Mr. Frederick Locker, the author of London Lyrics and other volumes of delightful light and social verse, was born in 1821. His father was Mr. E.H. Locker, a Civil Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, and founder of the Naval Gallery there. For some years Mr. Locker was PrÉcis Writer in the Admiralty. He was twice married: first in 1850 to Lady Charlotte Christian, a daughter of the seventh Earl of Elgin, and secondly in 1874 to Hannah Jane, a daughter of the late Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson, Bart., of Rowfant, Sussex. On the death of his father-in-law in 1885 he added the name of Lampson to his own. He died at Rowfant on May the 30th, 1895.

Mr. Locker-Lampson tells us in his interesting autobiography entitled My Confidences, that he first collected pictures and rare sixteenth century engravings, but collectors with long purses outbid him, so he turned to old books: 'little volumes of poetry and the drama from about 1590 to 1610.' These formed the nucleus of his collection, which soon grew wide enough to include Caxtons and the works of the poets of the last century. Rare editions of Sidney, Spenser, Churchyard, Middleton, Herbert, Herrick, Dekker, Chapman, and many other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are to be found in it, and Shakespeare is splendidly represented by a perfect copy of the first folio, the first editions of Lucrece, the Sonnets and the Poems, and a large number—some thirty in all—of the quarto plays, many of which are the original editions. Mr. Locker-Lampson's folio wanted Ben Jonson's verses, and he gives an amusing account in My Confidences of an unsuccessful attempt to purchase a copy of them from a Mr. Dene, who possessed an imperfect first folio. He ultimately bought the precious leaf, which had been pasted in a scrap-book, for one hundred pounds, and so completed his copy. The library is also very rich in first editions of Byron, Tennyson, Browning, and other English poets of recent times, many of the volumes containing autograph inscriptions to Mr. Locker-Lampson himself. Mr. Locker-Lampson placed his library, together with his collections of autograph letters, pictures and drawings, in his residence at Rowfant, the beautiful home which he and his wife inherited from the lady's father; and a handsome catalogue of them published in 1886 by Mr. Quaritch, with an introduction by their owner, tells us of the treasures they contain. An etched portrait of Mr. Locker-Lampson and a sketch of his study are inserted in the volume, and Mr. Andrew Lang has prefixed some charming lines descriptive of the library:—

'The Rowfant books, how fair they show,
The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall;
Print, autograph, Portfolio!
Back from the outer air they call
The athletes from the Tennis ball,
The Rhymer from his rod and hooks;
Would I could sing them, one and all,
The Rowfant books!
The Rowfant books! In sun and snow
They're dear, but most when tempests fall;
The folio towers above the row
As once, o'er minor prophets—Saul!
What jolly jest books, and what small
"Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks.
You do not find in every stall
The Rowfant books!
The Rowfant books! These long ago
Were chained within some College hall;
These manuscripts retain the glow
Of many a coloured capital;
While yet the Satires keep their gall,
While the Pastissier puzzles cooks,
There is a joy that does not pall,
The Rowfant books!

Envoy.
The Rowfant books,—ah magical
As famed Armida's golden looks.
They hold the Rhymer for their thrall—
The Rowfant books!'

In 1900 was published an Appendix to the Catalogue, the work of Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson's son, Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson, consisting of additions to the library since the printing of the Catalogue in 1886, to which Mr. Andrew Lang again contributed some verses:—

'How often to the worthy Sire
Succeeds th' unworthy son!
Extinguished is the ancient fire,
Books were the idols of the Squire,
The graceless heir has none.
To Sotheby's go both old and new,
Bindings, and prose, and rhymes,
With Shakespeare as with Padeloup
The sportive lord has naught to do,
He reads The Sporting Times.
Behold a special act of grace,
On Rowfant shelves behold,
The well-loved honours keep their place,
And new-won glories half efface
The splendours of the old.'

The volume also contains verses by Mr. Austin Dobson, the Earl of Crewe, and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt.