Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/523

 io s. XIL NOV. 27, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

under the heading of seventh and eighth days' sale, were one and the same ; and, second, that the seventh and eighth days' sales were not " held in the manner shown by the catalogue."

The ' ^Edes Strawberrianee ' (No. 5), which gives the names of purchasers and prices at the sale at Strawberry Hill, has the following note on p. 18 under the caption " Seventh Day's Sale '-':

" The Books, and collections of Portraits, Prints, and Drawings, which constituted the Seventh and Eighth Days' Sale of the property at Strawberry-Hill, were formerly deposited in the Round Tower. Some objections having been made to some of the Collections being sold en masse, the whole announced in the two days were withdrawn, re-catalogued and extended to a ten days' sale, from Monday June 13th to the 23rd inclusive ; yet, as most of the visitors to Straw- berry-Hill have that portion of the Catalogue, the names of the purchasers to the lots as origin- ally formed, and the prices produced at the more detailed sale, are here arranged as if really sold at the first sale, and for all general purposes, renders [sic] every possible gratification for satis- fying the curiosity of the greater number of persons who inspected that far-famed depository of Art and Virtu."

Already in the sale catalogue No. 3, at p. 88, under date of April 16th, the auctioneer, George Robins, in the full-page statement appearing between the sixth and the ninth days' sale, had notified those interested that the collection of prints was " deferred until the conclusion of the present Auction," and that

" the Catalogue which has been distributed for the Sale to take place on Monday and Tuesday, May 2nd and 3rd, is now entirely separated, and the whole will be divided into very many days, the Sale to commence immediately after the termination of Strawberry Hill."

The second '^Edes Strawberrianae ' (No. 6) gives in detail the record of the purchasers and prices at the ten days 1 sale which took place in London in June, while the first (No. 5) makes a curious attempt at record- ing what would have been the result of the seventh and eighth days if there had been any seventh and eighth days as originally catalogued. The summary of the sale by days on the last page of No. 5 shows the seventh and eighth days bracketed, with the total amount received for that part of the collection carried out in a column by itself.

Much more might be written on this topic, but I think enough has been said to sub- stantiate the original statement. There are no files of The Morning Post for 1842 in the libraries in this city, but I am ready to hazard the opinion that if they contain daily reports of the sales at Strawberry Hill, the

seventh and eighth reports in chronological order will be found to cover the lots adver- tised for the ninth and tenth days. It is obviously improbable that the print collec- tion was sold twice over, and it is certain that it was sold at the ten days' sale in June. In his last paragraph MB. ABRAHAMS in- cludes as one of the works describing Straw- berry Hill " Lot 403, ^Edes Walpolianse, 1767, plates." This book, of course, has nothing to do with Strawberry Hill, but is the " Description of the Collection of Pic- tures n at Houghton Hall. Horace Walpole n his ' Short Notes of my Life,' writes :

" In 1747 I printed my account of the collection at Houghton, under the title of ' JMes Walpol- iana3.' It had bean drawn up in the year 1743 [the Dedication is dated Aug. 24, 1743]. I printed but two hundred copies, to give away. It was very incorrectly printed ; another edition, more accurate, and enlarged, was published March 10th, 1752." ' Letters,' Toynbee, vol. i. p. xxxviii.

A later edition was published in 1767.

MB. ROBEBTS (ante, p. 294) may have in mind the statement made by MB. BATES in his communication of 10 June, 1882. At all events, MB. BATES there stated (6 S. v. 442) that, owing to inaccuracies, " it was judged expedient to cancel so much of the impression as had not been distributed, and employ an expert to recatalogue the library."

Since I wrote the above my attention has been called to MB. ROBEBTS'S further communication (ante, p. 353). A reference to the note at p. 18 of the ' Names of Pur- chasers and the Prices,' i.e., the ' ^Edes Strawberrianse l (No. 5), which I have given in full in this article, will show that the reason for recataloguing, as stated there at least, was not the inaccuracies, but the objection to some of the " Collections being sold en masse." MB. BATES, on the other hand, went at some length into the matter of the errors and blunders of the first catalogue.

In my first communication on this subject (10 S. vii. 461), in describing the ten days' sale catalogue (No. 4), I cited enough from the title-page to show that the sale took place in London. The London sale, by the way, was held from 13 to 23 June inclusive not " 13 to 23 March,'* as MB. ROBEBTS states.

The sale catalogue (No. 4) has a preli- minary " Address,'* over a page in length, by the compiler of the catalogue, signed " T. D.," in the course of which he refers to his description of the prints, and says that