ment to be one of its original members, and many of its subsequently printed volumes are the result of his personal knowledge of unpublished literary treasures long lying unheeded in the muniment rooms of many an English home.
On the retirement of Sir Thomas Erskine May from the clerkship of the House of Commons in 1886, Gladstone was inclined to appoint Dasent as his successor in that high office, but his infirmity of lameness, the result, in the first instance, of a fall in 1863, aggravated by other accidents of a like nature, was held to be an insuperable obstacle to the efficient discharge of the onerous duties attaching to the post, and he remained at the ivil Service Commission, of which he had become, on the death of Lord Hampton, the official chief. In 1890 he sustained a severe shock through the total destruction by fire of his country house at Tower Hill, Berks, and the loss or grievous damage of much valuable property, including an extensive library dating from his Oxford days, old furniture, pictures, plate, china, and curiosities collected during a long life in all parts of the world.
In this connection it should be mentioned that he was one of the first to give serious attention to the study of hall-marks on plate, long before the appearance of Chaffers's and Cripps's books on this subject, and that he had secured in middle age an unrivalled collection of antique silver, including specimens from the Stowe sale, which he attended in person, and from the Bernal and Hastings collections.
Many choice examples of old Norwich, York, and other provincial work came into his possession, at a time when
