Note 366 — The Drawing Room. (continued 2)

"In this last part of his task, the editor (Walter Scott) has been greatly assisted by free access to a valuable collection of fugitive pieces of the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne. This curious collection was made by Narcissus Luttrell, Esq., under whose name the Editor usually quotes it. The industrious collector seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and date of the purchase. His collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of Grub-street. It was dispersed on Mr. Luttrell's death," &c. Preface to The Works of John Dryden, 1808: vol. i., p. iv. Mr. James Bindley and Mr. Richard Heber are then mentioned, by the editor, as having obtained a great share of the Luttrell collection, and liberally furnished him with the loan of the same, in order to the more perfect editing of Dryden's Works. But it is to the persevering book-spirit of Mr. Edward Wynne, as Lysander above intimates, that these notorious modern bibliomaniacs are indebted for the preservation of most of the choicest relics of the Bibliotheca Luttrelliana. Mr. Wynne lived at Little Chelsea; and built his library in a room which had the reputation of having been Locke's study. Here he used to sit, surrounded by innumerable books—a "great part being formed by an eminent and curious collector in the last century"—viz. the aforesaid Narcissus Luttrell. (See the title to the Catalogue of his Library.) His books were sold by auction in 1786; and, that the reader may have some faint idea of the treasures contained in the Bibliotheca Wynniana, he is presented with the following extracts: