LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 329 



brother of Reginald Heber, bishop of Oalctttta. Possessed of -vvealtli; 

 lie set no bounds to a passion, awakened in him in early yonth, for 

 curious and rare volumes and books in general. His aim was to 

 amass a perfect library ; and he thought nothing of starting at a 

 moment's notice on a journey of hundreds of miles, to attend a sale 

 where there was a chance of securing a book which he did not already 

 possess. At Hodnet, the family home in Shropshire, usually asso- 

 ciated with the memory of Reginald Heber, he had a collection for 

 whicli he built a special receptacle. A house where he resided in 

 Pimlico wa.s filled from top to bottom with books. In York' Street, 

 Westminstei", he had another house similarly furnished. In rooms 

 on the High Street, Oxford, he had a library. In like manner, even 

 in cities abroad-— in Paris, at Antwerp, at Biiissels, at Ghent — he 

 possessed large collections. The titles of his books, when sold after 

 his death in his 59th year, in 1834, filled five thick octavo volumes. 

 In his English libraries thei-e were 85,000 volumes ; in his foreign, 

 42,000. They have been calculated to have cost him £100,000. In 

 Dibdin's Decameron, or Ten Days' Pleasant Discourse on Books, the 

 interlocutor named Atticu.s is understood to be Mr. Richard Heber, 

 Atticus's apology for desiring three copies of the same book is as 

 follows — it reveals a willingness to oblige friends : " Why, you see, 

 sir," he says, " no man can comfortably do without three copies of a 

 book. One he must have for a show copy, and he will probably keep 

 it at his country-house j another he will require for his own use and 

 reference ; and unless he is inclined to part with this, which is very 

 inconvenient, or risk the injury of his best copy, he must needs have 

 a thii'd at the service of his friends." Heber was the intimate friend 

 of Sir Walter Scott and other distinguished literary contemporaries. 

 In 1821 he was returned a member of Parliament for the University 

 of Oxford. My first relic of Heber is a volume from one of his 

 libraries. It is stamped inside, as were all his books, with the words 

 Bibliotheca Heheriana. I value the work for this, of course; but 

 also for its contents. It is a folio, printed at Utrecht (Trajecti ad 

 Rhenum) by Gilbertus h, Zyll, in 1671, and is entitled, Monumenta 

 lUustrium Virorum et Elogia. It is stated on the engraved title- 

 page to be Editio nova, aucta Antiquis Monumentis in Agro Trajec- 

 tini repertis. The original work, we are informed in the preface, 

 Was by Sigifridus Rybischius, for which the plates were engraved by 

 Tobias Pendtius. It contains numerous epitaphs of the classic and 



