Interesting and important as is the phase of book-collecting which relates to royal personages, it falls into insignificance beside that of men who have achieved greatness through their own abilities. The books collected by Thomas Cranmer, for example, quite overshadow in interest anything which the whole reign of the Tudors could produce. It has been well said that his knowledge of books was wide, and his opportunities for acquiring them unrivalled. Cranmer was a generous collector, for his library was quite open for the use of learned men. Latimer spent 'many an hour' there, and has himself told us that he met with a copy of Dionysius 'in my Lord of Canterbury's library.' We have already seen that many of Cranmer's books passed into the possession of the Earl of Arundel, but many were 'conveyed and stolen awaie.' Cranmer's books have found an enthusiastic historian in Prebendary Burbidge, who has almost rehabilitated the great ecclesiastic's library in the first part of Mr. Quaritch's 'Dictionary of English Book-collectors.' Another book-collector of a very different type was amassing an extensive library at a somewhat later period than Cranmer: Dr. Dee, the famous necromancer, had collected '4,000 volumes, printed and unprinted, bound and unbound, valued at 2,000 lib.,' of which one Greek, two French and one High Dutch volumes of MSS. alone were 'worth 533 lib.' It occupied forty years to form this library. Most of his books passed into the possession of Elias Ashmole--who was another collector with an insatiable appetite--and now form a part of the Ashmolean Museum. Some of Dee's singular MSS. were found, long after his death, in the secret drawer of a chest, which had passed through many hands undiscovered. Reverting for a moment to Ashmole, he himself tells us that he gave 'five volumes of Mr. Dugdale's' works to the Temple Library. And further: 'My first boatful of books, which were carried to Mrs. Tradescant's, were brought back to the Temple.' In May, 1667, he bought Mr. John Booker's study of books, and gave £140 for them. In 1681 he bought 'Mr. Lilly's library of books of his widow, for £50.'