After all was over, the whole of the library, no portion of which could legally be given away, was _lent for ever_ to the Corporation of London.

Scorched and sodden, the salvage came into the hands of Mr.Overall, their indefatigable librarian.

In a hired attic, he hung up the volumes that would bear it over strings like clothes, to dry, and there for weeks and weeks were the stained, distorted volumes, often without covers, often in single leaves, carefully tended and dry-nursed.

Washing, sizing, pressing, and binding effected wonders, and no one who to-day looks upon the attractive little alcove in the Guildhall Library labelled "Bibliotheca Ecclesiae Londonino-Belgiae"> and sees the rows of handsomely-lettered backs, could imagine that not long ago this, the most curious portion of the City's literary collections, was in a state when a five-pound note would have seemed more than full value for the lot..