Mr. John Dent was born about the middle of the eighteenth century. His father is said to have been the master of a school in a small town in Cumberland. At an early age he entered the banking-house of Messrs. Child and Co. of London as a clerk, and in 1795 rose to be a partner in the firm. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for the borough of Leicester, and held the seat during five successive Parliaments until the dissolution in 1812. Six years later he was chosen Member for Poole, which he represented till 1826. He died at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on the 14th of December 1826.

Mr. Dent, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, accumulated a very fine library, which was very rich in the Greek and Latin Classics and early English literature. It also contained some very beautiful manuscripts. After his death it was sold in two parts by Mr. Evans of Pall Mall. The first sale, which took place on March the 29th, 1827, and eight following days, consisted of fifteen hundred and two lots, and realised six thousand two hundred and seventy-eight pounds, twelve shillings. The second portion of the books was sold on the 25th of the succeeding month and eight following days. There were one thousand four hundred and seventy-four lots in this sale, which brought eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-two pounds, seven shillings. The following are a few of the many very rare books which this noble collection contained, and the prices which were obtained for them:—

Fust and Schoeffer's Latin Bible of 1462, one hundred and seventy-three pounds, five shillings; a vellum copy of the first edition of Livy, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome in 1469, two hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten shillings; the first edition of the Anthologia GrÆca on vellum, printed at Florence in 1494, seventy pounds; a perfect copy of Higden's Polychronicon, printed by Caxton in 1482, one hundred and three pounds, nineteen shillings; three other imperfect Caxtons, fifty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence; Barclay's Shyp of Folys, printed by Pynson in 1509, thirty pounds, nine shillings; Bradshawe's Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde, printed by Pynson, without date, thirty-two pounds; The Cronycle of Englonde, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, thirty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings; a copy on vellum of the Orcharde of Syon, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519, sixty-five pounds, two shillings; Vitruvius de Architectura, printed on vellum by P. de Giunta in 1513, one hundred and seven pounds, two shillings; the Coverdale Bible, 1535, eighty-nine pounds, five shillings; and Archbishop Parker's De Antiquitate BritannicÆ EcclesiÆ, 1573, forty pounds. Mr. Dent possessed the first three Shakespeare folios, and a large number of the separate quarto plays. The folios realised respectively one hundred and ten pounds, five shillings, fifteen pounds, and sixty-five pounds, two shillings. The copy of the third folio had many contemporary manuscript corrections. Of the quarto plays, twenty-six pounds was obtained for the first edition of Love's Labors Lost, twenty-two pounds for the first edition of Othello, sixteen pounds for the first edition of The Merchant of Venice, and four pounds, ten shillings for the first edition of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Several of the manuscripts were of exceptional beauty and interest. A Roman Breviary, with illuminations in the finest Flemish style, presented to Queen Isabel of Castile by Francisco de Rojas, sold for three hundred and seventy-eight pounds; a copy of the Gospels in Greek, said to have been written about the end of the eleventh century, for two hundred and sixty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings; an Office de la Vierge, written by Nicolas Jarry, the celebrated calligraphist, in 1656 for Anne of Austria, and which afterwards passed into the possession of Madame de Maintenon and the Prince de Conti, for one hundred and ten pounds, five shillings; and a copy of the Westminster Liber Regalis, written in the fifteenth century, for fifty-five pounds, thirteen shillings. All these manuscripts were on vellum. The copies of the Roman Breviary and the Greek Gospels are described by Dibdin in his Bibliographical Decameron (vol. i. pp. clxiii and xcii).