"In proceeding from the legal to the miscellaneous part of the library, the visitor's attention will, perhaps, be attracted by an extensive and curious collection of the records of criminal law. Not merely the English state trials and the French _causes célèbres_ are there, but the criminal trials of Scotland and of America, and detached publications of remarkable cases, Newgate Calendars, Malefactors' Register, Chronicles of Crime, with ghastly prints of Newgate and Old Bailey, with their executions. The Chancellor is not responsible for this part of the library, which owes its completeness to the morbid taste of his successor, who defends the collection as best illustrating the popular morals and manners of every period, and contends that fiction yields in interest to the gloomy dramas of real life."
The practice attributed to the Chancellor of annotating his books is looked on by collectors as in the general case a crime which should be denied benefit of clergy. What is often said, however, of other crimes may be said of this, that if the perpetrator be sufficiently illustrious, it becomes a virtue. If Milton, for instance, had thought fit to leave his autograph annotations on the first folio Shakespeare, the offence would not only have been pardoned but applauded, greatly to the pecuniary benefit of any one so fortunate as to discover the treasure. But it would be highly dangerous for ordinary people to found on such an immunity. I remember being once shown by an indignant collector a set of utterly and hopelessly destroyed copies of rare tracts connected with the religious disputes of Queen Elizabeth's day, each inlaid and separately bound in a thin volume in the finest morocco, with the title lengthways along the back. These had been lent to a gentleman who deemed himself a distinguished poet, and he thought proper to write on the margin the sensations caused within him by the perusal of some of the more striking passages, certifying the genuineness of his autograph by his signature at full length in a bold distinct hand. He, worthy man, deemed that he was adding greatly to the value of the rarities; but had he beheld the owner's face on occasion of the discovery, he would have been undeceived.