ABSTRACT
The Augustan age was perhaps the most brilliant period in the history of our libraries. John Locke’s library was a working collection in constant use by its owner, and elaborately catalogued and pressmarked. Mr Peter Laslett of Trinity College, Cambridge, regards this collection, together with Sir Isaac Newton’s library at Trinity, as the two most important collections of the books of an individual Englishman which survive. This dictum overlooks, a little unfairly perhaps, Pepys’ library at Cambridge and the Evelyn library, now at Christ Church Oxford. Dr Johnson made good use of many libraries in Oxford (especially at Trinity College, where his friend Thomas Warton was) and London, including the Royal Library (where in 1767 Mr Barnard introduced him to the King, thus gratifying what Boswell calls his ‘monarchical enthusiasm’), and Mr Thrale’s library at Streatham gave him infinite happiness.
