82 



Gogga Brown 



The acquisition of this library must have cost 

 him a tidy sum of money and much self-denial 

 in food and other things less essential to him. 

 It is just possible that he may have regarded it 

 as his Savings Bank for a rainy day. Had he 

 not previously to make the supreme sacrifice and 

 sell all his books to help to pay his debts ? For- 

 tunately he did not have to do this a second time, 

 for he became * passing rich on £150 a year. 

 But not a penny of that ever came in return for 

 his services to science, and he never sold a single 

 specimen. No, books were the coins of currency 

 in the intellectual realm in which he dwelt, and 

 if those who had dealings with him had only 

 realized that to owe him money was to owe 

 trash, but to pay him with books was to pay cash, 

 the course of scientific history would have been 

 different. 



I have thus indicated briefly the extent and 

 the profundity of the larder from which this 

 intellectual gourmand fed his greedy grey matter, 

 and how it was stocked with select delicacies to 

 provide for his special dishes, for he was a 

 literary gourmet as well. There are also signs in 

 plenty in his Journal that here again, like so 

 many other book collectors, he was something of 

 a miser, and gloated over his * choice volumes ' 

 with all the joy of possession. In his later years 



