De Tabley And His Books

The side on which I was most oapable of appreciating Lord de Tabley's gifts as a collector was the bibliographical. If I am anvtbing of a connoisseur in this direction, I owe it to his traiiiing. His zeal in tóe amassing of early editions of the English poets was extreme; he was one of those who think nothing of hanging about a bookshop at 6 o'clock in the morning waitiug for the shntters to be taken down. But his zeal was eminently according to knowledge. He valued his first edition for the text's sake, not for the bare fact of rarity. Every book he bonght he read, and with a critical gnsto. A little anecdote may illnstrate his spirit as a collector. In 1877 he secnred, by a happy accident, a copy of Milton's "Poema" of 1645, a book which he had never met with before. Too eager to wait for the post, he sent a messenger ronnd to ruy house with a note to annonnce not merely the joyfnl fact, but - this is the interesting point - a discovery he had made in the volume- namely, that the line in the "Nativity Ode, "which in all later editions haa run - Orb'd in a rainbow, and liko glories wearing, originally stood - The enamel'd arras of the rainbow wearing, "which," as he said, "is a grand mouthfnl of sound and ever soronch