One of the mighty book-hunters of the last century was the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode (whose father went out as a commander of marines in Anson's ship, and whose share in the prize-money made him a wealthy man), who died on April 6, 1799, in his seventieth year. His splendid library now forms a part of the British Museum. It contains the most choice copies in classical and Biblical literature, and many of these are on vellum. His collection of editions of the fifteenth century Mr. Cracherode used modestly to call a 'specimen' one; 'they form perhaps the most perfect _collana_ or necklace ever strung by one man.' Several of the books formerly belonged to Grolier. His library was valued at £10,000 at or about the time of his death; it would probably now realize considerably over ten times that amount if submitted to auction. The value of his prints was placed at £5,000. Cracherode was an excellent scholar, and an amiable; his passion for collecting was strong even in death, for whilst he was at the last extremity his agent was making purchases for him. He was one of the most constant habitués of Tom Payne's, and at his final visit he put an Edinburgh Terence in one pocket and a large-paper Cebes in the other. His house was in Queen Square, Westminster, overlooking St. James's Park.
Reverting once more to the change which had been effected in the fancies of book-collectors, James Bindley, whose library was sold after his decease in 1819, and James Perry, who died in 1821, may be regarded as typical collectors of the transition period. Both are essentially London book-hunters--the former was an official in the Stamp Office, and the latter was, _inter alia_, the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_. Bindley, to whom John Nichols dedicated his 'Literary Anecdotes,' was a book-hunter who made very practical use of his scholarly tastes and ample means. He haunted the bookstalls and shops with the pertinacity of a tax-gatherer, and if his original expenditure were placed by the side of the total which his collection of books brought after his death, no more convincing arguments in favour of book-hunting could possibly be needed. Bindley is the 'Leontes' of Dibdin's 'Bibliographical Decameron,' and his collection of poetical rarities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was one of the most remarkable which had ever been got together. Not many of the items had cost him more than a few shillings each, and they realized almost as many pounds as he had paid shillings. Perry was a journalist first and a book-collector afterwards, but in many respects there was a great similarity in the tastes of the two rival bibliophiles. Perry's was the more extensive collection--it was sold in four parts, 1822-23--and perhaps on the whole much more generally interesting. Evans, the auctioneer, described it as 'an extraordinary assemblage of curious books, Early English poetry, old tracts and miscellaneous literature.' The _cheval de bataille_ of the fourth part consisted of 'a most Curious, Interesting and Extraordinarily Extensive Assemblage of Political and Historical Pamphlets of the Last and Present Century.' This collection was comprised in thirty-five bundles. Perry made a speciality of facetiæ, pamphlets on the French Revolution, and Defoe's works, but the two cornerstones of his library were a copy of the Mazarin Bible and a First Folio Shakespeare.