That old Despencer of the Plantagenet days who is recorded to have left behind him, amongst other and large possessions, a “=Library of Bokes,’ must certainly have bequeathed his tastes with his blood. Besides three of the most conspicuous among English private libraries,—two existing and one dispersed,—collected by Spencers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, we have evidence of minor but not undistinguished collections acquired by other Spencers. There is still at Althorp an old family collection, originally formed at Wormleighton, in Warwickshire in the sixteenth century. There is also to be seen there the greater part of another collection, extending originally to some five thousand volumes, acquired by John, first Earl Spencer, from the executors of Dr. George, Head Master of Eton. In this collection brought from Eton was included a remarkable series of English tracts, which as it appears, is still preserved intact. Many of the rarer books of the George collection were exchanged from time to time, by the second Earl, for finer copies, as opportunity offered.