Footnotes

'I WISH MERELY TO SEE ONE OR TWO OF THE M.S.S.' – LETTERS TO THE LAST OF THE SOTHEBYS. Samuel Leigh Sotheby (1805-1861) was the third and last member of the Sotheby family to run the eponymous firm of auctioneers. In addition to sharing his family's bibliographic interests, he was also a director of the Crystal Palace Company, which after the Great Exhibition relocated to near his home in Norwood (with George Grove, of Musical Dictionary fame, serving as its Secretary). Frank Herrmann describes Sotheby as 'a man of enormous and diverse enthusiasms who had changed the character of the firm's establishment in Wellington Street into an altogether more interesting and wide-ranging business, where scholarship and, above all, accuracy were regarded as of primary importance' ('Sotheby family', ODNB).

Included in the lot is a set of forms sent out by Sotheby while researching Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton (1861), which respondents were requested to sign when blindfolded; the aim being to demonstrate that 'any body, totally blind, is still capable of signing his name, and indeed of writing in one continuous line'. Among those who have replied are W.M. Thackeray, who adds the note below his signature: "Dear Mr Sotheby. Here is the signature and date written with eyes strictly closed but you will see that the stroke for the T has come in a wrong place over the K", George Grove, and Joseph Paxton, who tells him in a covering letter that "Most men have some sorts of whims & oddities, Yours have broken out in a very singular direction". James Orchard Halliwell writes an entire letter blindfolded, telling Sotheby that he doesn't think his plan a very good one "because if I were to be blindfolded year after year I should get a dabb at it therefore I don't see how you are to Judge of Milton's handwriting by specimens of that of people who have only been blind folded once". See illustration overleaf.