fortunate sisters, mainly through lack of any endowment. Built by subscription, under the leadership of my grandfather, in the time of his father, the shares of the corporation naturally drifted into the family, by purchase or otherwise, and when the sale was made to the town and the building cleared out by the workmen for new occupants, these books, among other things, had been transferred to my father's wood-house chamber. But I said, "Does not the town library wish them?" Το which my father replied that the town librarian had gone through the academy library and taken out all she thought would be of any use to them. Furthermore he said, "I wrote to the college nearby in regard to them and they did not reply." He further said, "You can have whatever you want of them except the History of Upper Coös.'" Now, this is the oldest history of the settlement of the Connecticut valley, very hard to obtain, and he rightly believed that I would find a copy there, as I did the following day. He told me that he had found, during the cleaning up at the academy, a copy of Belknap's "New Hampshire," three volumes, a very rare and valuable history published during the middle of the last century. He showed the books to me after dinner; they were in perfect condition, and my fingers began to itch for a chance to make some such find myself. I was on fire to discover.

'At the next opportunity I hurry up into the fiery furnace (as one might almost call the shed chamber in August) and draw forth my first prize, Boswell's "Life of Johnson," complete in three volumes, tree calf.

Ha! Ha! I said aloud. First American Edition, published in Boston, 1807. Yes, I hugged it tight lest I should lose it and began to read. At the top of the page my great grandfather's signature, whose book it was and whose signature I do not know that I had ever seen, gave it a touch of sentiment, and then those familiar words, "The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, etc., etc., etc., the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain for nearly half a century, during which he flourished." Next comes William Law's "A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Holy Life. London;

1797."

"Dr. Johnson," says Boswell (Vol. I, page 59), communicated to me the following particulars upon the subject of his religious progress: 'When I was at Oxford, I took up Law's "Serious Call to a Holy Life," expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it, but I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational inquiry." I have just read this testimony in Boswell's "Johnson," and I lay the book down with somewhat more of reverence. The great lexicographer may have overestimated it. I do not know, but if it helped to make his character and that of old England and New England of a century or a century and a half ago, I honor it.

But how about Goldsmith, Johnson's young friend? Why, of course, his "Animated Nature," is there, four volumes; the dog kind, the scor

pion kind, the eagle kind, the monkey kind, and mankind, read to pieces, half the leaves completely worn away. Here, too, is his "History of England," which was written about the time he made the acquaintance of "The Great Cham of Literature," as he dubbed the learned Doctor in the language of his Chinese letters to the Public Ledger, "First American Edition," pirated no doubt by the good Scotchman, R. Campbell, Bookseller, Philadelphia, 1795.

Yes! and here comes Goldsmith's classmate at Trinity college, Dublin, "The Right Honorable," so the title page justly styles him, Edmund Burke. Oh, what a treasure! Complete works, 4 volumes, all here. "First American Edition," Boston, 1806. Bel examplaire, remarquable par son état de conservation Edition princeps rarissime, as a French catalogue would say. Friend of the opFriend of the oppressed; rebuker of the insolence of power and the excesses of petty tyranny, as well as the fierce ragings of successful and unprincipled democracy; champion of justice, mercy and truth; writer of one of the best styles of his time, possibly; three things seem to have called out his eloquence: The contest of the American colonies, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and the French Revolution.

Here is another of Johnson's contemporaries and admirers-" Dr. Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," 2 volumes, Hartford, 1804, apparently a reprint of the fourth London edition. Here is another of Johnson's friends -"Hugh Blair, Sermons," 3 volumes. Blair was professor of Rhetoric and Belle Lettres at Edinburg on £70 a year. Johnson almost had to force

the printer to give £100 for the first volume, but he gave £300 for the second, and 600 for the third. There are frequent references to this man in Boswell's "Life of Johnson," who kept repeating, "I was the first to praise him."

In Vol. I, page 430 of this same life, I was just reading Dr. Johnson's strictures on the Scotch writers of his day, especially of one Dr. Robertson whose books are in my pile. Boswell, who is of Scotch descent, is naming over some of the principal living Scotch authors. Finally, Johnson begins, "Do you ever see Dr. Robertson?" Boswell, "Yes, sir." Johnson, "Does the dog talk of me?" Boswell, "Indeed, sir, he does and loves you." Thinking that now he had Dr. Johnson in a corner, and being solicitous for the literary fame of his country, Boswell pressed him for his opinion of Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland, but he escaped. "Sir," he said, "I love Robertson, and I will not talk of his book."

The library I had discovered, as you see, does not appear to be like St. Victor's library, in Paris, which Rabelais says, "Had nothing in it but trash and rubbish." Pentagruel II, 7. You may be familiar with Rabelais, but you may like to have me recall a part of the list of books he found there. Here are the titles: 1. Pomegranate of Vice. 2. Mustard Pot of Penance. 3. Crucible of Contemplation. 4. Goad of Wine.

5. Cure's Rasp on the Knuckles.
6. The Pilgrim's Spectacles.
7. The Prelate's Bag-pipe.
8. The Lawyer's Furred Cat.
Etc., etc.

Some of my pile did have, I confess, a serious air about them, and some of the more strictly religious

6. William Wilberforce's "Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems of Professed Christians in the higher and middle classes of the last century in Great Britain contrasted with real Christianity."

One almost smiles at Cotton Mather's "Essays to do Good," when he reads on the title page, "Improved by Geo. Burder," who seems to have tried to do better. I chanced upon a rather interesting criticism of the book in another book of the pile, the "Life and Works of Benjamin Franklin." A letter to Samuel, son of Cotton Mathers, written from Paris, runs as follows:

"Permit me to mention one little instance, which though it relates to myself will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a boy, I met with a book entitled 'Essays to do Good,' which I think was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by its former possessors that several leaves of it were torn out; but the remainder gave me such a turn of think

ing as to have an influence on my conduct through life, for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than

on any other kind of reputation, and if I have

been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen,

the public owes the advantages of it to that book."

from this little book? Verily! He saith as much. Let me not despise it. I feel something of the same touch of power as I read for the first time the pages of this best known of all the three hundred or four hundred works of possibly the most remarkable man of his day.

Here follow three works of the famous Dr. Jonathan Edwards; one of them, a beautiful tree or spotted calf edition of his "Freedom of the Will," printed in Albany in 1804, together with a copy of Lock's "Human Understanding," which Edwards is said to have preferred to any other book when a student at Yale. These are all the theological works I shall mention at present, lest I should weary you with naming them. I did not find the percentage of theological works as great as both Emerson and the elder Hawthorne would have one believe. A study of the book plates and inscriptions showed in all three libraries before 1860

It is probable that the true percentage of theological works was even less than eighteen per cent., for in this computation only the actual number of volumes extant are counted. No one is morally certain, as eleven out of the fourteen volumes of Dean Swift's works were in this library, and two out of five of Lawrence Stein's works, and one volume out of four of Hume's "History of England," etc., that the others were there also. And it seems quite probable that a larger number of books of a general character would be lost than those of a theological and religious character.

The library contained, as I have indicated, a large number of volumes on the political history of the country. Among them, of course, Marshall's "Life of Washington," five volumes, first edition-a remarkable book by a very remarkable man. One can almost see the young Marshall coming up from Virginia in his green hunting shirt with his "Don't tread on me" rattlesnake on the the bosom; making a personal acquaintance with Washington, which afterwards grew into a tender intimacy; going through the principal. battles of the war; enduring the horrors of Valley Forge; at the head of our diplomatic service, under his own motto "Millions for defence; but not a cent for tribute," then sitting

down to write a sympathetic picture of what ought always to remain "the Another set of true Washington." books of considerable value are the first eight volumes of the "American State Papers and Public Documents." They cover the period 1789 to 1815, first edition. One could hardly pick out a period in the history of our government when the state papers would be of nearly equal interest. They give a complete view of our foreign relations from the accession of Washington to the close of the War of 1812.

You would hardly think a West Indian boy of disputed parentage, cast adrift on the world at thirteen years of age, growing up in the atmosphere of slavery, was good timber of which to make a statesman. Yet possibly the most brilliant statesman we have produced, a man whose fame is still growing, with only such a start, made reports "On the Public Credit," "On a National Bank," and "On the Establishment of a Mint," and addressed the people of the state of New York on the new constitution, so clearly and convincingly, in the Federalist as to only win the respect of his contemporaries but command the admiration and direct the thinking and destinies of his countrymen since that time. Three volumes, first edition, bound in decorated leather, Philadelphia, 1820. A footnote to one of the pages of the preface of Volume I gives an item of interest:

"To the honor of our country, the respectable college in Providence, R.

I., has introduced the Federalist into the course of academic studies, as containing the best commentary on the principles of free