Part 4 (2/2)

[74] Nichols' _Progresses of James I_, vol. iii. p. 1105. Rouse's speech (with the letter) is printed in Hearne's _t.i.tus Liv. Forojul._ p. 198.

[75] Letter from J. Chamberlain to Sir D. Carleton, June 28, 1620: _Calendar of State Papers, 1619-23_, p. 157.

[76] An account of Mrs. Esther Inglis, and of all her known existing MSS., is preparing for publication by David Laing, Esq., LL.D., of Edinburgh.

A.D. 1621.

A gift of 5 is noticeable as coming from the Girdlers' Company, 'Societas Zonariorum.' Sir Francis Bacon occurs as a donor of books.

A.D. 1623.

Delegates were appointed by Convocation to consider 'de modulo frontispicii Bibliothecae publicae in parte occidentali versus collegium Exon[77].'

[77] Reg. Conv. N. ff. 167, 169.

A.D. 1624.

'Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and then Lord Chancellor of England, would have borrowed Paulus Benius Eugubinus _De dirimend. Controvers. de Grat.

et Lib. Arb._, but was deny'd[78].'

The first theft of a book from the Library occurred in this year. An account of it, with several others, will be found in a note to the year 1654.

[78] Barlow's MS. Arg. against lending books out of the Library; see _post, sub anno_ 1659.

A.D. 1627.

Andrew James, of Newport, Isle of Wight, is recorded to have given 'duas capsulas in quibus a.s.servantur scripta vetustissima, exotici et ignoti characteris, alia stylo, calamo alia, in corticibus exarata, ex orientalis Indiae partibus allata[79].' An East India merchant, John Jourdain, gave four Arabic MSS., and Bacon's _Works_ were presented by Peter Ince, a bookseller at Chester. It appears from the Register that Joseph Barnes, the Oxford printer and publisher, died in this year, as he bequeathed a legacy of 5.

[79] At the end of the Barocci collection (numbered 245, 246, in the Catalogue of 1697) are two Javanese MSS., written on palm-leaves: the one written with a reed in the sacred or Pali character, preserved in a box; the other written with a style in the common character, and having the leaves tied together in the usual manner between two boards. As there does not seem to be any evidence for supposing that Barocci's collection included any Oriental MSS., it is possible that these were the writings 'ignotis characteris' given two years previously by Andr.

James.

A.D. 1628.

Twenty-nine MSS., all of which, except three, are Greek, were given by Sir Thomas Roe, who had previously been amba.s.sador in Turkey, and who afterwards sat, at the commencement of the Long Parliament, as Burgess for the University, in company with Selden. One of the three exceptions is an original copy of the Synodal Epistles of the Council of Basle, with the leaden seal attached; and another, a valuable Arabic MS. of the Apostolic Canons, &c., which is noticed at length by Selden in the second book of his treatise, _De Synedriis Hebraeorum_. Roe proposed that his books should be permitted to be lent out for purposes of printing, on proper security being given; a proposition which was accepted by Convocation[80]. Special licence of borrowing Lord Pembroke's (the Barocci) and Roe's MSS. was granted by the donors themselves to Dr.

Lindsell (afterwards Bishop of Peterborough and Hereford) and Patrick Young, the keeper of the King's Library at St. James's. The latter is found, from the Register of Readers, to have used his privilege as late as Feb. and March, 1647-8, various volumes of Pembroke's MSS. being then lent to him, together with some marked 'Archbp.', which were doubtless Laud's[81].

The copy of Bacon's _Essays_ (1625) which was presented by the author to the Duke of Buckingham, was given to the Library by Lewis Roberts, a merchant of London. It is now exhibited among the curiosities in the first gla.s.s case, as a specimen of binding, being clad in green velvet, embroidered with gold and silver thread, with the head of the duke worked in silk. The same donor also presented the copy of Bishop Williams' Funeral Sermon on James I, which had been given to the same duke by the author. Several other specimens of embroidered bindings are preserved in the Library, which are all, it is believed, comprehended in the following list[82]:--

1. A part of L. Tomson's version of the New Test., printed by Barker, in 16^o (in 1578?), now marked MS. _e Musaeo_, 242. This belonged to Queen Elizabeth, and is bound in a covering worked by herself, with various mottos, _e.g._ 'Celum patria,' 'Scopus vitae Xpus,' &c. And on a fly-leaf occurs this note in her handwriting: 'August[ine?]. I walke manie times into the pleasant fieldes of the Holye Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eate them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that so hauing tasted thy sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life[83].'

2. Another of Elizabeth's bibliopegic achievements is the cover of her own translation from the French of _The Miroir or Gla.s.se of the synnefull Soule_, executed when only eleven years old. She says that she translated it 'out of frenche ryme into englishe prose, joyning the sentences together as well as the capacitie of my symple witte and small lerning coulde extende themselves;' and prefixes a dedication, dated 'from a.s.sherige, the laste daye of the yeare of our Lord G.o.d, 1544,' in which, 'to our moste n.o.ble and vertuous quene Katherin, Elizabeth her humble daughter wisheth perpetuall felicitie and everlasting ioye.' The volume consists of 63 small quarto leaves, and has the queen's initials K. P. embroidered within an ornamental border of gold and silver thread, on a ground of blue corded silk. It is numbered Cherry MS. 38.

3. _Dialogue de la Vie et de la Mort_, trans. from the Italian by J.

Louveau, and printed in imitation of MS., second edit., 12^o. Lyon, 1558. Red velvet, embroidered with gold and silver thread. A French inscription on a fly-leaf is in a handwriting resembling that of Queen Elizabeth. Bodl. MS., 660.

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