In 1888, to the great astonishment of collectors, forty pounds was given for the following brief note to Oliver Goldsmith:

SIR, - I beg that you will excuse my Absence to the Club; I am going this evening to Oxford. I have another favour to beg. It is that I may be considered as proposing M Boswel [sic] for a candidate of our Society, and that he may be considered as regularly nominated.

April 23, 1773.

I am, Sir,

To Dr. GOLDsmith.

Your most humble servant,
SAM: JOHNSON.

It sold at the rate of twelve shillings and a penny a word. For "London" Johnson was paid ninepence halfpenny a line, and for "The Vanity of Human Wishes" tenpence; for each line in "The Traveller" Goldsmith received elevenpence farthing. This letter is distinguished from the hundreds of others in Johnson's autograph mainly by the fact that it is the only one extant written by him to Goldsmith. At the same sale the biddings rose to even a higher sum. Forty-six pounds was given for the letter in which Johnson signed himself "Yours impransus." It is not too much to assume that of the forty-six pounds, forty were paid for this one word. Never, surely, has

the greatest epicure or the wildest spendthrift been able to throw away on a dinner so much money as has been spent on the one modest word in which this needy author seems to hint to his employer that he was in want of one. "It is remarkable," writes Boswell, "that Johnson's letter to Mr. Cave concludes with a fair confession that he had not a dinner." What would have been the amazement of "the very good company" with whom the young author, fresh from Lichfield, used to dine at the Pine Apple, New Street, could they have known that the day would come when, for his hint that he wanted a dinner, enough would be given to pay his daily tavern-bill for nearly four full years! From what I learnt not long ago, I have little doubt that these high prices, though they were in part due to enthusiasm, were due also in part to fraud. Shortly before the sale, a dealer, who then held a high position, but who, a little later, died a bankrupt, sent to me, as the editor of "Boswell's Life of Johnson," the auctioneer's catalogue, and, in the name of a collector, asked me to indicate which of the letters had a peculiar interest. I pointed out these two, and showed him in each. case in what that interest consisted. The "impransus” letter, I knew, had been sold by auction, a little earlier, for seven or eight pounds. It might, I thought, fetch two or three more. For

the other I had no expectation that so much even as seven or eight pounds would be given. My surprise was indeed great when I learnt the result of my advice. advice. I have been informed since that when this dealer was bidding, there was often present at the sale a man who would bid against him, to whom no lot was ever knocked down. It was this mysterious person, it was said, who ran up the two lots to their extravagant prices. The collector who employed the dealer was charged by him a certain percentage on the sums paid, for what, I suppose, he was pleased to call his judgment. The more the autographs cost, the better was this judgment rewarded. Had the fellow stuck to his trade, he might have died a rich rogue, but he took to dabbling in stocks and shares, and got ruined.

Most collectors, of course, name a sum beyond which their agent must not carry his biddings. Sometimes, however, the limit is fixed absurdly low. A few years ago, I was shown by an auctioneer the original document by which Blackstone sold the copyright of his famous Commentaries. In the hope that it would be secured for the University of Oxford, before which the book had been read by the author in the shape of lectures, I informed Bodley's librarian of this great treaHe undertook to direct his agent to bid for it. I was out of England at the sale, but on my

sure.