Note 398 — The Drawing Room. (continued 4)

If the reader attend only to the above flourishing eulogy, by Lysander, upon the extraordinary collection of Major, or Thomas, Pearson, I fear he will not rise from the perusal of these pages impressed with very accurate notions of the same. To qualify such ardent panegyric, and at the same time to please the hearts of all honest bibliomaniacs, I here subjoin something like a sober analysis of the Bibliotheca Pearsoniana. The title to the Sale Catalogue is as follows: "Biblioth. Pearson. A Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Pearson, Esq. Containing a very extensive Collection of the best and rarest books in every branch of English Literature, &c. Sold by Auction by T. and J. Egerton, in April, 1788," 8vo. Like all the sale catalogues put forth by the Egertons, the present is both judiciously arranged and neatly printed. It is said that there are only twelve copies upon large paper; but I doubt the smallness of this number. My own is of this kind, superbly bound, and priced with a neatness peculiar to the calligraphical powers of the 'forementioned friend. It may not be amiss to prefix an extract from a newspaper of the day; in which this sale was thus noticed: "The Black-lettero-mania, which raged so furiously in the course of last Spring at the Sale of Dr. Wright's Books, has broken out with still greater violence at the present auction of Major Pearson's Library. This assertion may be countenanced by the following examples." Then follow a few specimens of the prices given. The reader is now presented with copious specimens, selected according to their numerical order: the addenda, between inverted commas, being copied from the said newspaper.