Digitised Manuscripts and Books

obliged to raise money at avhigh rate of interest , and the * Buckinghamshire yielded a meagre return for his Og clay lands of investment. This may have been magnificent but 1t was not businessand the crash though long delayed , was inevitable. at Lord Stuart de Rothesay's sale , and at those of Strawberry Hill and Stowe , the prices were moderate compared to later perience . Lord Stuart's ‘Standard Bearer' by Rembrandt was ex knocked down at £800, while in 1868 1t was valued at £10000 for PROpaLeMdBi ys The first sale I canremember was that of Mr Bernal's collection in 1854 or '55 , and it was the one at which sensat- rices were first Lonal 2) byena, byt Gord Hertford chiefly,y who VY c ae rey 8 n @ Q n i) sé wm reg < FS @ o < +e) n @ n 0 ittiatfiguret that arevolutaenisedathe he gave these vases to Mdlle. Oger > who , after his death in I870, placed them in the hands of a broker from whom two years later they were acquired by my 4. cousin Baron Alphonse and myself. It is true that the collect- = ions of Lord Stuart and Mr Bernal as well as those of which the sale has recently taken place were not an@ient collections v in the true sense of the word, nor was even that of Horace Walpole. But there were many others which it would be tedious to enumerate » Which had long been in the hands of the families by which they were sold, But be this as it may, not.all the collections which have been scattered either in whole or in part during the past fifty years have been disposed of by auction, as many have 2 changed hands privately. This can be accounted for in many ways. Some collectors dread the publicity of the press and