Michael Foster

“ On that day the library of Mr Dew-Smith was sold by auction at Messrs. Sotheby's room in the Strand. . ." . The very catalogue is a work of genius. . . . And in the absence of any official handbook it is perhaps the best guide that the critical student of the latest fashions in bibliography can select.'
The owner of 'things' which could be spoken of in such terms, had naturally many friends outside Cambridge and the Scientific Instrument Company. He was in the eighties a member of the select Dilettanti Society and of the then vigorous 'Rabelais' Club. ”

“ He took unwearied pains and put forth unusual skill as a hunter to secure something which he sought, a rare first edition, a fine old engraving, an attractive and fantastic jewel, or some old bit of furniture, yet he sought to possess it, not simply that he might have it, but because, having it, to look at it or to handle it gave him pleasure whenever he wished. ”

“ When the rooms in Bishop's Hostel at Trinity College, which he afterwards occupied for many years, were allotted to him, he set about—I was going to write—'to furnish them,' but that commonplace word is not the right one with which to describe the way in which he transformed the four bare walls left by a Cambridge builder into a chamber full of beautiful things, which, though each in turn drew upon itself the gaze of the visitor, produced, together the dominant effect of luxurious ease and comfort. There was in it no mark of the collector. For Dew-Smith was no mere collector. ”