' Shortly before his death in 1772 he commissioned Mr. Vaillant to buy largely at the sale of Mr. Freebairn's library. In Clarke's Repertorium we are told how a fine Virgil was secured: 'and it was noted that when Mr. Vaillant had bought the printed Virgil at £46 he huzza'd out aloud, and threw up his hat for joy that he had bought it so cheap.' The great collection was afterwards taken to Blenheim, and has been dispersed in our time; 'the King of Denmark proffered the heirs £30,000 for it, and "Queen Zara" would have inclined them to part with it.' When the Earl of Sunderland died, Humphrey Wanley saw a good chance for the Harleian. 'I believe some benefit may accrue to this library, even if his relations will part with none of the works; I mean by his raising the price of books no higher now; so that in probability this commodity may fall in the market, and any gentleman be permitted to buy an uncommon old book for less than forty or fifty pounds.' If we listen to the Rev. Thomas Baker, the ejected Fellow who gave 4000 books to St. John's at Cambridge, we shall hear a complaint against Wanley. Lord Oxford's librarian when he saw a fine book, even in a public institution, used to say, 'It will be better in my lord's library.' Baker might have said, 'a plague on both your houses!' What he wrote was as follows:—'I begin to complain of the men of quality who lay out so much for books, and give such prices that there is nothing to be had for poor scholars, whereof I have felt the effects; when I bid a fair price for an old book, I am answered, "The quality will give twice as much," and so I have done.'

The Earls of Pembroke were for several generations the patrons of learning. 'Thomas, the eighth Earl, was contemporary with those illustrious characters, Sunderland, Harley, and Mead, during the Augustan age of Britain'; he added a large number of classics and early printed books to the library at Wilton, and his successor Earl Henry still further improved it by adding the best works on architecture, on biographies, and books of numismatics; 'the Earl of Pembroke is stored with antiquities relating to medals and lives.'

Lord Somers had the rare pieces in law and English history which have been published in a well-known series of tracts. Lord Carbury loved mystical divinity; the Earl of Kent was all for pedigrees and visitations; the Earl of Kinnoul made large collections in mathematics and civil law; and Lord Coleraine followed Bishop Kennett in forming 'a library of lives.'

Richard Smith was remembered as having started in the pursuit of Caxtons in the days of Charles ii.; the taste was despised when Oldys wrote, but it eventually grew into a mania. 'For a person of an inferior rank we never had a collector more successful. No day passed over his head in which he did not visit Moorfields and Little Britain or St. Paul's Churchyard, and for many years together he suffered nothing to escape him that was rare and remarkable.'

Mr. John Bridges of Lincoln's Inn was another 'notorious book-collector.' When his books were sold in 1726 the prices ran so high that the world suspected a conspiracy on the part of the executors. Humphrey Wanley was disappointed in his commissions, and called it a roguish sale; of the vendors he remarked 'their very looks, according to what I am told, dart out harping-irons.' Tom Hearne went to Mr. Bridges' chambers to see the sale, and descanted upon the fine condition of the lots: 'I was told of a gentleman of All Souls that gave a commission of eight shillings for an Homer, but it went for six guineas; people are in love with good binding rather than good reading.' Some of the entries in the catalogue are of great interest. The first edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488 on large paper, went for about a quarter of the price of an Aldine Livy. Lord Oxford secured a 'Lucian' in uncial characters, and a splendid Missal illuminated for Henry vii. There was a large-paper 'Politian' in two volumes, very carelessly described as 'finely bound by Grolier and his friends'; but the best of all was the ms. Horace, with an exquisite portrait of the poet, 'from the library of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary.'

Dr. Mead was a collector of the same kind. All that was beautiful came naturally to this great man, of whom it was said that he lived 'in the full sunshine of human existence.' He was the owner of a very fine library, which he had 'picked up at Rome.' He had a great number of early-printed classics, which fetched high prices at his sale in 1754; his French books, according to Dibdin, and all his works upon the fine arts 'were of the first rarity and value,' and were sumptuously bound. His chief literary distinction rests on his edition of De Thou's 'History' in seven folio volumes. He had received a large legacy from a brother, and spent it in the publication of a work 'from which nothing of exterior pomp and beauty should be wanting'; the ink and paper were procured from Holland; and Carte the historian was sent to France 'to rummage for mss. of Thuanus.'

Oldys has a few notes upon curious collections which he thought might be diverting to a 'satirical genius.' A certain Templar, he says, had a good library of astrology, witchcraft, and magic. Mr Britton, the small-coal man, had an excellent set of chemical books,'and a great parcel of music books, many of them pricked with his own hand.' The famous Dryden, and Mr. Congreve after him, had collected old ballads and penny story-books. The melancholy Burton, and Dr. Richard Rawlinson, and the learned Thomas Hearne, had all been as bad in their way. Mr. Secretary Pepys gave a great library to Magdalen College at Cambridge: but among the folios peeped out little black-letter ballads and 'penny merriments, penny witticisms, penny compliments, and penny godlinesses.' 'Mr. Robert Samber,' says Oldys, 'must need turn virtuoso too, and have his collection: which was of all the printed tobacco-papers he could anywhere light on.'