addition made by Lord Shaftesbury to the original house. This was purchased by him in 1699 from the Bovey family, as heirs to the widow of Sir James Smith, by whom there is reason to believe it was built in 1635, as

was engraved on a stone which formed part of the pavement in front of one of the summer-houses in the garden. The Right Honourable

Sir James Smith was buried at Chelsea 18th of November, 1681. He was probably the junior sheriff of London in 1672.

"It does not appear," says Lysons, "that Lord Shaftesbury pulled down Sir James Smith's house, but altered it and made considerable additions by a building fifty feet in length, which projected into

the garden. It was secured with an iron door, the window-shutters were of the same metal, and there were iron plates between it and the house to prevent all communication by fire, of which this learned and noble peer seems to have entertained great apprehensions. The whole of the new building, though divided into a gallery and two small rooms (one of which was his lordship's bedchamber), was fitted up as a library. The earl was very fond of the culture of fruit-trees, and his gardens were planted with the choicest sorts, particularly every kind of vine which would bear the open air of this climate. It appears by Lord Shaftesbury's letters to Sir John Cropley that he dreaded the smoke of London as so prejudicial to his health, that whenever

the wind was easterly he quitted Little Chelsea," where he generally resided during the sitting of Parliament.

In 1710 the noble author of 'Characteristics,' then about to proceed to Italy, sold his residence at Little Chelsea to Narcissus Luttrell, Esq., who, as a book-collector, is described by Dr. Dibdin as "ever ardent in his love of past learning, and not less voracious in his bibliomaniacal appetites" than the Duke of Marlborough. Sir Walter Scott acknowledges in his preface to the works of Dryden the obligations he is under to the "valuable" and "curious collection of fugitive pieces of the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Queen Anne," "made by Narcissus Luttrell, Esq., under whose name the editor quotes it. This industrious collector," continues Sir Walter, "seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and the date of the purchase. His collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of Grub Street. It was dispersed on Mr. Luttrell's death," adds Sir Walter Scott, and he then mentions Mr. James Bindley and Mr. Richard Heber as having "obtained a great share of the Luttrell collection, and liberally furnished him with the loan of some of them in order to the more perfect editing of Dryden's works."

This is not exactly correct, as Mr. Luttrell's library descended with Shaftesbury House to Mr. Sergeant Wynne, and from him to his eldest son, after whose death it was sold by auction in 1786. On the title-page of the sale

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catalogue the collection is described as "the valuable library of Edward Wynne, Esq., lately deceased, brought from his house at Little Chelsea. Great part of it was formed by an eminent and curious collector in the last century." At the sale of Mr. Wynne's library, Bindley purchased lot 209, Collection of Poems, various, Latin and English, 5 vols. 1626, &c.,' for seven guineas; and 211, Collection of Political Poems, Dialogues, Funeral Elegies, Lampoons, &c., with various Political Prints and Portraits, 3 vols. 1641, &c.,' for sixteen pounds; and it is probable that these are the collections to which Sir Walter Scott refers. Dr. Dibdin, in his enthusiastic mode of treating matters of bibliography, endeavours to establish a pedigree for those who

"Love a ballad in print a' life,"

from Pepys, placing Mr. Luttrell the second in descent.

"The opening of the eighteenth century," he observes, "was distinguished by the death of a bibliomaniac of the very first order and celebrity; of one who had no doubt frequently discoursed largely and eloquently with Luttrell upon the variety and value of certain editions of old ballad poetry, and between whom presents of curious old blackletter volumes were in all probability passing, I allude to the famous Samuel Pepys, secretary to the Admiralty."

Of Narcissus Luttrell he then says:

"Nothing would seem to have escaped his lynx-like vigilance. Let the object be what it may (especially if it related to poetry), let the volume be great or small, or contain good, bad, or indifferent warblings of the Muse, his insatiable craving had stomach for all.' We may consider his collection the fountain-head of these copious streams, which, after fructifying in the libraries of many bibliomaniacs in the first half of the eighteenth century, settled for awhile more determinedly in the curious book-reservoir of a Mr. Wynne, and hence breaking up and taking a different direction towards the collections of

Farmer, Steevens, and others, they have almost lost their identity in the innumerable rivulets which now inundate the book-world."

It is to the literary taste of Mr. Edward Wynne, as asserted by Dr. Dibdin, that modern book-collectors are indebted for the preservation of most of the choicest relics. of the Bibliotheca Luttrelliana.

"Mr. Wynne," he continues," lived at Little Chelsea, and built his library in a room which had the reputation of having been Locke's study. Here he used to sit surrounded by innumerable books, a great part being formed by an eminent and curious collector in the last century.'”

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What Dr. Dibdin says respecting Mr. Wynne's building a library and Locke's study is inaccurate, as there can be no reasonable doubt that the room or rooms his library occupied were those built by Lord Shaftesbury, which had (and correctly) the reputation of having been his lordship's library, and the study, not of Locke, although of Locke's pupil and friend. It is not even probable that Lord Shaftesbury was ever visited by our great philosopher at Little Chelsea, as from 1700 that illustrious man resided altogether at Oates, in Essex, where he died on the 28th of October, 1704.

Whether to Lord Shaftesbury or to Mr. Luttrell the embellishments of the garden of their residence are to be attributed can now be only matter for conjecture, unless some curious autograph-collector's portfolio may by chance contain an old letter or other document to establish the claim. Their tastes, however, were very similar. They both loved their books, and their fruits and flowers, and enjoyed the study of them. An account drawn up by Mr. Luttrell of several pears which he cultivated at Little

Chelsea, with outlines of their longitudinal sections, was communicated to the Horticultural Society by Dr. Luttrell Wynne, one hundred years after the notes had been made, and may be found printed in the second volume of the Transactions of that So

ciety. In this account twenty-five varieties of pears are mentioned, which had been obtained between the years 1712 and 1717 from Mr. Duncan's, Lord Cheneys's, Mr. Palmer's, and Mr. Selwood's nursery.

Until recently it was astounding to find, amid

the rage for alteration and improvement, the formal, oldfashioned shape of a trim garden of Queen Anne's time carefully preserved, its antique summer-houses respected, and the little infant leaden Hercules, which spouted water to cool the air from a serpent's throat, still asserting its aquatic supremacy, under the shade of a fine old medlar-tree; and all

this too in the garden of a London parish workhouse! Not