Page:Life of Edmond Malone.djvu/346

326 nine of Pope. The rarest are about forty in number; noted as of Gower, Howard, Shakspeare, Donne, Chapman, Fanshaw, Cowley, Overbury, Dryden, Prior, Addison, and others. Occasionally he purchased works of cost to cut out such portraits as were rare or good. Members of his own “Literary Club” were of course not forgotten—those at least which were procurable and of sufficient note in public life. They are preserved in a separate volume.

The researches involved by his pursuits necessarily led to the formation of a good library. He became a purchaser to some extent of Reed’s, Farmer’s, and other collections that promised anything rare. Upon these most of his savings were spent; and notwithstanding this acquisitive spirit says—“He should lament to acquire others, as implying the loss of his friend (Bindley), and he was quite sure he would feel equal regret at seeing his in the market.”

His mission however as collector was less general than special. Anything of the age of Elizabeth, her predecessors or indeed successors even to his own time bearing upon poetry and the drama, formed the business of his life to obtain. No research was spared, no sale unattended, no novelty unexamined, no money grudged to glean information from every source. Whenever one collector died off who was rich in curious rarities, another was in the field to acquire them. The longest purse was usually successful; and as Malone without being rich was not often straitened for money, and competitors were then comparatively few, his acquisitions were of the rarest description.