CHAPTER VI

My Transactions with Mr Ellis--Rarities which came from Him, and how He got Them--Riviere the Bookbinder--How He cleaned a Valuable Volume for Me--His Irritability--A Strange Tale about an Unique Tract--The Old Gentleman and the Immoral Publication--Dryden's Copy of Spenser--The Unlucky _Contretemps_ at Ellis's--A Second Somewhere Else-- Mr B. M. Pickering--Our Pleasant and Profitable Relations-- Thomas Fuller's MSS. Epigrams--Charles Cotton's Copy of Taylor the Water-Poet's Works--A Second One, which Pickering had, and sold to Me--He has a First Edition of _Paradise Lost_ from Me for Two Guineas and a Half-- Taylor's Thumb Bible, 93