THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 J
 
 A LITERARY ANTIQUARY. 
 MEMOIR 
 
 ov 
 
 WILLIAM OLDYS, ESQ. 
 
 NOREOY KING-AT-AEMS. 
 Together with 
 
 HIS DIARY, 
 CHOICE NOTES FROM HIS ADVERSARIA, 
 
 AND AN 
 
 ACCOUNT OF THE LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 [REPRINTED FBOM NOTES AND QUERIES.] 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW-STEEET SQUARE. 
 1862.
 
 r 
 
 7?/ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MEHOIB OF WELLIAM OLDYS, ESQ. - 
 DIARY ...... 
 
 CHOICE NOTES FROM HIS ADVERSARIA 
 ACCOUNT OF LONDON LIBRARIES 
 INDEX 
 
 Page 
 i 1 
 
 129 
 
 3067 
 
 58109 
 
 110116 
 
 70 nr
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS, ESQ. 
 
 THE life of a literary antiquary is seldom suf- 
 ficiently diversified to afford to a biographer many 
 materials for bis pen, so as to give interest and 
 vivacity to the historic page. From the noiseless 
 tenor of his daily pursuits, and the habit he has ac- 
 quired of holding communion with the past rather 
 than with the present, his existence is, generally 
 speaking, subject to fewer vicissitudes than those 
 which mark the mortal progress of persons be- 
 longing to tlie more active professions : 
 " Allow him but his plaything of a pen, 
 He ne'er cabals or plots like other men." 
 
 Respecting the parentage of William Oldys there 
 is some obscurity. Mr. John Taylor, the son of 
 Oldys's intimate friend, informs us that " Mr. 
 Oldys was, I understood, the natural son of a 
 gentleman named Harris, who lived in a respect- 
 able style in Kensington Square. How he came 
 to adopt the name of Oldys, or where he received 
 his education, I never heard." * AH his bio- 
 graphers, however, speak of him as the natural 
 son of Dr. William Oldys, Chancellor of Lincoln 
 (from 1683 till his death in 1708), Commissary of 
 St. Catharine's, Official of St. Alban's, and Advo- 
 
 * Records of my Life, i. 25, ed. 1832. 
 a
 
 VI MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 cate of the Admiralty. That even grave civilians 
 will sometimes deviate from moral purity, is de- 
 
 S'ored by Dr. Coote, who had been informed that 
 r. Oldys " maintained a mistress in a very penu- 
 rious and private manner." * 
 
 The civilian died early in the year 1708, and 
 in his will he u devises to his loving cozen Mrs. 
 Ann Oldys his two houses at Kensington, with 
 the residue of his property," and " appoints the 
 said Ann Oldys whole and sole executrix of his 
 Will." It has been conjectured, with some de- 
 gree of probability, that under the cognomen of 
 cozen is meant the mother of our literary anti- 
 quary ; more especially as we find from the will 
 of the said Ann Oldys, that after two or three 
 trifling bequests, she " gives all her estate, real 
 and personal, to her loving friend, Benjamin 
 Jackman of the said Kensington, upon trust, for 
 the benefit of her son William Oldys, and she 
 leaves the tuition and guardianship of her son 
 William Oldys, during his minority, to the said 
 Benjamin Jackman." The Will is dated March 
 21, 1710; and proved by Benjamin Jackman on 
 April 10, 1711, when our antiquary was in the 
 fifteenth year of his age. 
 
 At the end of a pedigree of the Oldys family 
 in the handwriting of William Oldys, now in the 
 British Museum (Addit. MS. 4240 f, p- 14), is 
 the following entry : " Dr. William Oldys, Ad- 
 vocate General, born at Addesbury 1636 ; died at 
 Kensington, 1708 ; Duxit Theodosia Lovet, Fil. 
 Dom. Jo : Halsey : [Issue] William, nat. July 
 14, 1696." That the Doctor married Theodosia 
 Lovett there can be no doubt ; for not only is 
 it stated by Burke, that " Robert Lovett, of Lis- 
 
 * Lives and Characters of eminent English Civilians, 
 p. 95, ed. 1804. 
 
 f The same volume contains a long account of Dr. 
 William Oldys, and other biographical notices of the 
 family.
 
 MEMOIR Or WILLIAM OLDYS. Vll 
 
 combe in Bucks, married Theodosia, daughter 
 of Sir John Halsey, Knt., of Great Gaddesden, 
 Herts ; he died s. p. in 1683, set. 26," (Extinct 
 Baronetage, ed. 1844, p. 325), but in a pedigree 
 in the College of Arms, dated 1700, and sub- 
 scribed by Dr. Oldys, his marriage with Theodo- 
 sia Lovett is duly recorded. While as the Doctor 
 there describes himself as " sine prole," and omits 
 all mention of William Oldys in his will, but 
 leaves to Oldys^s mother the property which he 
 eventually inherited, there can be little doubt 
 that the baston ought properly to have figured 
 in the arms of the future Norroy. That Oldys 
 always claimed the civilian for his father, ap- 
 pears from the following note in his annotated 
 Langbaine, p. 131 : " To search the old papers 
 in one of my large deal boxes for Mr. Dryden's 
 letter of thanks to my father for some commu- 
 nications relating to Plutarch, when they and 
 others were publishing a translation of all Plu- 
 tarch's Lives in 5 vols. 8vo, 1683. It is copied 
 in the yellow book for Dryden's Life, in which 
 there are about 150 transcriptions, in prose and 
 verse, relating to the life, character, and writings 
 of Mr. Dryden." Pompey the Great was the Life 
 translated by Dr. William Oldys. 
 
 William Oldys, the son, was born July 14, 1696, 
 and by the death of his parents was left to make 
 his way in life by his own natural abilities. From 
 his Autobiography we learn that he was one of the 
 sufferers in the South Sea Bubble, which ex- 
 ploded in 1720, and involved him in a long and 
 expensive lawsuit. From the year 1724 to 1730 
 he resided in Yorkshire, and spent most of his 
 time at the seat of the first Earl of Malton, with 
 whom he had been intimate in his youth. In 
 1725, Oldys, being at Leeds soon after the death 
 of Ralph Thoresby, the antiquary, paid a visit to 
 his celebrated Museum.* As he remained in 
 
 * Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, p. xxxi. ed. 1736. 
 a2
 
 Vlll MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDY8. 
 
 Yorkshire for about six years, it is not improbable 
 that be assisted Dr. Knowler in the editorship of 
 the Earl of Straffbrde's Letters, &c. 2 vols. fol. 
 published in 1739. In 1729, he wrote an "Essay 
 on Epistolary Writings, with respect to the Grand 
 Collection of Thomas Earl of Strafford. Inscribed 
 to the Lord Malton." The MS. was probably of 
 some utility to his Lordship, and his Chaplain, 
 Dr Knowler.* 
 
 It was during Oldys's visit to Wentworth House 
 that he became an eye-witness to the destruction 
 of the collections of the antiquary Richard Gas- 
 coyne, consisting of seven great chests of manu- 
 scripts. Of this remorseless act of vandalism our 
 worthy antiquary has left on record some severe 
 strictures. Here is his account of this literary 
 holocaust : 
 
 " Richard Gascoyne, Esq., was of kin to the Wentworth 
 family, which he highly honoured by the elaborate gene- 
 alogies he drew thereof, and improved abundance of 
 other pedigrees in most of our ancient historians, and 
 particularly our topographical writers and antiquaries in 
 personal history, as Brooke, Vincent, Dugdale, and many 
 others, our, of his vast and most valuable collection of 
 deeds, evidences, and ancient records, &c., whic h after 
 his death, about the time of the Restoration, when he was 
 about eighty years of age, fell with great part of his 
 library to the possession of William, the son of Thomas 
 the first Earl of Strafford, who preserved the books in 
 his library at Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, and 
 the said MSS. in the stone tower there among the family 
 writings, where they continued safe and untouched till 
 1728, when SirTho. Watson Wentworth f, newly made or 
 
 * This MS. is also noticed in Oldys's Dissertation upon 
 Pamphlets, p. 561. 
 
 t Thomas Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse, cre- 
 ated Baron Malton 28 May, 1728 ; Baron of Wath and 
 Harrowden, Viscount Higham, and Earl of Malton 19 
 Nov. 1734; became Baron of Rockingham in Feb. 1746, 
 and was created Marquis of Rockingbam 19 April, 1746 ; 
 died at Wentworth House 14 Dec. 1750, and was buried 
 in the Minster at York. Vide the pedigree of the family 
 in Hunter's Doncaster, ii. 91.
 
 MEMOIR OP WILLIAM OLDYS. IX 
 
 about to be made Earl of Malton, and to whose father 
 the said William Earl of Strafford left his estate, burnt 
 them all wilfully in one morning. I saw the lamentable 
 fire feed upon six or seven great chests full of the said 
 deeds, &c., some of them as old as the Conquest, and 
 even the ignorant servants repining at the mischievous 
 and destructive obedience they were compelled to. There 
 was nobody present who could venture to speak but my- 
 self, but the infatuation was insuperable. I urged that 
 Mr. Dodsworth had also spent his life in making such 
 collections, and they are preserved to this day with re- 
 verence to their collector, and that it was out of such 
 that Sir Wm. Dugdale collected the work which had 
 done so much honour to the Peerage. I did prevail to 
 the preservation of some few old rolls and publick grants 
 and charters, a few extracts of escheats, and a few ori- 
 ginal letters of some eminent persons and pedigrees of 
 others, but not the hundredth part of much better things 
 that were destroyed. The external motive for this de- 
 struction seemed to be some fear infused by his attorney, 
 Sam. Buck of Rotheram (since a justice of peace) a man 
 who could not read one of those records any more than 
 his lordship, that something or other might be found out 
 one time or other by somebody or other the descendants 
 perhaps of the late Earl of Strafford, who had been at 
 war with him for the. said estate which might shake his 
 title and change its owner. Though it was thought he 
 had no stronger motive for it than his impatience to pull 
 down the old tower in which they were reposited, to 
 make way for his undertaker Ralph Tunnicliffe to pile up 
 that monstrous and ostentatious heap of a house which 
 is so unproportionable to the body and soul of the pos- 
 sessor, so these antiquities, as useless lumber, were de- 
 stroyed too. Of that Richard Gascoyne see more in 
 Thoresby's Topography of Leeds,' fol. 1715; in Sir Wm. 
 Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, where he is ap- 
 plauded for his revival of the Wentworth family, as he 
 ought to have been respected by it for the honour which 
 he, and the profit his kindred, brought to it (p. 554), 
 how gratefully repaid appears above. Also in Dngdale's 
 Memoirs of his own Life, in the note I have made upon 
 Barton's Leicestershire (throughout enriched with his 
 notes), in the Harleian Catalogue, vol. iii. p. 23, 8, 1744.* 
 
 * Oldys's note is worth quoting, He says, " Through- 
 out this much-esteemed work [Burton's Leicestershire, 
 1622] there have been numberless notes transcribed in 
 the margins, and almost all the pedigrees enlarged and 
 a3
 
 X MEMOIR OF WULLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 Some men have .no better way to make themselves the 
 most conspicuous persons in their family than by de- 
 stroying the monuments of their ancestors, and raising 
 themselves trophies out of their ruins." 
 
 We get a glimpse of Oldys's literary habits at 
 this time from the following note : 
 
 " When I left London in 1724 to reside in Yorkshire, 
 I left in the care of Mr. Burridge's family, with whom I 
 had several years lodged, among many other books, goods, 
 &c. a copy of this Langbaine, in which I had written 
 several notes and refereuces to further knowledge of these 
 poets. When I returned to London in 1730, I under- 
 stood my books had been dispersed ; and afterwards be- 
 
 corrected. from a copy of this book in the library of Jesus 
 College, Cambridge. It has been new bound, and inter- 
 leaved also throughout, to make room for any further 
 additions. The notes aforesaid were written by one of 
 the most skilful antiquaries in Record-heraldry of his 
 times (as T. Fuller has justly distinguished him), Richard 
 Gascoyne, Esq., of Bramham Biggen in Yorkshire. He 
 was a descendant from Judge Gascoyne (who committed 
 the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V., to prison 
 for obstructing him in the course of justice on the King's 
 Bench), and was also related to the first Earl of Straf- 
 ford, whose grandfather married one of his family. Part 
 of his pedigree may be seen in Mr. Thoresby's Antiquities 
 of Leeds. He did singular honours to that Earl's name, 
 in the most elaborate Tables of Genealogy which he drew 
 out of a vast treasure of original charters, patents, evi- 
 dences, wills, and other records, which he bad amassed 
 together; for which, and other such performances, he is 
 highly praised by Sir Wm. Dugdale in his Antiquities of 
 Warwickfhire, and in his Account of his own Life. But 
 how that treasure of Records was wilfully burnt, about the 
 year 1728 need not to be remembered here. That he was 
 the author of the notes in this book (as he was of the 
 like , in many other books of our genealogical and topo- 
 graphical antiquities) appears on page 35, and in other 
 parts of the book, that he wrote them in the year 1656, 
 at which time he was seventy -seven years of age. He 
 was born at Sherlield, near Burntwood, in Essex, and 
 died, it is probable, at Bramham Biggen aforesaid, before 
 the Restoration." Oldys has also given a digest of Bur- 
 ton's Leicestershire in the British Librarian, pp. 287 
 299.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. XI 
 
 coming acquainted with Mr. Thomas Coxeter, I found 
 that he had bought my Langbaine of a bookseller, who 
 was a great collector of plays and poetical books : this 
 must have been of service to him, and he has kept it so 
 carefully from my sight, that I never could have the 
 opportunity of transcribing into this I am now writing 
 in, the notes I had collected in that." * 
 
 In October, 1728, Mr. Henry Baker, the na- 
 turalist, under the assumed name of Henry Stone- 
 castle, projected The Universal Spectator, to which 
 periodical Oldys, in 1731, had contributed about 
 twenty papers.f On his return to London, in 
 1730, he found Samuel Burroughs, Esq. and others 
 engaged in a project for printing The Negotia- 
 tions of Sir Thomas Roe. To assist in so desirable 
 an undertaking, Oldys drew up " Some Con- 
 siderations upon the Publication of Sir Thomas 
 Roe's Epistolary Collections." J 
 
 It was about the year 1731 that Oldys became 
 acquainted with that noble patron of literature 
 and learned men, Edward Harley, the second 
 Earl of Oxford. It has been wisely and beauti- 
 fully said, that " those who befriend genius when 
 it is struggling for distinction, befriend the world, 
 and their names should be held in remembrance." 
 We learn from his Autobiography, that Oldys 
 must already have become, to some extent, a col- 
 lector of literary curiosities. He says, 
 
 * Langbaine in British Museum with Oldys's MS. 
 notes, p. 353. 
 
 t The Universal Spectator continued to appear weekly 
 until the latter end of the year 1742. In 1736 a selection 
 from these papers was first printed in 2 vols. 12mo ; a 
 second edition appeared in 1747, in 4 vols. 12mo ; and a 
 third in 1756, in 4 vols. 12mo. John Kelly, the dramatic 
 poet, and Sir John Hawkins, were occasional contributors. 
 
 J Only one volume of the Negotiations was published 
 in 1740. Oldys's " Considerations " for their publication 
 is in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 4168. \idepostea, 
 p. 3, and Bolton Corney's Curiosities of Literature Il- 
 lustrated, second edition, 1838, p. 165.
 
 XII MEMOIR OP WILLIAM OLDY8. 
 
 " The Earl invited me to show him my collections of 
 manuscripts, historical and political, which had been the 
 Earl of Clarendon's ; my collections of Royal Letters, and 
 other papers of State ; together with a very large collec- 
 tion of English heads in sculpture, which alone had 
 taken me some years to collect, at the expense of at least 
 threescore pounds. All these, with the catalogues I drew 
 up of them, at his Lordship's request, I parted with to 
 him for 40Z. ; and the frequent intimations be gave me of 
 a more substantial recompense hereafter, which intima- 
 tions induced me to continue my historical researches, 
 as what would render me most acceptable to him." 
 Autobiography. 
 
 Oldys likewise informs us, in a note on Lang- 
 baine, that he had bought two hundred volumes 
 at the auction of the Earl of Stamford's library in 
 St. Paul's Coffee-house, where formerly most of 
 the celebrated libraries were sold. 
 
 That Oldys has already become a diligent stu- 
 dent at the Harleian Library is evident from the 
 publication at this time of his very curious work 
 on Pamphlets. It first appeared with the follow- 
 ing title : A Dissertation upon Pamphlets. In a 
 Letter to a Nobleman [probably the Earl of Ox- 
 ford], London : Printed in the year 1731, 4to. 
 In the following year it re-appeared in Morgan's 
 Phcenix Britannicus, Lond. 1732, 4to ; and has 
 since been reprinted in Nichols's Literary Anec- 
 dotes, iv. 98 111. Oldys also contributed to the 
 Phamix Britannicus, p. 65, a bibliographical his- 
 tory of " A Short View of the long Life and 
 Raigne of Henry the Third, King of England : 
 
 E resented to King James by Sir Robert Cotton, 
 ut not printed till 1627." 
 It is stated by Dr. Ducarel that Oldys was one 
 of the writers in The Scarborough Miscellany, 
 1732-34. This appears probable, as John Taylor, 
 the author of Monsieur Tonson, informed Mr. 
 Isaac D'Israeli that " Oldys always asserted that 
 he was the author of the well-known song 
 
 ' Busy, curious, thirsty fly ! '
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. Xlll 
 
 And as he was a rigid lover of truth, I doubt 
 not that he wrote it." The earliest version of it 
 discovered by Mr. D'Israeli was in a collection 
 printed in 1740 ; but it had appeared in The 
 Scarborough Miscellany for 1732, eight years 
 earlier. As it slightly varies from the version 
 quoted by D'Israeli, we give it as originally 
 printed : 
 
 " THE FLY. 
 "An Anacreontick. 
 " Busy, curious, thirsty Fly, 
 
 Gently drink, and drink as I ; 
 
 Freely welcome to my Cup, 
 
 Could'st thou sip, and sip it up ; 
 
 Intake the most of Life you may, 
 
 Life is short and wears away. 
 " Just alike, both mine and thine, 
 
 Hasten quick to their Decline ; 
 
 Thine's a Summer, mine's no more, 
 
 Though repeated to threescore ; 
 
 Threescore Summers when they're gone, 
 
 Will appear as short as one." * 
 
 The London booksellers, having decided on 
 publishing a new edition of Sir Walter Ralegh's 
 History of the World, enlisted the services <5f 
 Oldys to see it through the press. To this edi- 
 tion is prefixed " The Life of the Author, newly 
 compil'd, from Materials more ample and authen- 
 tick than have yet been publish'd, by Mr. Oldys." 
 The Life makes 282 pages, and from the autho- 
 rities quoted in the numerous notes must have 
 been a task of considerable labour and research. 
 
 * Ritson has printed " The Fly " in his English Songs, 
 and added the following note : " Made extempore by a 
 gentleman, occasioned by a fly drinking out of his cup of 
 ale." In Park's edition of Ritson's Songs, ii. 19, edit. 
 1813, a third verse is added from the Rev. Mr. Plumptre's 
 Collection of Songs, i. 257 ; and in Hone's TableBook, ii. 592, 
 it appears with five additional verses. Vincent Bourne's 
 translation was first printed in the Appendix to the third 
 edition to his Poems, 1743. After all, there is an uncer- 
 tainty respecting its authorship.
 
 XIV MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 The complete work is in two volumes, fol. 1736, 
 and contains a very copious Index. Gibbon medi- 
 tated a Life of Ralegh ; but after reading Oldys's, 
 he relinquished his design, from a conviction that 
 " he could add nothing new to the subject, except 
 the uncertain merit of style and sentiment." 
 
 While engaged on this great work, Oldys was 
 permitted to consult the valuable library of Sir 
 Hans Sloane, as we learn from the following let- 
 ter to the worthy baronet, dated Sept. 29, 1735 : 
 
 " MOST HONOURED SlR, 
 
 " When I was last favoured, through your noble cour- 
 tesy, with a sight of some curious Memorials relating to 
 Sir Walter Ralegh, I said there would be one or two 
 little printed pieces which I should have occasion to 
 make more use of than I could take the liberty of doing 
 in your house. One of them, however, which is the Life 
 of Mahomet, I have been since provided with ; but the 
 other, called News of Sir Walter Rakgh, &c., printed 4, 
 1618, and marked among the MSS. B. 1288, is now, that 
 I am arrived (through above forty sheets) at the last 
 two years of his Life, immediately wanting. 
 
 " As a troublesome cold confines me a little at present, 
 I shall take it as the greater favour if you will let me 
 have it, when it may be most convenient, by the bearer ; 
 and I shall, in two or three weeks, wait on you with it 
 again; as also, with an entire copy from the press, of 
 that Narrative which it will help to illustrate. If it may 
 not be too ambitious in me to make so much addition to 
 your library, it may exalt the fame of my Worthy, or 
 extend the date of it, to have his Life preserved in such 
 a magnificent repositary, notwithstanding the defects of 
 " Honoured Sir, 
 
 " Your most obliged and obedient Servant, 
 " WILLIAM OLTIYS." * 
 
 Soon after the publication of the Life of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh, some booksellers thinking Oldys's 
 name would tend to sell a work then in the course 
 of publication, offered him a considerable sum of 
 money, if they would allow him to affix it; but he 
 rejected the proposal with the greatest indigna- 
 
 * Addit. MS. 4054, p. 250, Brit. Museum.
 
 MEMOIR OF "WILLIAM OLDTS. XT 
 
 tion, though at the time he was in the greatest 
 pecuniary distress. 
 
 At the commencement of the last century Bib- 
 liography as a science had not been cultivated in 
 England. Sale-catalogues and lists of books, espe- 
 cially when interspersed with remarks of their 
 rarity and value, were collected and prized by 
 bibliographers ; but Oldys was among the first in 
 this country to make an attempt to divert the 
 public taste from an exclusive attention to new 
 books, by making the merit of old ones the sub- 
 ject of critical discussion.* His Life of Ralegh 
 had not only brought him into closer ties of friend- 
 ship with the Earl of Oxford ; but the knowledge 
 of our earliest English literature displayed in 
 that work had so increased his fame, that he was 
 now frequently consulted at his chambers in 
 Gray's Inn on obscure and obsolete writers by the 
 most eminent literary characters of the time. It 
 redounds to the honour and memory of William 
 Oldys that he was ever easy of access to all who 
 sought or desired his assistance, and free, open, 
 and communicative in answering the inquiries 
 submitted to him. His friendly aid and counsel 
 were not only cheerfully, rendered to Thomas 
 Hay ward for his British Muse, and to Mrs. Cooper 
 for The Muses' Library, but even his jottings for 
 a Life of Nell Gwyn were freely given to the 
 notorious Edmund Curll, whose fame will never 
 die, gibbeted as he has been to immortality in 
 the full blazon of his literary knavery. 
 
 * The only treatise on Bibliography which had ap- 
 peared in this country, was the erudite work of Sir 
 Thomas Pope Blount, entitled "Censura Celebriornm 
 Authorura : sive Tractatus, in quo varia Virorum Doc- 
 torum de clarissimis cujusque Sxculi Scriptoribus judi- 
 cia traduntur." Lond. 1690, fol. Isaac Reed informs us, 
 that Heber's copy of this book came out of the library of 
 William Oldys, by whom all the manuscript additions 
 were made. Vide Heber's Catalogue, part iv. lot 156.
 
 XVI MEMOIR OF WliLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 In 1737 Oldys published anonymously his cele- 
 brated work, entitled 
 
 " The British Librarian : exhibiting a Compendious 
 Review or Abstract of our most scarce, useful, and valu- 
 able Books in all Sciences, as well in Manuscript as in 
 Print : with many Characters, Historical and Critical, of 
 the Authors, their Antagonists, &c., in a manner never 
 before attempted, and useful to all readers. With a 
 Complete Index to the volume. London: Printed for T. 
 Osborne, in Gray's-Inn, 1738, 8vo." 
 
 It was published as a serial in six numbers ; 
 No. I. is dated for January, 1737 ; and the last, 
 No. VI. for June, 1737; but yet the Postscript 
 at the end of it is signed " Gray's Inn, Feb. 18, 
 1737 [1737-8]. Some copies have separate 
 titles to the six numbers. The work is highly 
 valuable as containing many curious details of 
 works now excessively rare. Had it been con- 
 tinued, it would, in all probability, have contained 
 an accurate account of a very curious and valu- 
 able collection of English books : it ceased, how- 
 ever, at the end of the sixth monthly number, 
 when Mr. Oldys could neither be persuaded by 
 the entreaty of his. friends, nor the demands of 
 the public, to continue the labour. Dr. John 
 Campbell, in his Rational Amusement, 8vo, 1754, 
 says, that no work of the kind was so well re- 
 ceived ; and adds, " If its author, who is of all 
 men living the most capable, would pursue and 
 perfect this plan, he would do equal justice to the 
 living and to the dead." "The British Librarian" 
 remarks Dr. Dibdin, " is a work of no common 
 occurrence, or mean value. It is rigidly correct, 
 if not very learned, in bibliographical information. 
 I once sent three guineas to procure a copy of it, 
 according to its description, upon large paper; but 
 on its arrival I found it to be not, quite FO large ns 
 my own tolerably amply-margined copy." ( Bib- 
 liomania, p. 52, edit. 1842.) 
 
 It may seem to many a very meagre and un- 
 satisfactory labour to compile a chronological
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XV11 
 
 Catalogue of standard works, intermixed with 
 remarks and characters. But (as Oldys cites 
 from Lord Bacon) " learned men want such in- 
 ventories of every thing in art and nature, as 
 rich men have of their estates." When we first 
 enter on any branch of study, it is palpably use- 
 ful to have the authors to whom we should resort 
 pointed out to us. " Through the defect of such 
 intelligence, in its proper extent," says Oldys, 
 " how many authors have we, who are consuming 
 their time, their quiet, and their wits, in search- 
 ing after either what is past finding, or already 
 found ? In admiring at the penetrations them- 
 selves have made, though to the rind only, in 
 those very branches of science which their fore- 
 fathers have pierced to the pith ? And how many 
 who would be authors as excellent as ever ap- 
 peared, had they but such plans or models laid 
 before them as might induce them to marshal 
 their thoughts into a regular order ; or did they 
 but know where to meet with concurrence of 
 opinion, with arguments, authorities, or examples, 
 to corroborate and ripen their teeming concep- 
 tions ? " 
 
 In the Postscript to this valuable work Oldys 
 thus acknowledges his obligations to his literary 
 friends for the loan of manuscripts and other rare 
 books : 
 
 " Among the books conducivft to this purpose, those for 
 which gratitude here demands chiefly the publication of 
 our thanks, are the manuscripts. Such, in the lirst place, 
 is that here called Sir Thomas Wriothesly's Collections ; 
 containing the arms and characters of the Knights of the 
 Garter, and views of the ancient ceremonies used in 
 creating the Knights of the Bath, &c. For that sketch 
 which the Librarian has here given the pnblick of it, 
 they are both beholden to the permission of his Grace the 
 Duke of Montagu, the noble owner of that valuable 
 volume; and to some explanations thereof, which were 
 also courteously imparted by John Anstis, Esq., Garter, 
 principal King of Arms, whose extensive knowledge in 
 these subjects, his own elaborate publications, in honour 
 b
 
 XV111 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 of both those Orders, have sufficiently confirm'd. Nor 
 will it be thought a repetition unnecessary, by grateful 
 minds, that the Librarian here renews his acknowledg- 
 ments to Nathaniel Booth, Esq. of Gray's Inn, for his 
 repeated communications ; having been favour'd not only 
 with that curious miscellany, containing many of the 
 old Earl of Derby's papers, which, in one of the foregoing 
 numbers is abridg'd ; but others out of his choice collec- 
 tions, which may enrich some future numbers, when op- 
 portunity shall permit the contents thereof to appear, 
 Other manuscripts herein described, were partly the col- 
 lection of Mr. Charles Grimes, late also of Gray's Inn, 
 and in the bookseller's possession for whom this work is 
 printed ; except one ancient relique of the famous Wick- 
 life, for the use of which, many thanks are here return'd 
 to Mr. Joseph Ames, Member of the Society of Antiqua- 
 ries. The author of this work is moreover obliged to the 
 library of this last worthy preserver of antiquities, as 
 also to that of his ingenious friend Mr. Peter Thompson, 
 for the use of several printed books which are more scarce 
 than many manuscripts ; particularly some, set forth by 
 our first printer in England ; and others, which will rise, 
 among the curious, in value, as, by the depredations of 
 accident or ignorance, they decrease in number. We 
 must take some further opportunity to express our obli- 
 gations to other gentlemen who have favour'd us with 
 such like literary curiosities ; and to some hundreds un- 
 known, who have shewn a relish for the usefulness of this 
 performance, by encouraging the sale of it." 
 
 Humphry Wanley, the learned librarian of the 
 first two Earls of Oxford, had now been dead 
 more than ten years, and Oldys was probably 
 expecting to be nominated his successor. Such an 
 appointment, with a fixed salary, would relieve him 
 from all perplexity in domestic matters, and would 
 be therefore infinitely more congenial to his re- 
 tired habits of life, than the precarious, and in 
 some cases, paltry remuneration received from the 
 booksellers. He thus expresses his own feelings 
 at this time : 
 
 " In the latter end of the year 1737 I published my 
 British Librarian ; and when his Lordship understood 
 how unproportionate the advantages it produced were to 
 the time and labour bestowed upon it, he said he would 
 find me employment better worth my while. Also, when
 
 MEMOIR OF WIM/IAM OLDYS. XIX 
 
 he heard that I was making interest with Sir Robert 
 Walpole, through the means of Commissioner Hill, to 
 present him with an abstract of some ancient deeds I bad 
 relating to his ancestors, and which I have still, his Lord- 
 ship induced me to decline that application, saying, 
 though he could not do as grand things as Sir Robert, he 
 would do that which might be as agreeable to me, if I 
 would disengage myself from all other persons and pur- 
 suits." Autobiography. 
 
 In the following year the Earl of Oxford ap- 
 pointed him his literary secretary, which afforded 
 him an opportunity of consulting his extensive 
 collections, and thus gratifying his predilection 
 for bibliographical researches. During his brief 
 connection with this " Ark of Literature," he fre- 
 quently met at the Earl's table George Vertue, 
 Alexander Pope, and other eminent literary cha- 
 racters. These three short years may be regarded 
 as among the most happy of his chequered exist- 
 ence. We have from his own pen the following 
 plaintive record of his daily pursuits at this time : 
 
 " I had then also had, for several years, some depend- 
 ence upon a nobleman, who might have served me in the 
 government, and had, upon certain motives, settled an 
 annuity upon me of twenty pounds a year. This I re- 
 signed to the said nobleman for an incompetent consider- 
 ation, and signed a general release to him, in May, 1738, 
 that I might be wholly independent, and absolutely at 
 my Lord Oxford's command. I was likewise then under 
 an engagement with the undertakers of the Supplement 
 to Uayle's Dictionary.* I refused to digest the materials 
 I then had for this work under an hundred pounds a 
 year, till it was finished ; but complied to take forty shil- 
 lings a sheet for what I should write, at such intervals as 
 my business would permit : for this clause I was obliged 
 to insert in the articles then executed between them and 
 myself, in March the year aforesaid ; whereby I reserved 
 myself free for his lordship's service. And though 1 pro- 
 
 * By the Supplement to Bayle's Dictionary is meant A 
 General Dictionary, Historical and Critical, Lond. 1734-41, 
 foL, 10 vols., and which included that of Bayle. Dr. 
 Birch was the principal editor, assisted by the Rev. John 
 Peter Bernard, John Lockman, and George Sale. 
 b'2
 
 XX MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDY8. 
 
 posed, their said offer would be more profitable to me 
 than my own, yet my lord's employment of me, from that 
 time, grew so constant, that I never finished above three 
 or four lives for that work, to the time of his death. All 
 these advantages did I thus relinquish, and all other de- 
 pendence, to serve his lordship. And now was I em- 
 ployed at auctions, sales, and in writing at home, in 
 transcribing my own collections or others for his lord- 
 ship, till the latter part of the year 1739; for which 
 services I received of him about 150 pounds. In Novem- 
 ber the same year I first entered his library of manuscripts, 
 whereunto I came daily, sorted and methodised his vast 
 collection of letters, to be bound in many volumes; made 
 abstracts of them, and tables to each volume; besides 
 working at home, mornings and evenings, for the said 
 library. Then, indeed, his lordship, considering what 
 beneficial prospects and possessions I had given up, to 
 serve him, and what communications I voluntarily made 
 to his library almost every day, by purchases which I 
 never charged, and presents out of whatever was most 
 worthy of publication among my own collections, of 
 which he also chose what he pleased, whenever he came 
 to my chambers, which I have since greatly wanted, I 
 did thenceforward receive of him two hundred pounds 
 a-year, for the short remainder of his life. Notwith- 
 standing this allowance, he would often declare in com- 
 pany before me, and in the hearing of those now alive, 
 that he wished I had been some years sooner known to 
 him than I was; because I should have saved him many 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 " The sum of this case is, that for the profit of about 
 500/. I devoted the best part of ten years' service to, and 
 in his lordship's library ; impoverished my own stores to 
 enrich the same ; disabled myself in my studies, and the 
 advantages they might have produced from the publick ; 
 deserted the pursuits which might have obtained me a 
 permanent accommodation; and procured the prejudice 
 and misconceit of his lordship's surviving relations. But 
 the profits I received were certainly too inconsiderable to 
 raise any envy or ill will ; tho' they might probably be 
 conceived much greater then they were. No, it was what 
 his lordship made me more happy in, than his money, 
 which has been the cause of my greatest unhappiness 
 with them ; his favour, his friendly reception and treat- 
 ment of me ; his many visits at my chambers ; his many 
 invitations by letters, and otherwise, to dine with him 
 and pass whole evenings with him ; for no other end, but 
 such intelligence and communications, as might answer
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XXI 
 
 the inquiries wherein he wanted to be satisfied, in relation 
 to matters of literature, all for the benefit of his library. 
 Had I declined those invitations, I must, with great in- 
 gratitude, have created his displeasure ; and my accept- 
 ance of them has displeased others." 
 
 It is painful to record, that the Earl of Oxford, 
 when Oldys entered his service, had involved 
 himself in pecuniary difficulties whilst collecting 
 one of the choicest and most magnificent private 
 libraries in this kingdom. Vertue, in one of his 
 Commonplace-books, under the date of June 2, 
 1741, thus feelingly laments the embarrassed cir- 
 cumstances of the Earl : 
 
 " My good Lord, lately growing heavy and pensive on 
 his affairs, which for some years has mortified his mind. 
 It lately manifestly appeared in his change of complexion , 
 his face fallen ; his colour and eyes turned yellow to a 
 great degree ; his stomach wasted and gone ; and a dead 
 weight presses continually, without sign of relief, on his 
 mind. Yet through all his affliction I am, from many 
 reasons and circumstances, sensible of his goodness and 
 generosity to those about him that deserved his favour. 
 I pray God restore his health and preserve him : it will 
 be a great comfort to his good lady, her Grace his daugh- 
 ter, and all his relations and obliged friends." 
 
 A fortnight afterwards Vertue thus pathetically 
 laments his loss : 
 
 " The Creator of all has put an end to his life. The 
 true, noble, and beneficent Edward Earl of Oxford and 
 Earl Mortimer, Baron of Wigmore, born 2nd of June, 
 1688, and died the 16th of June, 1741. A friend noble, 
 generous, good, and amiable ; to me, above all men, a true 
 friend : the loss not to be expressed." * 
 
 We have seen that Oldys's salary as librarian 
 wa 200Z. per annum. At the death of the Earl 
 he received what was due to him, amounting to 
 about three quarters of a year's exhibition, on 
 which he lived so long as it lasted. His prospects 
 at this time must have been gloomy indeed, for he 
 was again compelled to renew his connection with 
 the metropolitan publishers. For the next f'our- 
 
 * Addit. MS. 23.093, pp. 22, 23. 
 b3
 
 XXU MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 teen years, until he received an appointment in 
 the Heralds' Office, he continued to earn his 
 bread by literary drudgery for the booksellers. 
 His scattered fragments of ancient lore that have 
 escaped the ravages of time are a proof of his la- 
 borious application in literary researches : his pen 
 was continually at work either in writing pam- 
 phlets, prefaces, essays, or in his favourite pursuit, 
 biographical memoirs. " Some men," says Dean 
 Swift, " know books as they do lords ; learn their 
 titles exactly, and then brag of their acquaint- 
 ance:" Not so William Oldys His abstracts and 
 critical notices of works of our early English lite- 
 rature in the British Librarian, as well as his 
 other numerous productions, afford a remarkable 
 proof of his rare industry, intelligence, and wit. 
 
 In 1742, Mr. Thomas Osborue the bookseller 
 having purchased for the sum of 13,OOOZ. the col- 
 lection of printed books that had belonged to the 
 late Earl of Oxford, and intending to dispose of 
 them by sale, projected a Catalogue in which it 
 was proposed, "that the books shall be distributed 
 into distinct classes, and every class arranged with 
 some regard to the age of the writers ; that every 
 book shall be accurately described ; that the pecu- 
 liarities of editions shall be remarked, and obser- 
 vations from the authors of Literary History 
 occasionally interspersed, that, by this Catalogue, 
 posterity may be informed of the excellence and 
 value of this great Collection, and thus promote 
 the knowledge of scarce books and elegant edi- 
 tions." The learned Michael Maittaire was pre- 
 vailed upon to draw out the scheme of arrange- 
 ment, and to write a Latin Dedication to Lord 
 Carteret, then Secretary of State. The editors 
 selected by Osborne were Dr. Johnson and Wil- 
 liam Oldys, men eminently qualified to carry out 
 the undertaking. 
 
 In this painful drudgery both editors were day- 
 labourers for immediate subsistence, not unlike
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XXlll 
 
 Gustavus Vasa, working in the mines of Dale- 
 carlia. What Wilcox, a bookseller of eminence 
 in the Strand, said to Johnson, on his first arrival 
 in town, was now almost confirmed. He lent 
 him five guineas, and then asked him, " How do 
 you mean to earn your livelihood in this town ? " 
 " By my literary labours," was the answer. Wil- 
 cox, staring at him, shook his head : " By your 
 literary labours ! You had better buy a porter's 
 knot." In fact, Johnson, while employed by Os- 
 borne in Gray's Inn, may be said to have carried 
 a porter's knot. He paused occasionally to peruse 
 the book that came to his hand. Osborne thought 
 that such curiosity tended to nothing but delay, 
 and objected to it with all the pride and insolence 
 of a man who knew that he paid daily wages.* 
 Ralph Bigland, Bluemantle, related to John 
 Charles Brooke, Somerset Herald, that " Osborne 
 had informed him, that he would have given 
 Oldys 10*. Qd. per diem if he would have written 
 for him ; but his indolence (!) would not let him 
 accept it." f If this offer was made during the 
 compilation of the catalogue, it is evident that 
 the publisher exacted from his editors more work 
 than could possibly be accomplished in a specified 
 time, for the number of books to be read and 
 digested amounted to no less than 20,748 volumes. 
 Hence the failure of the original scheme as ju- 
 diciously propounded by Maittaire. Our two 
 unfortunate editors, in their joint and seemingly 
 interminable labour, whilst grappling with this 
 solid battalion of printed books, gained little more 
 
 * Drake's Essays on Periodical Papers, i. 157, ed. 1809 ; 
 and Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson, p. 150, ed. 1787. 
 
 t Notes by John Charles Brooke in his De vitisFecia- 
 Hum, a MS. now in the College of Arms. Brooke was ap- 
 pointed Rouge Croix in 1773 ; and Somerset in 1778 ; he 
 was net, therefore, a contemporary officer in the college 
 with Oldys.
 
 XXIV MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 for their pains than the dust with which (so 
 long as their drudgery lasted) they were daily 
 covered. 
 
 As literary curiosities, it is now difficult to 
 discriminate between the notes of Dr. Johnson 
 and those of Oldys. The " Proposals " for print- 
 ing the Bibliotheca Harleiana are clearly from the 
 pen of the Doctor, as we are informed by 
 Boswell, who adds, that " his account of that 
 celebrated collection of books, in which he dis- 
 plays the importance to literature of what the 
 French call a catalogue raisonne, when the sub- 
 jects of it are extensive and various, and it is 
 executed with ability, cannot fail to impress all 
 his readers with admiration of his philological at- 
 tainments. It was afterwards prefixed to the first 
 volume of the Catalogue, in which the Latin ac- 
 counts of books were written by him."* We incline 
 to the conjecture that the bibliographical and bio- 
 graphical remarks in Vols. I. and II. are by Dr. 
 Johnson: and those in Vols. III. and IV. by Oldys. 
 The fifth volume, 1745, is nothing more than a 
 Catalogue of Osborne's unsold stock. 
 
 Osborne's original project of an annotated Cata- 
 logue, as we have said, proved a failure. In the 
 Preface to Vol. III. he informs the public of its 
 cause : 
 
 " My original design was, as I have already explained, 
 to publish a methodical and exact Catalogue of this 
 library, upon the plan which has been laid down, as I 
 am informed, by several men of the first rank among the 
 learned. It was intended by those who undertook the 
 work, to make a very exact disposition of all the subjects, 
 and to give an account of the remarkable differences of 
 the editions, and other peculiarities, which make any 
 book eminently valuable; and it was imagined, that 
 some improvements might, by pursuing this scheme, be 
 made in Literary History. With this view was the Cata- 
 logue begun, when the price [5s. per volume] was fixed 
 
 * It is also printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
 Dec. 1742, vol. xii. p. 636.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. XXV 
 
 upon it in public advertisements ; and it cannot be denied, 
 that such a Catalogue would have been willingly purchased 
 by those who understood its use. But, when a few sheets 
 had been printed, it was discovered that the scheme was 
 impracticable without more hands than could be pro- 
 cured, or more time than the necessity of a speedy sale 
 would allow. The Catalogue was therefore continued 
 without Notes, at least in the greatest part ; and, though 
 it was still performed better than those which are daily 
 offered to the public, fell much below the original de- 
 sign."* 
 
 Whilst the Catalogue was progressing, Osborne 
 issued Proposals for printing by subscription 
 The Harkian Miscellany : or, a Collection of 
 scarce, curious, and entertaining Tracts and Pam- 
 phlets found in the late Earl of Oxford's library, 
 interspersed with Historical, Political, and Criti- 
 cal Notes. It was proposed to publish six sheets 
 of this work every Saturday morning, at the 
 price of one shilling, to commence on the 24th of 
 March, 1743-4. The "Proposals," or "An Ac- 
 count of this Undertaking," as well as the Pre- 
 face to this voluminous work, were from the pen 
 of Dr. Johnson : the selection of the Pamphlets 
 and its editorial superintendence devolved upon 
 Oldys. This valuable political, historical, and 
 antiquarian record, and indispensable auxiliary in 
 the illustration of British history, included a cata- 
 logue of 539 pamphlets, describing the contents of 
 each, and this alone occupied 164 quarto pages. 
 It was published in eight volumes, 4to, 1744-46, 
 and republished by Thomas Park, with two sup- 
 plemental volumes, in 1808-13. Park, in a letter 
 to Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, dated June 15, 
 1 807, bears the following honourable testimony to 
 the labours of his predecessor : " My additions 
 to the notes of Oldys in the Harleian Miscellany 
 
 * The most copiously annotated Catalogue of modern 
 times is that of M. Gnglielmo Libri, whose surprising 
 collection was sold by Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson in 
 April, May, and July, 1861.
 
 XXVI MEMOIR, OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 will not be very numerous ; for no editor could 
 ever have been more competent to the undertak- 
 ing than he was ; but a successive editor must 
 seem at least to have done something more than 
 his predecessor." * 
 
 It was the original intention of the publishers 
 to print three additional volumes to this edition, 
 though motives afterwards occurred which induced 
 them to depart from it. Park, writing to Sir S. E. 
 Brydges on Jan. 28, 1813, says, " I presume you 
 have heard from our friend Haslewood that my 
 projected course in the Harleian Supplement has 
 been suddenly arrested, and that the work is to 
 stop with vol. X., half of which will be occupied 
 with Indices. This has painfully disconcerted my 
 views, and rendered a considerable portion of my 
 preparations useless." f 
 
 " Next in point of merit to the contributions 
 of Oldys to British biography," writes our valued 
 correspondent, ME. BOLTON CORNET, " must be 
 placed his publications in bibliography. Those 
 which are best known are much esteemed, but there 
 is one which has never received its due share of 
 commendation. It is entitled A copious and exact 
 catalogue of pamphlets in the Harleian Library, etc. 
 4, pp. 168. This catalogue was issued in frag- 
 ments with the Harleian Miscellany, in order to 
 gratify the subscribers with an opportunity of 
 being their own choosers with regard to the con- 
 tents of that important collection ; but as the 
 signatures and numerals are consecutive, it forms 
 a separate volume. The pamphlets described 
 amount to 548. The dates extend from 1511 
 to 1712, but about two-thirds of the number were 
 printed before 1661. The titles are given with 
 unusual fulness, and the imprints with sufficient 
 minuteness. The number of sheets or leaves of 
 each pamphlet is also stated. The subjects em- 
 
 * Addit MS. 18,916, p. 21*. f Ibid, p. 84.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDY8. XXV11 
 
 braced are divinity, voyages and travels, history, 
 biography, polite literature, etc. etc. A catalogue 
 of books or pamphlets, if it requires a sharp eye, 
 is mere transcription, but in this instance we 
 have about 440 notes, of which many are sum- 
 maries of the contents of the articles in question, 
 drawn up with remarkable intelligence and clear- 
 ness, and interspersed with curious anecdotes. It 
 is a choice specimen of recreative bibliography. 
 Chalmers has omitted to notice this volume, and 
 so has Lowndes. The copy which I possess was 
 formerly in the library of Mr. Isaac Reed, and at 
 the sale of his books in 1807 it was purchased by 
 Mr. Heber for 21. 3s. It cost me no more than 
 8s. 6d" 
 
 A copy of this valuable Catalogue in the li- 
 brary of the Corporation of London formerly be- 
 longed to Dr. Michael Lort, who has written 
 the following note in it : " This account was 
 drawn up by the very intelligent Mr. Oldys. It 
 is very seldom to be found compleat in this man- 
 ner. Many curious particulars of literary and 
 biographical history are to be found in it. I paid 
 5s. for it. Feb. 18, 1772." ibis Catalogue has 
 been reprinted by Mr. Park in the last edition of 
 the Harleian Miscellany, vol. x. pp. 357-471. 
 
 After the completion of The Harleian Miscel- 
 lany, it does not appear that Oldys continued 
 much longer in the employ of Thomas Osborne ; 
 at that time the most celebrated publisher in the 
 metropolis. If we may j udge from the series of 
 catalogues issued by this bookseller from the 
 year 1738 to 1766, he must have carried on a 
 successful and lucrative trade. These catalogues 
 may now be reckoned among the curiosities of 
 literature ; for nowhere do we meet with similar 
 information respecting the prices of books at that 
 time, or more amusement than in his quaint 
 notes, and still more quaint prefaces. For how 
 many of these curious bibliographical memoranda
 
 XXV111 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 he was indebted to his neighbour, William Oldys, 
 cannot now be ascertained. Osborne's exploits 
 are thus celebrated in the Dunciad : 
 " Osborne and Curll accept the glorious strife, 
 Though this his Son dissuades, and that his Wife." 
 
 Again, at the conclusion of the contest : 
 " Osborne, through perfect modesty o'ercome, 
 Crown'd with the Jordan, walks contented home." 
 
 Osborne was so impassively dull and ignorant in 
 what form or language Milton's Paradise Lost was 
 written, that he employed one of his garreteers to 
 render it from a French translation into English 
 prose. He is now best known as the bookseller 
 whom Johnson knocked down with a folio. " Sir," 
 said the Doctor to Boswell, " he was impertinent 
 to me, and I beat him ; but it was not in his shop, 
 it was in my own chamber." On August 27, 1767, 
 this bibliopole was buried in the churchyard of 
 St. Mary, Islington, leaving behind him the com- 
 fortable assets of 40,OOOZ. So true is it what 
 Walcot said rather strongly, " That publishers 
 drink their claret out of authors' skulls." But, 
 as Thomas Park shrewdly observed, " Some might 
 say, that authors must have paper skulls to suffer 
 it." 
 
 In 1746 was published anew edition of Health's 
 Improvement, by Dr. Moffet, corrected and en- 
 larged by Christopher Bennet, M.D. Prefixed is 
 a view of the author's life and writings from the 
 pen of William Oldys. No copy of this work is to 
 be found in our national library, and it is omitted 
 in both editions of Lowndes. With its publication 
 terminated Oldys's connexion with Osborne. 
 
 The editorship of Michael Drayton's Works, 
 fol. 1 748, has been attributed to Oldys by a wri- 
 ter in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ivii. pt. ii. 
 p. 1081, as well as by Mr. Octavius Gilchrist in 
 Aikin's Athenceum, ii. 347, who adds, " It is not 
 generally known that these collections [of Dray-
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XXIX 
 
 ton's Works'] were made by Oldys, with less 
 than his usual accuracy." But from the article 
 DRATTON, in the Biographia Britannica, ed. 1750, 
 written by Oldys himself, it appears that he 
 only furnished the " Historical Essay " pre- 
 fixed to the edition of Dray ton's Works, 1748, as 
 well as to that of 1753. Speaking of the Barons' 
 Wars, Oldys remarks, "In this edition [1748] 
 these Barons' Wars in the reign of Edward II. 
 are illustrated with marginal notes by the author, 
 which have been all since omitted by his late 
 editor, though the author of the Preliminary Dis- 
 course was desirous of a more ample commen- 
 tary." (Biog. Brit. iii. 1745, ed. 1750, and Kippis's 
 edition, v. 360.) 
 
 Oldys now resolved to devote his exclusive at- 
 tention to his own peculiar department of litera- 
 ture, that of Biography. Hence we find him, for 
 the next ten years, employed in the desperate and 
 weary process of excavation, among the over- 
 whelming piles of documents preserved in the 
 public and private libraries of the metropolis. 
 The facilities afforded to biographers and annalists 
 of modern times, by the catalogues of the British 
 Museum and the Calendars of the State Paper 
 Office, were unknown to the literary adventurer 
 a century ago. To collect materials for any bio- 
 graphical or historical work required then some 
 sinew and hardihood to encounter the enormous 
 and almost unmanageable mass of documents from 
 which truth was to be dug out. Between the 
 years 1747 and 1760, it appears that Oldys fur- 
 nished twenty-two articles to the first edition of 
 the Biographia Britannica, which may rank with 
 some of the most perfect specimens of biography 
 in the English language. For the following tabu- 
 lar view of his labours on this important work, 
 we are indebted to Bolton Corney's Curiosities of 
 Literature Illustrated. Second Edition, 1838, p. 
 177:-.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 " Contributions of W. Oldys to the Biographia Britannica, 
 London, 1747-66. Folio, 7 Vols. 
 
 Volume 
 and Date. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Claim to Admission. 
 
 No. of 
 Pages. 
 
 i. 1747 
 
 Georze Abbot - 
 Robert Abbot - 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury 
 Bishop of Salisbury - 
 
 1 
 
 
 Sir Thomas Adams - 
 
 Lord Mayor of London 
 
 ii 
 
 
 W. Alexander Earl 
 
 Statesman and Dramatic 
 
 
 
 ofStirline 
 
 Writer - - - - 
 
 6 
 
 
 Charles Aleyn - 
 
 Historical Poet - 
 
 U 
 
 
 Edward Alleyn 
 
 Founder of Dulwich College 
 
 7i 
 
 
 William Ames - 
 
 Divine- - ... 
 
 II 
 
 
 John Atherton - 
 
 Bishop of Waterford - 
 
 8 
 
 
 Peter Bales 
 
 Writing Master ... 
 
 11 
 
 ii. 1748 
 
 John Bradford - 
 
 Protestant Martyr - 
 
 
 
 William Bulleyn - 
 
 Physician and Botanist - 
 
 H 
 
 
 William Carton 
 
 Printer - 
 
 26r 
 
 iii. 1750 
 
 Michael Orayton 
 
 Historical & Pastoral Poet 
 
 5 
 
 
 Sir Geo. Etherese - 
 
 Dramatic Writer 
 
 8 
 
 
 George Farquhar - 
 
 Dramatic Writer 
 
 11 
 
 
 sir John Fastolff - 
 
 Statesman and Warrior - 
 
 101 
 
 
 Thomas Fuller 
 Sir Will Gascoijme - 
 
 Historian, &c. - 
 
 20 
 
 101 
 
 IT. 1757 
 
 Fulke Grevile, Lord 
 
 ge 
 
 nn 
 
 
 Brook - 
 
 Biosrapher and Poet - 
 
 121 
 
 
 Rich. Hakluvt - 
 
 Naval Historian 
 
 14 
 
 
 Wenceslaus Hollar - 
 
 Ensraver .... 
 
 Si 
 
 T. 1760 
 
 Thomas May - 
 
 Historian and Poet - 
 
 6 
 
 " On the execution of the articles," remarks Mr. 
 Corney, " I submit some short remarks. The life 
 of Archbishop Abbot is especially commended by 
 the author of the preface to the work ; and was 
 reprinted in 1777, 8vo. The life of Edward 
 Alleyn is also justly characterised by the same 
 writer as very curious. The article on Peter 
 Bales, if rather discursive, is rich in information ; 
 and contains, in the notes, a history of writing- 
 masters. Bulleyn, whose works were formerly 
 popular, receives due attention. As Gough re- 
 marks, Oldys has " rescued him almost from obli- 
 vion."* Master William Caxton occupies more 
 than twenty-six pages. Oldys had carefully ex- 
 amined the chief portion of his rare volumes ; and 
 Dr. Dibdin admits that his "performance is in 
 every respect superior to that of Leuns."^ The 
 
 ^British Topography, 1780, 4to, i. 133. 
 
 \ Typographical Antiquities, 1810, 4to, p. Ixxiv.
 
 MEMOIE OT WILLIAM OLDYS. XXXI 
 
 account of Drayton and his works is an interest- 
 ing specimen. Oldys points out the numerous 
 deficiencies of the splendid edition of 1748 ; and 
 his information seems to have led to the comple- 
 tion of it. The life of Sir John Fastolff, of which 
 the first sketch was contributed to the General 
 Dictionary in 1737, is the result of extraordinary 
 research. The Fastolff of history and the Falstaff 
 of fiction are ingeniously contrasted. The ac- 
 count of Fuller is compiled with peculiar care ; 
 and affords a remarkable proof of the extent to 
 which the writings of an author may be made 
 contributive to his biography. The History of the 
 Worthies of England, which Oldys frequently con- 
 sulted, is characterised with much candour ; and 
 he has very appropriately introduced the sub- 
 stance of a MS. essay on the toleration of wit on 
 grave subjects. Sir William Gascoigne is copiously 
 historised. Oldys, with his usual ardour in search 
 of truth, obtained the use of some Memoirs of the 
 Family of Gascoigne from one of the descendants 
 of Sir William, and a communication from the 
 Rev. R. Knight, Vicar of Harwood, where he was 
 buried. The life of the patriotic Hakluyt claims 
 especial notice. Oldys had pointed out his merit 
 more than twenty years before ; * and seems never 
 to have lost sight of him. He has left an admir- 
 able memorial of the "surpassing knowledge and 
 learning, diligence and Jidelity, of this naval his- 
 torian " and it well deserves to be separately 
 re-published. The account of Hollar and his works 
 is written with the animation and tact of a connois- 
 seur. Oldys justly describes him as ever making 
 art a rival to nature, and as a prodigy of industry. 
 He also reviews the graphic collections of his ad- 
 mirers, from Evelyn to the Duchess of Portland. 
 The article on May was his last contribution. 
 He vindicates the History of the Parliament from 
 
 Life of Sir W. R., p. cix. + British Librarian, p. 137. 
 c2
 
 XXXll MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDT8. 
 
 the aspersions cast on it in which he is sup- 
 ported by Bishop Warburton, Lord Chatham, &c. 
 
 " It may be safely asserted that no one of the 
 contributors to the Biographia Britannica has 
 produced a richer proportion of inedited facts than 
 William Oldys ; and he seems to have consulted 
 every species of the more accessible authorities, 
 from the Fcedera of Rymer to the inscription on 
 a print. His united articles, set up as the text of 
 Chalmers, would occupy about a thousand octavo 
 pages." 
 
 Oldys's coadjutors on the Biographia Britan- 
 nica were the Rev. Philip Morant, of Colchester ; 
 Rev. Thomas Broughton, of the Temple Church ; 
 Dr. John Campbell, of Exeter Change ; Henry 
 Brougham, of Took's Court, Cursitor Street, Hoi- 
 born ; Rev. Mr. Hinton, of Red Lion Square; 
 Dr. Philip Nicols, Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cam- 
 bridge ; and Mr. Harris of Dublin. 
 
 In 1778, when Dr. Kippis undertook the edi- 
 torship of the second edition of the Biographia 
 Britannica, he became the fortunate possessor of 
 a portion of Oldys's manuscript biographical col- 
 lections, purchased for this work by Mr. Thomas 
 Cadell, one of the publishers. In his Preface 
 (vol. i. p. xx.) he states, that " To Dr. Percy, 
 besides his own valuable assistances, we are in- 
 debted for directing us to the purchase of a large 
 and useful body of biographical materials, left by 
 Mr. Oldys." These biographical materials were 
 quoted in the articles Arabella Stuart, John Bar- 
 clay, Mary Beale, W. Browne, Sam. Butler, &c. 
 Dr. Kippis found also among Oldys's papers, 
 some notes principally tending to illustrate several 
 of Butler's allusions in his Hudibras to both an- 
 cient and modern authors. {Vide vol. iii. p. 91.) 
 
 From the years 1751 to 1753, it would seem 
 that Oldys was involved in pecuniary difficulties ; 
 and being unable to discharge the rent due for his 
 chambers in Gray's Inn, was compelled to reside
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XXXlii 
 
 for a lengthened period in the quiet obscurity of 
 the Fleet prison. It was probably during his 
 confinement that the following letters were written 
 to his friend Dr. Thomas Birch : 
 
 "July 22, 1751. 
 
 " SIR, I received last night two guineas by the hand 
 of my worthy and honourable friend Mr. Southwell ; for 
 which favour, and much more for the polite and en- 
 gaging manner of conferring it, besides this incompetent 
 return of my sincere thanks, I have beg'd him to make 
 my acknowledgments more acceptable than in my pre- 
 sent confused and disabled state I am capable myself of 
 doing. I have also desired him to intimate how much 
 more I might be obliged to you, if, at your leisure, and 
 where you shall perceive it convenient, you would so re- 
 present me to such Honorable friends among your nu- 
 merous acquaintance, that they may help me towards a 
 removal into some condition, wherein I may no longer 
 remain altogether unuseful to mankind; which would lay 
 an obligation inexpressible upon, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " WILLIAM OLDYS." 
 "August 23<, 1751. 
 
 " SIR, That favour I before received of you, was be- 
 yond whatever the ' sense of my own deficiencies could 
 suffer me to expect; but much more this, by which, 
 through your favourable representation of me, or my 
 misfortunes, to the Hon. Mr. Yorke, I received five 
 guineas of him, through the hands of the candid and 
 cordial Mr. Southwell. You may justly believe, that 
 my hearty thanks for this benefit are hereby unfeignedly 
 returned to you, and I have endeavoured to return the 
 like to that noble benefactor. But as I cannot make my 
 gratitude so satisfactory to him, as his goodness has been 
 to me, I still want the assistance of a friend, to convey 
 my acknowledgments, more expressively than I can my- 
 self: and I think, by what I have already tasted, I may 
 depend upon that friendship from yon. 
 
 The happiness I have lately received in perusing your 
 life of Spenser * has greatly restored my desire, in this 
 loitering, lingering, useless condition, to such studies. 
 
 * Dr. Birch had recently published The Faerie Queene, 
 with an exact collation of the two original editions; to 
 which are added a Life of the Author, and a Glossary, 
 with plates, 3 vols. 1751, 4to. 
 c 3
 
 XXXIV MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 There are very observable passages in it, both ancient 
 and modern, which I had not before met with ; for which, 
 and many other memorable incidents in our most illus- 
 trious ancestors, recovered and rectified by your reviving 
 hand, if present readers shall be silent in your praise, 
 those who are unborn will stigmatise their ingratitude, 
 in the celebration of your industry. 
 
 " 1 remain, Sir, 
 
 " Your most obliged and obedient servant, 
 " WILLIAM OLDYS."* 
 
 In 1753, Oldys in conjunction with Mr. John 
 Taylor, the oculut in Hatton Garden, published 
 Observations on the Cure of William Taylor, the 
 Blind Boy of Ightham, in Kent, containing also an 
 address to the Fublick for a foundation of an Hos- 
 pital for the Blind. Prefixed are two letters from 
 Oldys to Dr. Monsey of Chelsea Hospital, and one 
 in reply from the Doctor. 
 
 Oldys remained in confinement till Mr. South- 
 well of Cockermouth (brother of the second Lord 
 Southwell) and his other friends obtained his li- 
 berty.f John Taylor, however, has given the 
 following account of his release : " Oldys, as my 
 father informed me, lived many years in quiet ob- 
 scurity in the Fleet prison, but at last was spirited 
 up to make his situation known to the Duke of 
 Norfolk \ of that time, who received Oldys 1 s letter 
 while he was at dinner with some friends. The 
 Duke immediately communicated the contents to 
 the company, observing that he had long been 
 anxious to know what had become of an old, 
 though an humble friend, and was happy, by that 
 letter, to find that he was still alive. He then 
 called for his gentleman (a kind of humble friend 
 whom noblemen used to retain under that name 
 in former days), and desired him to go immedi- 
 ately to the Fleet prison with money for the im- 
 
 Addit. MS. 4316, p. 4. 
 
 t Gent. Mag. vol. liv. pt i. p. 260. 
 
 j Edward Howard : ob. 1777.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. XXXV 
 
 mediate need of Oldys, to procure an account of 
 his debts, and to discharge them."* 
 
 Soon after the Duke of Norfolk had released 
 Oldys from his pecuniary difficulties, he procured 
 for him the situation of Norroy King-at-Arms 
 a post peculiarly suited to his love of genealogy. 
 He was created Norfolk Herald Extraordinary at 
 the College of Arms by the Earl of Effingham, 
 Deputy Earl Marshal, on 15th April, 1755, to 
 qualify him for the office of Norroy, to which 
 he was appointed by patent the 5th May follow- 
 ing. His noble patron generously defrayed the 
 fees for passing his patent. The Duke had fre- 
 quently met Oldys in the library of the late Earl 
 of Oxford, and had perused with much pleasure 
 his Life of Sir Walter Ralegh and his other 
 works, and considered him sufficiently qualified, 
 from his literary acquirements, to restore the 
 drooping reputation of the office of Norroy. Oldys 
 appointed as his deputy Edward Orme of Ches- 
 ter, better known as the compiler of pedigrees for 
 families of tha^ county. " The heralds," says 
 Noble, " had reason to be displeased with Oldys's 
 promotion to a provincial kingship. The College, 
 however, will always be pleased with ranking so 
 good a writer amongst their body."f 
 
 John Taylor, author of Monsieur Ton son, re- 
 lates the following anecdote of our Norroy whilst 
 performing one of his official duties. " On some 
 occasion, when the King-at-Arms was obliged to 
 ride on horseback in a public procession, the pre- 
 decessor of Mr. Oldys in the cavalcade had a pro- 
 clamation to read, but, confused by the noise of 
 the surrounding multitude, he made many mis- 
 takes, and, anxious to be accurate, he turned 
 back to every passage to correct himself, and 
 therefore appeared to the people to be an ignorant 
 blunderer. When Mr. Oldys had to recite the 
 
 .Record* of my Life, i. 26. f College of Arm*, p. 421.
 
 XXXVI MEMOIR Or WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 same proclamation, though he made, he said, more 
 mistakes than his predecessor, he read on through 
 thick and thin, never stopping a moment to cor- 
 rect his errors, and thereby excited the applause 
 of the people ; though he declared that the other 
 gentleman had been much better qualified for the 
 duty than himself." * 
 
 We ought to apologise for noticing what Mr. 
 Bolton Corney justly styles " the most contemp- 
 tible of books," The Olio, published from the 
 refuse papers of the redoubtable Captain Grose 
 by his eager executor, who happened to be his 
 bookseller. Even Mr. Isaac D'Israeli acknow- 
 ledges, that in it " the delineation of Oldys is 
 sufficiently overcharged for the nonce." Grose, as 
 every one knows, exceedingly enjoyed a joke ; but 
 probably he never conceived that some officious 
 hand would gather up and publish the debris of 
 his library for his own mercenary advantage. 
 This despicable production has been quoted as an 
 authority by nearly every one who has under- 
 taken to give an account of the life of Oldys. 
 
 Grose was appointed Richmond Herald by 
 patent 12th June, 1755, which he resigned in 
 1763. He was therefore contemporary with Oldys 
 during the whole period of his connexion with 
 the Heralds' College, excepting that Oldys was 
 appointed Norroy in the May preceding.! Oldys, 
 however, with all his alleged " deep potations in 
 ale," was a well-informed literary antiquary or, 
 as Grose himself confesses, "in the knowledge 
 of scarce English books and editions he had 
 no equal ; " but unhappily our facetious Rich- 
 mond Herald, " who cared more for rusty armour 
 than for rusty volumes," as D'Israeli remarks, 
 " would turn over these flams and quips to some 
 confidential friend, to enjoy together a secret 
 laugh at their literary intimates." Even the story 
 
 * Records of my Life, i. 26. 
 
 t Ex inform. T. W. King, York Herald.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. XXXV11 
 
 told by Grose of the intoxication of Oldys at the 
 funeral of the Princess Caroline, and the jeopardy 
 of the crown, is not accurate; for Mr. Noble 
 assures us, that the crown, when borne at the 
 funeral of the king or queen, or the coronet at the 
 burial of a prince or princess, is always carried by 
 Clarenceux, not Norroy.* It is also stated in the 
 ceremonial of the Princess Caroline's funeral, as 
 printed in The London Chronicle of Jan. 5, 1758, 
 and Reed's Weekly Journal of Jan. 7, 1758, that 
 " Clarenceux, bearing the coronet upon a black 
 velvet cushion, preceded the body of the prin- 
 cess."! 
 
 Oldys was connected with the College of Arms 
 for nearly five years. His library was the large 
 room up one pair of stairs in Norroy's apartments, 
 in the west wing of the college, where he chiefly 
 resided, and which was furnished with little else 
 than books. Hia notes were written on slips of 
 paper, which he afterwards classified and reposited 
 in small bags suspended about his room. It was 
 in this way that he covered several quires of 
 paper with laborious collections for a complete 
 Life of Shakspeare ; and from these notes Isaac 
 Reed made several extracts in the Additional 
 Anecdotes to Rowe's Life of the Bard. 
 
 Oldys at this time frequently passed his even- 
 ings at the house of John Taylor, the cele- 
 brated oculist of Hatton Garden |, where he 
 always preferred the fireside in the kitchen, that 
 
 * College of Arms, p. 421. 
 
 t MR THOMPSON COOPER, of Cambridge, in "N. & 
 Q." 2 nd S. iii. 514, has stated, that " on turning to a con- 
 temporaneous account of the ftineral, I find that Norroy 
 did carry the coronet on that occasion." We have not 
 been able to trace the authoritv for this statement. 
 
 J John Taylor of Hatton Garden was the son of the 
 celebrated Chevalier Taylor, and father of John Taylor 
 the author of Monsieur Tonson, and editor of The 'Sun 
 newspaper.
 
 XXXVlll MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 he might not be obliged to mingle with the other 
 visitors. He was so particular in his habits, that 
 he could not smoke his pipe with ease till his 
 chair was fixed close to a particular crack in the 
 floor. " The shyness of Mr. Oldys's disposition," 
 says John Taylor, jun., "and the simplicity of his 
 manners, had induced him to decline an introduc- 
 tion to my grandfather, the Chevalier Taylor, who 
 was always splendid in attire, and had been used 
 to the chief societies in every court of Europe ; 
 but my grandfather had heard so much of Mr. 
 Oldys, that he resolved to be acquainted with 
 him, and therefore one evening when Oldys was 
 enjoying his* philosophical pipe by the kitchen 
 fire, the Chevalier invaded his retreat, and with- 
 out ceremony addressed him in the Latin lan- 
 guage. Oldys, surprised and gratified to find a 
 scholar in a tine gentleman, threw off his reserve, 
 answered him in the same language, and the col- 
 loquy continued for at least two hours ; my father, 
 not so good a scholar, only occasionally interpos- 
 ing an illustrative remark." * 
 
 Oldys's literary labours were now drawing to a 
 close, his life having extended to nearly three- 
 score years and ten. His last production was the 
 Life of Charles Cotton, piscator and poet, pre- 
 fixed to Hawkins's edition of Walton's Compleat 
 Angler, edit. 1760, which made forty-eight pages. 
 It was abridged in the later editions. As we have 
 elsewhere noticed (postea, page 15). Dr. Towers, 
 who compiled the Life of COTTON for Kippis's Bio- 
 graphia Britannica, has erroneously attributed 
 Oldys's Life of this poet to our musical knight. 
 Grose informs us (Olio, p. 139), that "among 
 Oldys's works is a Preface to Izaak Walton's An- 
 gling." This Preface was probably no other than 
 his " Collections" for a Life of Walton. In his bio- 
 graphical sketch of Charles Cotton he reminds Sir 
 John Hawkins, that " as Izaak Walton did oblige 
 
 * Records of my 'Life, i. 27.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDT8. XXXIX 
 
 the public with the lives of several eminent men, 
 it is much that some little historical monument 
 has not, in grateful retaliation, been raised and 
 devoted to his memory. The few materials I, 
 long since, with much search, gathered up con- 
 cerning him, you have seen, and extracted 1 hope, 
 what you found necessary for the purpose I in- 
 tended them." (Page iv. See also Hawkins's 
 Life of Walton in the same volume, p. xlviii.) 
 
 William Oldys died at his apartments in the 
 Heralds' College on April 15, 1761, and was 
 buried on the 19th of the same month in the 
 north aisle of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, towards 
 the upper end.* His friend, John Taylor of Hat- 
 ton Garden, on the 20th of June, 1761, adminis- 
 tered as principal creditor, defrayed the funeral 
 expenses, and obtained possession of his official 
 regalia, books, and valuable manuscripts. The 
 original painting of William Oldys, formerly be- 
 longing to Mr. Taylor, is now, we believe, in the 
 possession of Mr. J. H. Burn of Bow Street ; an 
 engraving from it by Balston will be found in 
 The European Magazine for November, 1796. 
 He is drawn in a full-dress suit and bag- wig, and 
 has the complete air of a venerable patrician. 
 The following punning anagram on his own name, 
 and made by himself, occurs in one of his manu- 
 scripts in the British Museum : 
 
 " In word and Will lam & friend to you, 
 And one friend Old is worth a hundred new." 
 
 The printed books found in the library of Oldys, 
 some of them copiously annotated, together with 
 a portion of his manuscripts, were sold by Thomas 
 
 * There is a discrepancy respecting the age of Oldys 
 at the time of his death. On his coffin, as well as in a 
 document belonging to the Heralds' College, it is stated 
 to be seventy-two, and in the newspapers of that time, 
 seventy-four, which would place his birth in 1687 or 1689; 
 whereas we have in his own handwriting as the date July 
 14, 1696. Vide Addit. MS. 4240, p. 14.
 
 XI MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 Davies, the bookseller, on April 12, 1762. Mr. 
 John Taylor, jun., has given the following ac- 
 count of the dispersion of some of his manuscripts. 
 He says, " Mr. Oldys had engaged to furnish a 
 bookseller in the Strand, whose name was Walker, 
 with ten years of the life of Shakspeare unknown 
 to the biographers and commentators, but he 
 died, and ' made no sign ' of the projected work. 
 The bookseller made a demand of twenty guineas 
 on my father, alleging that he had advanced that 
 sum to Mr. Oldys, who had promised to provide 
 the matter in question. My father paid this sum 
 to the bookseller soon after he had attended the 
 remains of his departed friend to the grave. The 
 manuscripts of Oldys, consisting of a few books 
 written in a small hand, and abundantly inter- 
 lined, remained long in my father's possession, 
 but by desire of Dr. Percy, afterwards Bishop of 
 Dromore, were submitted to his inspection, 
 through the medium of Dr. Monsey, who was 
 an intimate friend of Dr. Percy. They continued 
 in Dr. Percy's hands some years. He had known 
 Mr. Oldys in the early part of his life, and spoke 
 respectfully of his character. The last volume of 
 Oldys's manuscripts that I ever saw, was at my 
 friend the late Mr. William Gifford's house, in James 
 Street, Westminster, while he was preparing a 
 new edition of the works of Shirley ; and I learned 
 from him that it was lent to him by Mr. Heber. 
 
 My friend Mr. D'Israeli is mistaken in 
 
 saying that on ' the death of Oldys, Dr. Kippis, 
 editor of the Biographia Britannica, looked over 
 the manuscripts.' It was not until near thirty 
 years after the death of Oldys, that they were 
 submitted to his inspection, and at his recommen- 
 dation were purchased by the late Mr. Cadell."* 
 
 * Records of my Life, pp. 28, 29. For the searching 
 inquiries after the missing biographical manuscripts of 
 Oldys made by Mr. Isaac D'Israeli, see his Curiosities of 
 Literature, edit. 1823, iii. 476.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. xli 
 
 Oldys was the fortunate possessor of a large 
 collection of Italian Proverbs, entitled Giardino 
 di Recreations, in manuscript, by John Florio, the 
 editor of a Dictionarie in Italian and English, con- 
 taining commendatory verses prefixed by Matthew 
 Gwinne, Samuel Daniel, and two other friends. 
 This volume afterwards belonged to Sir Isaac 
 Heard, from whom it passed to Mr. B. H. Bright, 
 and was sold in the sale of his manuscripts, on 
 June 18, 1844. (Hunter's Illustrations of Shahs- 
 peare, i. 275.) 
 
 Among other books enriched with notes by Oldys 
 is that of England's Parnassus, 8vo, 1600. It was 
 owing to his bibliographical erudition that the 
 name of the compiler of these "Choysest Flowers" 
 became known. Wood, misapprehending the in- 
 formation given by Phillips in his Theutrum 
 Poetarum, 1675, designated Fitz-Geffry as the 
 compiler; but Oldys had discovered in one or 
 two copies that the initials B,. A. to the dedica- 
 tory Sonnet to Sir Thomas Mounson were signed 
 R. Allot. To the signature R. A. Oldys has added 
 the following note : 
 
 " Mr. Edmund Bolton, in his Hypercritica, mentions 
 Robert Allott and Henry Constable as two good poets in 
 his days. So I conclude upon the whole, that the said 
 Robert" Allott, the poet, was the Collector of this book. 
 John Weever, in his little book of Epigrams, printed in 
 I2mo, 1600 (or the year before), yet, 1 think, quoted in 
 thia work, has the following lines : 
 
 Ad Ro: Allot, and Chr: Middleton. 
 ' Quick are your wits, sharp your conceits, 
 
 Short and more sweet your lays ; 
 
 Quick, but no wit ; sharp, no conceit, 
 
 Short and less sweet my praise.' " 
 
 A censure passed upon England's Parnassus by 
 Oldya, in his Preface to Hayward's British Muse, 
 1738, though tinctured with too much severity, is 
 certainly not unfounded in its general reprehen- 
 sion. He shrewdly and sarcastically concludes 
 that the book, " bad as it is, suggests one good 
 d
 
 x MEMOIR OP WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 observation upon the use and advantage of such 
 collections, which is, that they may prove more 
 successful in preserving the best parts of some 
 authors, than their works themselves." Mr. War- 
 ton, however, considers the extracts as made "with 
 a degree of taste : " and Sir S. Egerton Brydges 
 as " very curious and valuable." The last men- 
 tioned remarks (Cens. Liter, ii. 318), that the state 
 of our knowledge on these subjects is materially 
 altered since the time of Oldys ; who, though his 
 bibliographical erudition was very eminent, could 
 add, that " most of the authors were now so obso- 
 lete, that not knowing what they wrote, we can 
 have no recourse to their works, if still extant." * 
 
 Oldys's annotated copy of England's Parnassus 
 passed into the hands of Thomas Warton, and 
 subsequently came into the possession of Colonel 
 Stanley, at whose sale In April and May, 1813 
 (lot 378), it was purchased by Mr. R. Triphook as 
 his own speculation for 13Z. 13s. 
 
 The most valuable and curious work left by 
 Oldys is an annotated copy of Gerard Langbaine's 
 Account of the early Dramatick Poets, Oxford, 
 1691, 8vo. It has already been stated (ante, 
 p. xi), that the first copy of this work with his 
 notes had passed into the hands of Mr. Coxeter. 
 After Mr. Coxeter's death his books and manu- 
 scripts were purchased by Osborne, and were 
 offered for sale in 1748. The book in question, 
 No. 10,131 in Osborne's Catalogue for that year, 
 was purchased either by Theophilus Gibber, or by 
 some bookseller who afterwards put it into his 
 hands ; and from the notes of Oldys and Coxeter, 
 the principal part of the additional matter fur- 
 nished by Gibber (or rather by Shiels) for the 
 Lives of the Poets, 5 vols. 12mo. 1753, was unques- 
 tionably derived. Mr. Coxeter's manuscripts are 
 mentioned in the title-page, to whom, therefore, 
 
 * Thomas Park, in the Preface to the reprint of Eng- 
 land's Parnassus, 1815.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDT8. xliii 
 
 the exclusive credit of the work is assigned, but 
 which really belongs as much, if not more, to Oldys. 
 
 Oldys purchased a second Langbaine in 1727, 
 and continued to annotate it till the latest period 
 of his life. This copy was purchased by Dr. 
 Birch, who bequeathed it to the British Museum. 
 It is not interleaved, but filled with notes written 
 in the margins and between the lines in an ex- 
 tremely small hand. Birch granted the loan of 
 it to Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, who made 
 a transcript of the notes into an interleaved copy 
 of Langbaine in four vols. 8vo. It was from 
 Bishop Percy's copy that Mr. Joseph Haslewood 
 annotated his Langbaine. He says, " His Lord- 
 ship was so kind as to favour me with the loan of 
 this book, with a generous permission to make 
 what use of it I might think proper ; and when 
 he went to Ireland, he left it with Mr. Nichols, 
 for the benefit of the new edition of The Tatler, 
 Spectator, and Guardian, with Notes and Illus- 
 trations, to which work his Lordship was by his 
 other valuable communications a very beneficial 
 contributor." 
 
 George Steevens likewise made a transcript of 
 Oldys's notes inta a copy of Langbaine, which at 
 the sale of his library in 1800, was purchased by 
 Richardson the bookseller for 91., who resold it to 
 Sir S. Egerton Brydges in the same year for four- 
 teen guineas. At the sale of the Lee Priory li- 
 brary in 1 834, it fell into the hands of Thorpe of 
 Bedford-street, Covent Garden, from whom the 
 late Dr. Bliss purchased it on Feb. 7, 1835, for 
 nine guineas. It is now in the British Museum. 
 
 Malone, Isaac Reed, and the Rev. Rogers Rud- 
 ing, also made transcripts of Oldys's notes. The 
 Malone transcript is now at Oxford; but Rud- 
 ing's has not been traced. In a cutting from one of 
 Thorpe's catalogues, preserved by Dr. Bliss, it is 
 stated to be in two volumes, the price 51. 5s. ; that 
 Ruding transcribed them in 1784, and that his 
 d2
 
 xliv MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 additions are very numerous. In Heber's Cata- 
 logue (Pt. iv. No. 1215) is another copy of Lang- 
 baine, with many important additions by Oldys, 
 Steevens, and Reed. This was purchased by Rodd 
 for 41. 4s. In 1845, Edward Vernon Utterson had 
 an interleaved Langbaine. What has become of it ? 
 
 It is scarcely possible to take up any work on 
 the History of the Stage, or which treats of the 
 biographies of Dramatic Writers, without finding 
 these curious collectanea of Oldys quoted to illus- 
 trate some or other obscure point. " The Biogra- 
 graphical Memoirs I have inserted in Censura 
 Literaria" remarks Sir S. E. Brydges, " have been 
 principally drawn from the minute and intelligent 
 inquiries, and indefatigable labours of Oldys, pre- 
 served in the interleaved copy of Langbaine. 
 Many of them are curious, and though parts have 
 already been given to the public in the Biographia 
 Dramatica, yet as they are in the originals from 
 whence that work borrowed them, it became not 
 only amusing but useful to record them in their 
 own form and words." 
 
 In the British Museum (Addit. MS. 12,523) is 
 a manuscript volume, in Oldys's hand writing, of 
 miscellaneous extracts for a work with the follow- 
 ing title : " The Patron ; or a Portraiture of Pa- 
 tronage and Dependency, more especially as they 
 appear in their Domestick Light and Attitudes. 
 A Capital Piece drawn to the Life by the Hands 
 of several Eminent Masters in the great School of 
 Experience, and addressed to a Gentleman, who 
 upon the loss of Friends, was about to settle in a 
 great Family." 
 
 The subjoined catalogue of the books found in 
 Oldys's library at the time of his death, cannot 
 fail to interest every one curious in bibliography.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 OLDYS'S LlBBABY AND MAN USCBIPT WoRKS.* 
 
 The collection of books formed by this accurate 
 and laborious antiquary, through whose exertions 
 English literature and bibliography have been so 
 essentially improved, was purchased by Thomas 
 Davies, author of The Life of Garrick, and 
 offered for sale in " A Catalogue of the Libraries 
 of the late William Oldys, Esq. Norroy King-at- 
 Arms (author of The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh) ; 
 the Rev. Mr. Emms of Yarmouth, and Mr. Win. 
 Rush, which will begin to be sold on Monday, 
 April 12 [1762], by Thomas Davies." 
 
 The trifling prices which were asked for some 
 books that are now esteemed amongst the scarcest 
 in the language, will amuse the bibliomaniac of 
 the present day, who, if his wishes tend towards 
 the collection of early literature, not so much on 
 the score of its rarity as from its utility, will as- 
 suredly lament that he did not live at a period 
 when his taste and desires could have been so 
 readily gratified. 
 
 The charge for that invaluably illustrated copy 
 of Langbaine f must astonish those who are ac- 
 quainted with the large sums which have been re- 
 quired for transcripts only of those important 
 additions to our dramatic biography. 
 
 227. Nicolson's Historical Libraries, with a great num- 
 ber of MS. additions, references, &c. by the late VVm. 
 Oldy?, very fair 2/. 2s. 1736. [Now in the British Mu- 
 seum.] 
 
 230. Fuller's Worthies of England, with MS. correc- 
 tions, &c. by Mr. Oldys.J A price had originally been 
 
 * From Fry's Bibliographical Memoranda, 4to. Bristol, 
 1816, p. 33. 
 
 t Mr. Fry is not correct. The famed annotated Lang- 
 baine, purchased of Davies by Dr. Birch for one guinea, is 
 the edition of 1691. It would appear, however, from lot 
 1511 of the above list, that Oldys had commenced anno- 
 tating Gildon's edition of 1699. 
 
 I " This copy," says Mr. Fry, " was purchased at the 
 d 3
 
 xlvi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDT8. 
 
 attached to this article, but is obliterated, apparently by 
 the publisher.* 
 
 268. Linschoten's Voyages to the East Indies, with a 
 great many cuts, black-letter, 12s. 6df 
 
 593. A Collection of scarce and valuable Old Plays, 
 most of them in small quarto, amounting in all to above 
 450, with a written catalogue [no price.] 
 
 705. Virgil, translated into Scottish Meter, by Gawin 
 Douglas. Black-letter, Lond. 1553. 5s.J 
 
 717. Complaints, containing Sundry Poems of the 
 World's Vanity, by Ed. Spenser, the Author's own edi- 
 tion, 1591. 2s. 6d. 
 
 719. The Book which is called the Body of Polycye, 
 black-letter, very fair, 1521. 5s. 
 
 720. The Book of Falconrie and Hawking, with Cuts, 
 black-letter, 1611. The Noble Art of Hunting, with Cuts, 
 black-letter, 1611, very fair. 6s. 
 
 725. Cooper's Chronicle, black-letter, neat, 1560. 3*. 
 
 728. Milton's Paradise Lost, in Ten Books, first edi- 
 tion, very fair, 1669. 5s. 
 
 736. Whetstone's English Mirror, 1586. Crowley's 
 Answer to Powndes Six Reasons, 1581 : black-letter. 3s. 
 
 738. Goulart's Admirable and Memorable History of 
 the Times, Englished by Grimeston, 1607. 2s. 
 
 832. Enemy to Unthryftiness, a perfect Mirrour for 
 Magistrates, by Whetstone, and six other Curious Tracts. 
 7s. 6A 
 
 sale of George Steevens's library by the late Mr. Malone, 
 in whose collection it still remains." Mr. Isaac D'Israeli 
 states, however, that Steevens's copy contained a tran- 
 script of Oldys's notes. He says, " The late Mr. Boswell 
 showed me a Fuller [ Worthies] in the Malone collection, 
 with Steevens's transcription of Oldys's notes, which 
 Malone purchased for 43Z. at Steevens's sale ; but where 
 is the original copy ? " ( Curiosities of Literature, Second 
 Series, iii. 469, ed. 1823.) In Steevens's Sale Catalogue 
 it is thus described: "Lot 1799. Fuller (Thos.) Worthies 
 of England, a very fine copy in russia, with the portrait 
 by Loggan, and Index j a most extraordinary and match- 
 le'ss book, the late Mr. Steevens having bestowed uncom- 
 mon pains in transcribing every addition to render it 
 valuable, written in his peculiarly neat manner, fol. 
 Lond. 1662." 
 
 * The price was II. 11s. 6ef. Bolton Carney. 
 
 t At the Roxburghe sale it fetched 107. 15s. 
 
 j At the Roxburghe sale it fetched 71. 7s.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 836. Lavaterus of Ghosts and Spirits walking by 
 Night; of straunge Noises, Crackes, &c., black-letter, 
 1596. A Thousand Notable Things of Sundry Sortes, by 
 Lupton ; black-letter, no date, and three others. 6s. 
 
 852. Hyperius's Practice of Preaching, translated by 
 Ludham, blac : -letter, 1577. Tragical History of the 
 Troubles and Civill Warres of the Low Countries, black- 
 letter, 1581. 4s. 
 
 1511. Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick 
 Poets, by Langbaine and Gildon, with MS. additions by 
 Oldys, 1699. 3s. 6d. 
 
 1683. The British Librarian, six numbers in boards, 
 1738. Is. 6d. 
 
 1684. The same, bound. 2*. 
 
 2449. A Manifest Detection of the most vyle and de- 
 testable Use of Dice Play, black-letter, sewed,"l552. ls.6d. 
 
 2450. Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1600. Is. 
 2554. Wit and Drollery, 1682. 1. 
 
 2569. Stevenson's Norfolk Drollery, 1673.* 1*. 
 
 2570. Shakespeare's Poems, 1 640. 1*. 
 
 2572. Vilvain's Epitome of Essays, 1654. Is. 6d. 
 
 2573. Collop's Poesie Reviv'd, 1656. Is. 
 
 2574. Wit Restor'd, 1658. Is. 6d. 
 
 2575. Wits' Recreation, 1640. Is. f 
 
 2579. Palingenius's Zodiake of Life, Englished by 
 Googe, black-letter, 1565. 2s. 6d. 
 
 2580. Dnnton's Maggots, 1685. Is. Gd. 
 
 2581. The Muses' Recreation, 1656. 1*. 
 
 2633. Lingua: or the Combat of the Tongue, 1657. 
 Is. Bd. 
 
 , 2634. Lilly's Six Court Comedies, 1632. 2s. 
 *,* The last twelve articles are in verse. 
 William Oldys's Manuscripts. 
 
 3612. Catalogue of Books and Pamphlets relating to 
 the City of London, its Laws, Customs, Magistrates ; its 
 Diversions, Public Buildings ; its Misfortunes, viz. Plagues, 
 Fires, &c., and of every thing that has happened remark- 
 able in London from 1521 to 1759, with some occasional 
 remarks. Folio.J 
 
 * About this period many books were published with a 
 similar title, such as Songs of Love and Drollery, 1654 ; 
 Bristol Drollery, 1656 ; Sportive Wit, or the Lusty Drol- 
 lery, 1656 ; Holborn Drollery, 1672 ; Grammatical Drol- 
 lery, 1682 ; all in verse. Fry. 
 
 f Fetched at the Roxburghe sale, 41. 8s. 
 
 J Gough (British Topog. ed 1780, i. 567) informs
 
 xlviii MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 Quarto. 
 
 3613. Of London Libraries ; with Anecdotes of Collec- 
 tors of Books, Remarks on Booksellers, and of the tirst 
 publishers of Catalogues. [See postea, p. 58.] 
 
 3614. Epistote G. Morley ad Jan. Ulitium. 
 
 3615. Catalogue of graved Prints of our most eminent 
 countrymen, belonging to Mr. Oldya. 
 
 3616. Orationes habitae in N. C. 1655 : English verses. 
 
 3617. Memoirs relating to the Family of Oldys. [In 
 British Museum, Addit. MS. 4240.] 
 
 3618. Barcelona: or the Spanish Expedition under 
 the Conduct of the Right Hon. the Earl of Peterborough ; 
 a Poem by Mr. Farquhar, never before published. [This 
 seems to have been copied from the printed edition. 
 Bolton Carney."] 
 
 3619. The Life of Augustus, digested into fifty-nine 
 Schemes, by James Robey. 
 
 Octavo et infra. 
 
 3620. The Apophthegms of the English Nation, con- 
 taining above 500 memorable sayings of noted Persons, 
 being a Collection of Extempore Wit, more copious than 
 any hitherto published. [It was probably founded on a 
 
 us, that "he had been favoured by George Steevens, 
 Esq., with the use of a thick folio of titles of books 
 and pamphlets relative to London, and occasionally to 
 Westminster and Middlesex, from 1521 to 1758, collected 
 by the late Mr. Oldys ; with many others added, as it 
 seems in another hand. Among them are many purely 
 historical, and many of too low a character to rank under 
 the head of topography or history. The rest, which are 
 very numerous, I have inserted marked 0, with correc- 
 tions, &c., of those I had myself collected. Mr. Steevens 
 purchased this MS. of T. Davies, who bought Mr. 
 Oldys"s library. It had been in the hands of Dr. Berken- 
 hout, who had a design of publishing an English Topo- 
 grapher, and may possibly have inserted the articles in a 
 different hand. 51. 5s. is the price in the first leaf. In 
 a smaller MS. Mr. Oldys says he had inserted 360 arti- 
 cles in the folio, April 12, 1747, and that the late Alder- 
 man Billers had a fine collection of tracts, &c., relating to 
 London." " Mr. Oldya's collection of titles for London 
 have passed from Mr. Steevens to Sir John Hawkins." 
 (Ib. i. 761*.) Sir John Hawkins's library was destroyed 
 by fire.
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 MS. collection of earlier date. Life of Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh. Ballon Carney. ] 
 
 3621. Description of all Kinds of Fish. 
 
 3622. The British Arborist; being a Natural, Philolo- 
 gical, Theological, Poetical, Mythological, Medicinal, 
 and Mechanical History of Trees, principally native to this 
 Island, with some Select Exoticks, &c. Not finished. 
 
 3623. Description of Trees, Plants, &c. [Addit. MS. 
 20,724.] 
 
 3624. Collection of Poems written above one hundred 
 years since. 
 
 3625. Trinarchodia : the several Raignes of Richard 
 II., Henry IV., and Henry V. in verse, supposed to be 
 written 1650. [This volume became the property of J. 
 P. Andrews : Park describes it, Restituta, iv. 166. Bol- 
 ton Carney. .1 
 
 3626. Collection of Poems by Mr. Oldys. 
 
 3627. Mr. Oldys's Diary, containing several Observa- 
 tions relating to Books, Characters, &c. [Printed in 
 this volume.] 
 
 3628. Collections of Observations and Notes on various 
 subjects. 
 
 3629. Memorandum Book, containing as above. 
 
 3630. Table of Persons celebrated by the English Poets. 
 
 3631. Catalogue of MSS. written by Lord Clarendon. 
 
 3632. Names of English Writers, and Places of their 
 Burial, &c. 
 
 3633. Description of Flowers, Plants, Roots, &c. 
 *3633. Description of all Kinds of Birds. [See Addit 
 
 MS. 20,725.] 
 
 " So end," says Mr. Fry, " the minutias of this 
 curious Catalogue, which I have thought it not 
 incurious to record, more especially as Mr. Dibdin, 
 whilst noticing the interleaved Langbaine, in his 
 Bibliomania, does not seem to have been aware of 
 its passing through the hands of the humble friend 
 of Dr. Johnson." 
 
 Gough (British Topog.^ i. 31, ed. 1780) says, 
 " I have seen a first volume of a translation of 
 Camden's Britannia, in 2 vols. 4to. by W. 0., Esq. 
 [probably William Oldys], printed by K. Penny, 
 in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, but not dated." 
 This work is now in the Bodleian library. See
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 Bandinel's Catalogue of the Gough Collection, 
 p. 17. 
 
 Here we must terminate our notice of this dis- 
 tinguished writer and indefatigable antiquary, 
 whose extended life was entirely devoted to lite- 
 rary pursuits, and whose copious and characteristic 
 accounts of men and books, have endeared his 
 memory to every lover of English literature. If 
 Oldys possessed not the erudition of Johnson or 
 of Maittaire, he had at least equal patience of in- 
 vestigation, soundness of judgment, and accuracy 
 of criticism, with the most eminent of his contem- 
 poraries. One remarkable trait in his character 
 was the entire absence of regard for literary and 
 posthumous fame, whilst he never begrudged 
 his labour or considered his toil unproductive, so 
 long as his researches substantiated Truth, or 
 promoted the study of the History of Literature, 
 which in other words is the history of the mind 
 of man. Hence the very sweepings of his library, 
 as so much precious ore, have since been in- 
 dustriously collected, and enrich the works of 
 Malone, Ritson, Heed, Douce, Brydges, and 
 others, and will always serve, as it were, for land- 
 marks to those following in his wake. In his own 
 peculiar departments of literature history and 
 biography he has literally exhausted all the 
 ordinary sources of information ; and when he 
 lacked the opportunity to labour himself, or to fill 
 up the circle of his knowledge, he has neverthe- 
 less pointed out to his successors new or unex- 
 plored mines, whence additional facts may be 
 gleaned, and the object of his life the develop- 
 ment of Truth be secured.
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS, ESQ. 
 
 lorroi) Tme- 
 
 1737, June 22. Mrs. Cooper came to my cham- 
 bers: said she would return me Puttenbam's Art 
 of Poesy, Browne's Pastorals, and Sir Henry Wot- 
 ton, when she had finished her extracts for the 
 second volume of her Muses' Library 1 to be pub- 
 lished by Christmas. 
 
 To keep the large old MS. volume of the statutes 
 of the Order of the Garter with the Arms of the 
 Knights thereof, their portraits and Illuminations 
 of the Ceremonies of the Order of the Bath composed 
 temp. Henry VII. and VIII., till Mr. V. [Vertue?] 
 has seen it. To take particular notice of Talbot's 
 Rose, a sheet printed from a copper-plate and 
 bound in this book, entitled " The Union of the 
 Roses of the Families of Lancaster and York, with 
 the arms of those who have been chosen Knights 
 
 " The Muses' Library, or a Series of English Poetry 
 from the Saxons to the Reign of King Charles II. By 
 Elizabeth Cooper. London, printed for T. Davies, 1738, 
 8vo." There are some copies of this work with the im- 
 print " Printed for James Hodges, 1741," and others with 
 " Vol. I." on the title and last leaf; but notwithstanding 
 these variations, no more than one volume, or one edi- 
 tion, was ever printed. It is said to be mostly compiled 
 by William Oldys. Mrs. Cooper died on the 5th August, 
 1761, five months after the death of Oldys.
 
 2 DIARY OF WILMAM OLDYS. 
 
 of the Garter from that time to this day, 1589." 
 In this Rose the arms of all those who have been 
 (since the marriage in 1486 of King Henry VII. 
 of the House of Lancaster, which bore the Red 
 Rose, with Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. of 
 the House of York, whose ensign was the White 
 Rose) chosen into the Order of the Garter, insti- 
 tuted about 20 Edward III. are orderly set down . 
 The English arms placed within the Rose ; those 
 of Foreign princes in the leaves beneath. There 
 are the heads of Henry VII. and his Queen Eliza- 
 beth engraved at the two upper corners over 
 this great crowned Rose, also in the flowery leaves 
 of it, the said King Henry, his son, King Henry 
 VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, be- 
 tween the arms of the Knights Companion, who 
 have all their names and dates of their creations 
 subscribed. At the bottom JEg. Pluventor ; sold 
 in the Black Friers, Tho. Talbot, composuit ; Jo- 
 docus Hondius, Flander. Sculps. Londini, and 
 the date is 1589. 2 
 
 June 29. Saw Mr. Ames's old MS. on vellum, 
 entitled Le Romant de la Rose, which cost forty 
 crowns of gold at Paris when first written, as ap- 
 pears by the inscription at the end. 3 It had been 
 Bishop Burnet's book, his arms being pasted in it ; 
 and Mr. Rawlinson's, being mentioned in one of 
 his Catalogues. In the same Catalogue also is 
 mentioned Sir William Monson's collections 4 , which 
 Mr. West bought and lent me before the fatal 
 
 2 Noticed in Moule's Bibliotheca Heraldica, p. 36. In 
 the Cotton library (Vesp. D. xvii.) is "A miscellaneous 
 collection concerning Abbies and various historical mat- 
 ters, extracted from chronicles, rolls of noble families, 
 their pedigrees, &c. by Thomas Talbot." 
 
 3 See Herbert's Ames, vol. i. p. xxxix. 
 
 4 Sir William Monsoh, an Admiral of note in the reign 
 of James I., formed considerable collections, principally 
 relating to the affairs of the navy. There are occasional 
 copies from them, and allusions to them, in papers in the 
 State Paper Office.
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 3 
 
 fire happened at his chambers in the Temple, where 
 this probably was burnt, and near 3000/. worth 
 of other like most valuable curiosities. 5 Mr. Ames 
 also told me that the Society for Promoting of 
 Learning 6 intended to begin at last with publish- 
 ing Sir Thomas Roe's Letters, but heard nothing 
 of the " Considerations " I wrote in six sheets, 
 above two years ago, upon the best method for their 
 publication, at the request of Samuel Burroughs, 
 Master in Chancery, who made me promises of 
 being concerned in the edition, and of other 
 favours for my furnishing him with many intel- 
 ligences and tracts, when he was writing his pam- 
 phlet about Fines 1 ; but I never had any of those 
 favours, nor six of twenty-one volumes of tracts I 
 lent him ; nor the three Catalogues of my pam- 
 phlets, nor those " Considerations " in MS. which 
 I bestowed half a year upon, though I hear they are 
 in the bands of Richardson the printer. 8 Mr. 
 
 5 This lamentable fire occurred on Jan. 4, 1737, when 
 upwards of twenty chambers were destroyed, containing 
 a large number of valuable books and manuscripts. 
 It is noticed by Hearne in his Preface to Leland's Itinerary, 
 vol. i. p. xvi., edit. 1745. Among those who were sufferers 
 by this calamity were Counsellor York, Mr. West, Mr. 
 Peters, Mr. Floyer, Mr. Blew the librarian, Counsellor 
 Collins, &c. Mr. James West was subsequently one of 
 the vice-presidents of the Society of Antiquaries. The 
 Catalogue of his library, digested by Samuel Paterson, 
 is one of the richest extant in literary curiosities. 
 
 6 The Society for the Encouragement of Learning com- 
 menced its brief existence on February 3, 173G-7. See 
 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, pasfim. For a list of the 
 works printed under its patronage, see Bowyer's Anec- 
 dotes, and Kippis's Biog. Sritan., ii. 441. 
 
 7 Published under the pseudonym of Everard Fleetwood. 
 
 8 This manuscript is in the British Museum (Addit. 
 MS. 4168.), and is entitled "Some Considerations upon 
 the Publication of Sir Thomas Roe's Epistolary Collec- 
 tions." On a fly-leaf Samuel Richardson has added this 
 note: "This was written (1 think) by Mr. Oldys, and by 
 him tendered to Samuel Burroughs, Esq., as his senti- 
 
 B 2
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 Ames also told me that Mr. Cook is the author 
 of Seymour's Survey of London, in 2 vols. fol. 
 [1734.] 9 
 
 July 2, Saturday. Sent a letter to Mr. Anstis 
 about the Old MS. of Knights of the Garter and 
 Bath. He sent his son to see it when I was 
 abroad. 
 
 4, Monday. Returned Sir T. More's works : 
 some of his English poetry therein might be for 
 Mrs. Cooper's work, or Mr. Hayward's [British 
 Muse} on, Fortune, &c. 
 
 7, Thursday. Saw Mr. Lockman. 10 Told me 
 he had finished the Life of Mr. Samuel Butler 
 for the General Dictionary. That he had had 
 much conversation with Mr. Longueville, who has 
 Butler's History and Progress of Learning l a 
 poem by the same hand in Hudibrastick verse, 
 and other writings of his in prose never printed. 
 That he has also got an original picture of Butler, 
 pninted by Lilly or Riley. That Butler had 3001. 
 for Hudibras ; that he died in Rose Street, Covent 
 Garden, and was 80 years of age. Saw Dr. Pe- 
 pusche; 2 to have farther talk about his rare old 
 musical collections. 
 
 merits about the Method of publishing Sir Thomas Roe's 
 Letters, &c." It comprises thirteen pages folio. 
 
 9 This work has always been attributed, on the autho- 
 rity of Win. Upcott, to John Mottley, the compiler of 
 Joe Miller's Jests ; but it would appear from the above, 
 that it was the compilation of Thomas Cooke, a dramatic 
 poet and miscellaneous writer, who died in great poverty 
 on Dec. 29, 1766. As Cooke was concerned with Mottley 
 in writing Penelope, a Dramatic Opera, 8vo., 1721, Sey- 
 mour's London may have been their joint-production. 
 
 10 Mr. John Loch man, Secretary to the British Herring' 
 Fishery, a very honest man, but very indifferent poetas- 
 ter, best known for his share in the General Dictionary, 
 10 vols. fol. 1734-41. He died 2nd Feb. 1771. 
 
 1 This, which is only a fragment, was printed (vol. i. 
 p 202.) in the edition of Butler's Remains, edited by 
 Thyer in 1759. 
 
 2 John Christopher Pepusch, one of the greatest theo-
 
 DIARJT OP WILLIAM OLDTS. 5 
 
 30. Old Mr. Booth 3 , Treasurer of Gray's Inn, 
 came to my chambers and very courteously 
 brought me Gervasii Tilberiensis de Necessariis 
 iScaccarii Observantiis Dicdogus. "Tis a very fair 
 copy, in a thin folio bound in black calf, with a 
 note of this Gervase of Tilbury, nephew to King 
 Henry II. from John Bale in his Scriptor. Illus- 
 trium Majoris Britannice Catalogo, Cent. 3. fol. 
 250., written by Mr. W. Lambard the Antiquary 
 in 1572, whose book this then was, as appears by 
 his name, both at the beginning, in a kind of in- 
 scription to Sir Thomas Bromley, and the end 
 of it. He has made short marginal observations 
 throughout, and some corrections, having had the 
 advantage of comparing it with a more antient 
 copy, this not being older in all probability than 
 King Henry the Eighth's time. 4 I take it to be the 
 same book which Mr. Madox published not many 
 years since of the Exchequer 5 , and have a notion 
 that Mr. Hearne published a copy of the black 
 Book of the Exchequer. 6 There is in the last 
 chapter but one [two] of the first part of this MS. 
 copy, entitled Quid liber Judiciarius, et ad quid 
 compositus sit, the best reason given for the mean- 
 ing of Domesday Book, composed at the command 
 
 retic musicians. He was organist at the Charterhouse, 
 and died 20th July, 1752, aged eighty-five. His curious 
 library was dispersed after his death. 
 
 3 Oldys, in the British Librarian, pp. 286. 374., ac- 
 knowledges the obligations he is under to Nathaniel 
 Booth, Esq. for the use of his library. Mr. Booth was a 
 bencher of Gray's Inn, and Controller of the Fines and 
 Green Wax Money in the Court of Exchequer. He died 
 *. p. Oct. 9, 1745, aged eighty-five. 
 
 4 Who is the present possessor of this MS. ? 
 
 5 Mad ox's History of the Exchequer was first published 
 in 1711, fol. Gervasius' Ancient Dialogue is appended to 
 it 
 
 6 Hearne published Liber Niger Scaccarii, Wilhelmique 
 etiam Worcestrii Annules Rerum Anglicarum. Oxon. 
 1728, 8vo. 2vols. 
 
 B 3
 
 6 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 of William the Conqueror, that ever I met with, 
 110 ways favouring their conjecture who derive it 
 from Domus Dei. 1 But why Sir Hen. Spelman in 
 his Glossary fathers that chapter upon Henry de 
 Blois, Bishop of Winchester, I know not, nor 
 believe that Mr. Madox his reasons that the whole 
 treatise was written by Richard Nigelli filius or 
 Nelson, Bishop of London, will prevail with every 
 body to disinherit old Gervase of Tilbury, who 
 has been in possession so many years. Yet Selden, 
 in Titles of Honour, is also for depriving old Ger- 
 vase of it from the authorities there quoted. 8 
 
 August 8. Rec d Mr. Ames's letter of thanks for 
 the fine pictures I gave him drawn with a pen, &c., 
 and desire from Mr. Ward, Professor of Rhe- 
 toric, at Gresham College, who is writing the his- 
 tory thereof, that I would furnish him with what 
 I farther found of Edward Brerewood, which I 
 gave him two days after when I returned his book 
 of witches. 
 
 I went that night with him to his club, and saw 
 the operations of the phosphorus, which the owner 
 told me he made of nothing but flour and allum. 
 
 7 The passage, as given in a translation by W. B., 
 Gent., in Lansdowne MS. 610. p. 30 b ., is as follows : "This 
 booke is by the countrymen called Doomesday Booke, 
 that is, the Day of Judgment by a metaphor. For as 
 the judgment of the strict and dreadful accompt of the 
 lust day can by noe act or evasion be eluded ; soe when 
 there is any controversie in the kingdome which are 
 there recorded, when they come to the Booke, noe man 
 may denye or decline the judgment thereof without 
 punishment. For this cause we call the same Booke, 
 'The Booke of Judgment'; not because certairie doubts 
 are there determined, but because from that, as from the 
 Day of Judgment, there lyes noe appeale." 
 
 8 Professor Liebrecht, the learned Editor of Des Ger- 
 vaxius von Tilbury Otia Imperinlia. In Eintr Auswahl 
 ueu herausyegeben, Hanover, 1856, shares, however, the 
 opinion of Madox, that this Treatise on the Exchequer 
 was written by Kichard Bishop of London, and not by 
 Gervase.
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 7 
 
 Invited by Dr. Harris to his brother's 9 at Hum- 
 merton, near Hackney, where old Mr. Strype, 
 author of many voluminous pieces of ecclesiastical 
 history is still alive 10 and has the remainder of 
 his once rich collection of MS. tracts, &c. 
 
 Aug. 13. Rec d letter from Mrs. Cooper to 
 borrow old Marlow's poem of Hero and Leander 
 for the continuation of her Muses Library ; sent 
 by the servant a very scarce collection of old 
 poetry, called The Paradise of Dainty Devices ', 
 in which are several pieces written by the old 
 Lord Vaux in King Henry the Eighth's time, the 
 Earl of Oxford, Sir W. Raleigh, Mr. Edwards, 
 Jasper Haywood, Hunnis, Churchyard, Kinwel- 
 inersh, Lloyd, Whetstone, &c., printed 4. 1578. 
 To borrow one of Caxton's books of Sir Hans 
 Sloane, and remember to apply the story of Ab- 
 syrtus in the preface for Mr. Hayward's Collec- 
 tion of select thoughts from our old poets. 
 
 9 Mr. Harris, an Apothecary at Homerton, married to 
 a grand-daughter of Strype, and in whose house Strype 
 died. 
 
 10 An interesting picture of Strype in his old age is 
 'given by Dr. Knight in a letter to Zachary Grey, dated 
 24 March, 1733-4, printed in Nichols's Literary Anec- 
 dotes, v. 360. : " I made a visit to old Father Strype 
 when in town last: he is turned ninety, yet verj' brisk, 
 and with only a decay of sight and memory ; he would 
 fain have induced me to undertake Archbishop Bancroft's 
 Life; but 1 have not stomach to it, having no great 
 opinion of him on more accounts than one. He had a 
 greater inveteracy against the Puritans than any of his 
 predecessors. Mr. Strype told me that he had great 
 materials towards the life of the old Lord Burleigh and 
 Mr. Foxe, the Martyrologist, which he wished he could 
 have finished, but most of his papers are in characters; 
 his grandson is learning to decypher them." Strype died 
 on the 13th December, 1737 a few months only after 
 OMy.s's visit to him. 
 
 1 The Paradise of Dainty Devices, first published in 
 4to. 1576, and reprinted in Brydges's British Biblio- 
 grapher.
 
 8 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 To enquire at Covent Garden Coffee House 
 who bought Sir Walter Ralegh's Head, said to be 
 painted by Zucchero ; Beaumont and Fletcher by 
 Cornelius Johnson [Jansen] ; Ben Johnson, and 
 Spenser, and Shakespear, by Mittens [John ?] 
 Greenhill the painter ; and Cowley by Sir Peter 
 Lely ; Secretary Thurloe by Dobson ; and Con- 
 greve on copper by Sir Godfrey Kneller, as is 
 pretended in the catalogue for the sale of Pictures 
 there, on the 10th of March last. 
 
 Aug. 25. E,ec d of Purser, the printer in Bartho- 
 lomew Close, the first sheet of Mr. Hayward's 
 British Muse, and a proof of the second, and pro- 
 mise to send me every sheet as soon as composed 
 to correct, and a fair sheet as soon as wrought off, 
 that I may make timely observations for the Pre- 
 face. Mr. Booth brought me two MSS. to make 
 use of : the one a Declaration of the Hardships of 
 John Danyell of Deresbury, Esq. in the fine of 
 3000Z., loss of his estate worth 20,OOOZ., and im- 
 prisonment which he endured upon account of the 
 Earl of Essex ; 'tis the original in 4to., dated at the 
 end of the Preface from the Fleet in 1602, but he 
 has several things in it written below Queen Eliza- 
 beth's reign, as letters, petitions, &c., to King 
 James, Lord Chancellor Egerton, &c., ending with 
 Danyell's Disasters, a narrative of his said 
 Hardships. 2 The other MS. is a miscellany, be- 
 ginning with a letter of Sir Francis Walsingham 
 to the Earl of Pembroke, and some of the Earl of 
 
 2 John Danyell, of Deresbury, was Ward to the Queen : 
 ob. 1609. In the State Paper Office, Domestic James I. 
 vol. lii. 33., is a "License to John and Jane Danyell, to 
 print and publish the works entitled ' Danyell's Disas- 
 ters : ' ' The varyable accidents in a private man's lyffe ; ' 
 and ' A Declaration of the fatal accidents of Jane Dan- 
 yell.' " For some particulars of John Danyell's venality, 
 consult Camden's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, fol. 1688. 
 p. 630., and Kippis's Biog. Britan., art. PETER BALES, i. 
 543., from the pen of William Oldys.
 
 DIARY OP WILLIAM OLDY8. 9 
 
 Leycester's letters from the Low Country, parti- 
 cularly one about the death of Sir Philip Sidney, 
 written to Sir Thos. Hennage, 23 Sept. 1586 ; A 
 Speech about the Queen of Scots ; Her answer to 
 Mons r de Salant ; The Book of the whole Navy 
 (Royal) ; An analogy or resemblance between 
 Joan Queen of Naples, and Mary Queen of Scots, 
 with the addition arid precedents or examples of 
 Emperors and Popes, &c., putting other princes 
 to death ; A letter from Sir Edward Stanley ; Zz- 
 ber Pads or Nomin: Justiciar: ad Assiss; in Com: 
 subscript. , Number and names of all the ships, 
 &c., appertaining to the River of Chester, by W. 
 Wale, Maior, at the command of the Earl of 
 Derby, Lord- Lieutenant of Lancashire and Che- 
 shire, 1585 ; A. Cosbye's letter to Sir W. Stanley 
 from Utricht, about surrendering the town of 
 Deventer ; Number of serviceable men and muni- 
 tion in the Isle of Man ; A particular valuation of 
 Guddischen' Demain ; The strange apparition of 
 Death, Famine, and Pestilence in France, April 18, 
 1587; A letter of the Earl of Leicester from 
 Dort, 22nd Ausr. 1587; Arthur Aly from the 
 Hague, 15 Oct. L587, to Rt. Hon. Mr. Jno. Wool- 
 ley of the Privy Council ; Answers of Christopher 
 Southworth, priest, to interrogatories ; The Earl 
 of Leycester to Mr. Woolley, 3rd Oct. 1587; 
 again to him, 9th Oct. following ; The whole 
 yearly revenue of the Kingdom of Spain ; The 
 confession of Edward Burnell, Jan. 1, 1586 ; His 
 examination before Sir George Carey and Ralph 
 Lane, Esq., same day ; The manner of the execu- 
 tion of the Queen of Scots, 8th of Ffb , in the 
 presence of such whose names are underwritten ; 
 A prophesy signed Merlin applied to Sir Francis 
 Drake ; Sir Walter Ralegh's five preferments 
 about the year 1586 or 87 ; A sonnet of Sir Wal- 
 ti-r Ralegh's, one stanza and distich of which was 
 printed in the old Art of English Poesie, 4to. 
 1589, which I have quoted in his Life ; A particu-
 
 10 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDY9. 
 
 lar of some new year's gifts, beginning with my 
 cousin Katherine Howard's new year's gift, &c., 
 with several other things up and down the book 
 relating to some Estates, &c., of Henry Earl of 
 Derby, which makes me think the collection was 
 made by him or somebody nearly under him. 
 
 Aug. 28. Mr. Vertue called upon me, and we 
 appointed to go next Sunday to Mr. Ames. Told 
 me he had been at Penshurst, the Lord Leicester's, 
 again ; took a copy of Sir Philjp Sidney's picture, 
 and that he saw in the library Sir Philip's Apo- 
 logy for, or Defence of, his Uncle Robert Earl of 
 Leicester, written with his own hand in five or 
 six sheets of paper, in answer to some libel then 
 written or published against him, which I imagine 
 to have been Father Parsons his green coat, after- 
 wards called Leicester's Commonwealth, 4 and 8, 
 1541 ; and he observed that the said defence or 
 apology ends with Sir Philip's challenge to main- 
 tain with his sword what he had herein asserted 
 with his pen against the said author of the said 
 libell, if he was u gentleman, in any part of the 
 world. 3 
 
 Aug. 29. Dined with Mr. Ames ; saw his collec- 
 tion of old Title-pages, and Mr. Lewis his intended 
 Title-page for his Life of Mauler William Cuxton \ 
 our first printer, which I could in very few of the 
 particulars approve of; it being too circumstantial, 
 and giving us most of the private history of the man 
 in the first page of the book. Besides, the sub- 
 joining a poetical motto in French, from a modern 
 French poet, and that a translation rather on the 
 art of writing than printing, is too great an im- 
 
 3 Sir Philip Sydney's Defence of his Uncle is printed in 
 Collins's Letters and Memorials of State, fol. 1746, vol. i. 
 pp. 61-68. 
 
 4 " Life of Mayster Wyllyam Caxton, of the Weald of 
 Kent, the first Printer in England." Ey the Rev. John 
 Lewis, of Margate. Lond. 1737, royal 8vo. 150 copies 
 were printed with a fictitious portrait of Caxton.
 
 DIART OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 11 
 
 propriety, too foreign, noways honouring his 
 worthy or his work, nor becoming the course and 
 character of an antiquary. Therefore, I recom- 
 mended rather one from Mrs. Weston's Latin poem 
 of typography. 5 Supped with Mr. Thompson 6 at 
 St. Saviour's, and borrow'd his Caxton's Tully de 
 Senectute for the fifth number of The British Li- 
 brarian; was witness to his paying a legacy to 
 Hasselden of 30/. Sent a letter to Mr. Ames 
 about the title of Mr. Lewis's Life of Caxton, and 
 about the twenty hundred weight of waste books, 
 at 25*. per cwt. Wrote an answer to Mr. Anstis 
 at Mortlake about the MS. collections, relating to 
 
 s Elizabeth Joanna Western, a learned lady of the six- 
 teenth century. The poem is printed in her Opuscula, 
 8vo. 1724, p. 147. 
 
 6 Sir Peter Thompson, Knt. was the third son of Capt. 
 Thomas Thompson, of Poole, co. Dorset, in which town 
 Sir Peter was born Oct. SO, 1698. Sir Peter was engaged 
 in mercantile pursuits more than forty years, during 
 which period he chiefly resided in Mill Street, Bermond- 
 sey. He was elected F.S.A. 1743; appointed high- 
 pheriff for Surrey, 1745 ; and represented the borough of 
 St. Albans in parliament from 1747 to 1754. In 1763, he 
 withdrew from commercial affairs to enjoy the pleasures 
 of studious retirement. He died on October 30, 1770. 
 His valuable library and museum became the property 
 of his kinsman Peter Thompson, who in 1782 was a cap- 
 tain of the company of grenadiers in the Surrey militia. 
 Sir Peter collected, at great expence, all the antient re- 
 cords that could be found relating to the town of Poole, 
 which he liberally communicated to Mr. Hutchins for his 
 History of Dorsetshire. His materials for the Life of 
 Joseph Ames were used by Mr. Gough in the Memoirs 
 prefixed to Mr. Herbert's edition of the Typographical 
 Antiquities. Mr. Oldys, in the British Librarian, ac- 
 knowledges his obligations to " his ingenious friend Mr. 
 Peter Thompson, for the use of several printed books, 
 which are more scarce than manuscripts; particularly 
 some, set forth by our first printer in England; and 
 others, which will rise, among the curious, in value, as, 
 by the depredations of accidents or ignorance, they de- 
 crease in number." Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, v. 258. 511.
 
 2 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 the Order of the Garter, which he thinks is the 
 same book with that he formerly borrowed of a 
 noble peer, with the arms of Mr. Ashmole upon 
 it, and which had been missing some time out of 
 the said nobleman's library, whom he promises 
 shall make a recompence suitable to what it cost, 
 if it be his, and is restored to him ; further desir- 
 ing direction how to behave himself to discover 
 the person who took it away. 
 
 Sep. 1. Saw Mr. Wm. Jones's 7 curious librnry, 
 and fine collection of shells, fossils, &c., at his 
 house next the Salt Office, in York Buildings. 
 
 2. Sent another letter to Mr. Anstis, accepting 
 his invitation to Mortlake, promising to be with 
 him next Wednesday. Mr. Booth, when he called 
 yesterday, said he had manuscripts enough to 
 supply several British Librarians, and that he 
 would bring me the old Record relating, as I re- 
 member, to the Forest of Delamere, when Mr. 
 Holmes of the Tower had transcribed it. 
 
 4. Dined with Mr. Vertue, and went with him 
 to Mr. Ames in the afternoon. Returned Mr. 
 
 7 Father of Sir William Jones. 
 
 8 George Holmes, Keeper of the Records in the Tower 
 of London: born in 1662, and died 16th Feb. 1748-9. 
 His curious collection of books, prints, and coins were 
 sold by auction in 1749. 
 
 9 Joseph Ames, Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, 
 was originally a ship-chandler in Wapping. Late in life 
 be took to the study of antiquities ; and besides his Ty- 
 pographical Antiquities, 4to. 1749, he published a Cata- 
 logue of English Heads, 8vo. 1748, being the first attempt 
 at giving a list of portraits, since followed up by Gran- 
 ger, Noble, Bromley, Walpole, &c. He died in 1759. His 
 library and prints were sold by auction in the following 
 year. Oldys, in his British Librarian, acknowledges his 
 obligations to Mr Ames, whom he styles " a worthy pre- 
 server of antiquities," and returns him many thanks "for 
 the use of one ancient relique of the famous Wicliffe." 
 This was an illuminated MS. on vellum, called " Wicliffe'a 
 Pore Caitiff."
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDIS. 13 
 
 Thompson's Caxton, and borrowed Sir Thomas 
 Elyot's G'lvernour. 10 
 
 6. Mr. Vertue shewed me two curious limnings 
 by old Isaac Oliver and his son Peter. 1 The first 
 was of Sir Philip Sidney, in a small oval in a blue 
 ground. His hair light brown, pretty full and 
 dark shaded ; his face pale or somewhat wan, per- 
 haps the colours only somewhat faded ; his eyes 
 gray, very lively and sharp ; his nose gently ris- 
 ing ; his beard thin; his dress a falling luced 
 band, with a scollop edging ; his Vest, or doublet, 
 wliiie sattin corded, and laid along crossways very 
 thickly with silver-lace, with this mark on the 
 right hand *. 8 The other, by Peter Oliver, is of 
 Sir Edward Harley, Knight of the Bath, grand- 
 father to the Earl of Oxford. 'Tis somewhat 
 larger than the othtr, set in gold, painted on a 
 brown ground, as I remember, black short hair, 
 roundish face, black eyes, picked beard ; dressed 
 in a ruff, close jacket or doublet, blue or greyish 
 coloured, and flowered with black, and a red rib- 
 bon about his neck. This inotto to the right, Ter 
 et amplius, and this mark to the left, PO, both in 
 gold letters. They are both delicate pieces, but 
 the former has the hair more finely laboured, and 
 the skin more tenderly stippled. The latter is 
 freer, bolder, fresher. Mr. Vertue is graving 
 
 10 This work is noticed by Oltiys in The British Li- 
 brarian, p. 261. It is entitled "The Boke named the 
 GOVERNOUR; devised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knyght. 
 Imprinted at Loudon, in Flete-strete, in the House of 
 Thos. Berthelet, cum prioilegio ad imprimendum solum," 
 8vo. 1*53: 216 leaves, besides Tables, &c. 
 
 1 Vide Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. 1849, i. 
 176. 221., for notices of these two miniature painters. 
 
 a The celebrated work of Isaac Oliver, formerly at 
 Cowdray, had this same mark. It was a picture of three 
 sons of Viscount Montague. (Walpole, Anec., ed. Dal- 
 laway, i. 297.) A miniature of Sir Philip Sydney by the 
 same artist was purchased by Horace Walpole at test's 
 sale for 16/. 5s. (ibid. 299.) 
 c
 
 14 D1ART OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 them both : one for the publick, the other for the 
 Earl of Oxford. He shewed me several other mi- 
 niatures, many of them his own painting. His 
 Queen of Scots, a full-length, seems to have most 
 engaged his pains ; and his miniature of Sir Wal- 
 ter Ralegh, in the silver armour, has a nearer ap- 
 proach to the beauty of the original than his 
 print before my Life of him, which makes the 
 face longer, and less graceful. 
 
 7. Dined with Mr. Anstis at his seat near Mort- 
 lake. Saw the Duke of Montague's letter to him, 
 by which it appears the old heraldical manuscript 
 before-mentioned was his Grace's, and that the 
 gentleman lately dead, a Mr. Grimes, among 
 whose books it was bought, had borrowed it of 
 him. It was the handwriting of Sir Thomas 
 Wriothesley, who died about 26 Henry VIII., in 
 which the statutes of the Order appear at the be- 
 ginning of that book, who signs at the end his ini- 
 tial letters, Th.Wr. A.R. Greek, that is, Grekelade. 3 
 All the old illuminations of the Order of the Bath 
 were graved in small compartments in one sheet 
 in Sir Edward Bysse's Upton De Studio militari 
 [fol. 1654]. And the Duke has graved the por- 
 traits at length of the old Earls of Salisbury, &c., 
 in this book, which, with some others from other 
 illuminations, make up seventeen plates ; and Mr. 
 Anstis has copied much of the arms and badges, 
 &c., of the Knights of the Garter in it, so that the 
 book has now been almost totally ransacked. Saw 
 several curious books, &c., in his library, and his 
 own book of the Order of the Garter, with many 
 manuscript additions interleaved, and written on 
 
 3 Oldys has also the following notice of this manuscript 
 in his article FASTOLFF in the Biographia Britannica, ii. 
 1909: " Sir Thomas VVriothesley'a Heraldical Collections 
 of the Knights of the Garter, Bath, &c., adorned with 
 their portraits, arms, &c., fol. MS. in the possession of the 
 late Duke of Montagu. See an abstract of this volume in 
 The British Librarian, p. 323."
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OI.DYS. 15 
 
 the margins. Some talk with Mr. Haslin about 
 the Librarian, and his taste is for only old things, 
 and collating editions, distinguishing omissions, 
 alterations, &c. ; but I made an objection they 
 could not except against about Dr. Drake's edi- 
 tion of Archbishop Parker's Lives of the Arch- 
 bishops, wherein is received all the author's rejec- 
 tions, for which indiscrete labour he could con the 
 said editor no thanks. Saw the pictures of Robert 
 Earl of Leicester in a close reddish doublet, 
 hnlf-length, and his brother Ambrose, Earl of 
 Warwick, in the dining-room. Heard that the 
 Yelverton library now is in the possession of the 
 Earl of Sussex 4 , wherein are ninny volumes of 
 Sir Francis Walsingham's State Papers. 
 
 23. Dr. Pepusch offer'd me any intelligence or 
 assistance from his antient collections of musick, for 
 a history of that art and its professors in England 5 
 
 4 The Yelverton MSS. were all given by the Earl of 
 Sussex to Lord Calthorpe, whose mother was of the Yel- 
 verton family, and at his death had not been opened. 
 (Gough MS. quoted in Nichols's Lit. Aner. iii. 622.) A 
 catalogue of them is printed in the Cat. Manuscriptorum 
 Anglia et Hibernia:, torn, ii., part, i., pp. 113 174. 
 
 5 If Oldys made any collections for a History of Music, 
 they were most probably handed over to Sir John Haw- 
 kins. David Erskine Baker, Hawkins and Oldys, were 
 at this time the leading writers in The Universal Spec- 
 tator. Our musical knight appears to have been some- 
 what reluctant in acknowledging his obligations to his 
 friends. Oldys, writing to Sir John Hawkins, reminds 
 him that " the few materials I, long since, with much 
 search, gathered up concerning Izaak Walton, you have 
 seen, and extracted, I hope, what you found necessary for 
 the purpose I intended them." But on turning to Sir 
 John's Life of Walton, the reader will find but a scant 
 acknowledgment for only one statement made by him, 
 respecting some letters of Walton in the Ashmolean 
 Museum. This throws some light on a passage in 
 Grose's Olio, p. 139., where he tells us, that "among 
 Oldys's works is a Preface to Izaak Walton's Angling." 
 The edition of Walton's Complete Angler, 1760, contains 
 an interesting biography of Charles Cotton from the pen 
 
 c2
 
 16 DIARY OJT WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 27. Mr. Coxeter told me that the Queen's 6 col- 
 lection of Plays were offered by Mr. Cooke 7 , who 
 first collected them, for fourscore guineas, and 
 were, as his, thought too dear; but after Mrs. 
 Oldfield 8 the actress died, and they were reported 
 to be her collection, then the Queen would have 
 them at any rate ; and was reported, I think, in 
 the newspapers to have given 2001. for them ; but, 
 as he tells me, she had them for six score guineas. 
 And it is not improbable but that volume of 
 ten of Massinger's Plays, which was about three 
 or four months since sold by Cock the auctioneer 
 (in the sale of Sclater Bacon's Books 9 ), to the 
 Countess of Ponifret's footman for 31. 1 Qs. 10 , was 
 bought to add to that collection. He also said 
 that Weaver u , the dancing-master's collection of 
 plays, was more complete, which sold to Chitty the 
 merchant for 18Z., and that Sir Thomas Hanmer is 
 preparing an edition of Shakespeare. 
 
 Oct. 5. Received the last sbeet of the first vo- 
 
 of William Oldys, making forty-eight pages, but abridged 
 in the later editions. The whole of this biographical 
 sketch has been used by Sir Harris Nicolas in his ad- 
 mirable Life of Charles Cotton, but the name of Oldys is 
 not once mentioned! Dr. Towers, who compiled the Life 
 of Cotton for Kippis's Bing. Britannica, has erroneously 
 attributed Oldys's Life of this Piscator and Poet to Sir 
 John Hawkins. 
 
 6 Caroline, Queen Consort of George II. Ob. Nov. 20, 
 1737. 
 
 7 Thomas Cooke, dramatist and miscellaneous writer. 
 
 8 Mrs. Oldfield died on Oct. 23, 1730. Her collection 
 of English Plays, in 218 volumes, was sold in 1731. 
 
 9 Thomas Sclater Bacon, whose library was sold on 
 March 14, and following days, 1736-7. 
 
 10 These ten plays by Massinger, 4to. (lot 720), sold for 
 Bl. 16s. Their rarity is noticed by Oldys in his Preface 
 to Hayward's British Muse, p. xxii. 
 
 11 The name of John Weaver, that little dapper cheer- 
 ful man, is not to be found in any biographical dictionary. 
 He was buried in St. Chad's church, Shrewsbury, on 
 28th Sept. 1760. Vide "N. & Q.," 2 nd Ser. iii. 89. 138. 
 297.
 
 DIARr OP WILLIAM OLDYS. 17 
 
 lume of Mr. Hay ward's British Muse ; with him 
 heard at his house the account of Austin, the ink 
 powder man, noted for his fireworks ; also the 
 great pudding he made for his customers ; but 
 more especially the pudding which about twelve 
 or thirteen years since he baked ten feet deep in 
 the Thames near Rotherhithe for a wager, by en- 
 closing it in a great tin pan, and that in a great 
 sack of lime ; and after in about two hours and a 
 half it was taken up, and eaten with much liking, 
 being only a little overbaked. There was above 
 an lOOt. won upon this experiment. 
 
 Dec. 22. Went in the evening to see Mr. Nic- 
 kolls near Queen Hythe, and he shewed me his 
 collection of Original Letters and Addresses to 
 Oliver Cromwell, all pasted into a large volume, 
 folio ; in number about 130, and written to him 
 while he was Lieutenant of Ireland, General of 
 the army in Scotland, and Protector of England, 
 from the year 1650 to 1654 the greatest part, 
 but some down to 1658, ending with an address 
 to Richard Cromwell, and a Commission signed 
 by Prince Rupert. They had been the collection 
 of Mr. John Milton, and were preserved by Thomas 
 Elwood the Quaker, who had been his amanuensis, 
 from whom they descended to the master with 
 whom Mr. Nickolls served his time, and so they 
 came to him. 1 He says he has suffered half a 
 
 1 These letters have since been printed, entitled, " Ori- 
 ginal Letters and Papers of State, addressed to Oliver 
 Cromwell, concerning the Affairs of Great Britain, from 
 the Year 1649 to 1658, found among the Political Collec- 
 tions of Mr. John Milton ; now first published from the 
 Originals, by John Nickolls, F.R. and A.S.S. fol. 1743." 
 The originals of these Letters were long treasured up by 
 Milton; from whom they came into the possession of 
 Thomas Elwood. From Elwood they came to Joseph 
 Wyeth, a merchant of London ; from whose widow they 
 were obtained by Mr. Nickolls, and eventually presented 
 to the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Nickolls was a 
 Quaker, and his place of business as a mealman was 
 
 el
 
 18 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 dozen or half a score of them to be made use of 
 by Mr. Birch in his Life of Oliver Cromwell in- 
 serted in the General Dictionary ; and it is cer- 
 tain if those other letters, written by Oliver Crom- 
 well himself, which are still in being, as Mr. Ames 
 tells me, in Sir Hans Sloane's possession, and in 
 Ashmole's Museum at Oxford, through the gift of 
 Dr. Massey, they would give a more perfect idea 
 of the man and his actions than all that has been 
 said of him by the particular writers of his Life, 
 as the author of Parallelum Olivce [fol. 1656.], S. 
 Carrington, 8vo. 1659, H. Dawbeny, James Heath, 
 Slingsby Bethel, J. Shirley, Le Sieur du Galardi, 
 Gregorio Leti, L'Abbee Raguenet, and Mr. Kim- 
 ber, or what all the general historians have writ- 
 ten of him put together. 
 
 Jan. 25, 1737-8. Mr. Twells 2 goes out of 
 town. 
 
 Feb. 20. At the sale of Mr. Sclater Bacon's 
 library in the Piazza [Covent Garden], there 
 arose one book called the Pastyme of People, a 
 thin fol. volume, with wooden cuts of the English 
 kings, from William the Conqueror to the slaugh- 
 ter of King Richard III., written the 21st of Hen. 
 VIII. or 1530, and soon after printed. And 
 nobody then present, of near thirty gentlemen and 
 booksellers, &c., had discovered it to be John Ras- 
 tell's Chronicles but myself, wherefore it stopped 
 at ten shillings, the extent of Mr. West's commis- 
 sion to Noorthouck, the bookseller, for it ; who, 
 had he known what it was, would have raised it to 
 20., or he would have had it. But having ap- 
 prised Mr. Ames of it, he got for the former sum 
 
 in Trinity parish, near Queenliithe. He was a curious 
 collector of antiquities and chosen F.S.A. Jan. 17, 1740: 
 ob. Jan. 11, 1745. Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 159. 
 2 The Rev. Leonard Twells, M.A., Hector of the united 
 parishes of St. Matthew, Friday Street, and St. Peter, 
 Cheapside. At this time he was engaged on his great
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 19 
 
 one of the scarcest books in England. 5 Two 
 [five] nights after he bought at the same place 
 Caxton's Game of Chesse, the second edition, with 
 wooden cuts, with his Mirror of the World, and 
 Chaucer's translation, Boetius de Comolatione Phi- 
 losophic, printed together by him in a thick folio 
 about 1480 for two guineas. 4 
 
 March 1. Mr. Thompson bought at Bacon's 
 auction a book called, and often mistaken for, 
 Caxton's Chronicle, but is indeed The Chronicle of 
 St. Allans, compiled by one sometime schoolmas- 
 ter in that town, printed 1483, for 31. 4s. 5 Also 
 another edition by Wynken de Worde, having 
 the account of the Popes left out, and the Descrip- 
 tion of England, Wales, and Ireland added from 
 the Polychronicon, fol. 1502. Also, another edition 
 of this last book by Julian Notary, 1515. 
 
 3. Went to Leicester Square with Mr. Ames, 
 and saw Mr. Vertue there, and had some discourse 
 about his grand design of an Ichnographical Sur- 
 vey, or Map of London and all the suburbs ; but 
 Mr. Rocque and he are not yet come to an agree- 
 ment. 6 
 
 5. Dined at Mr. Thompson's, and took an ex- 
 tract of what his authors afforded of the writers 
 on the antiquities of Essex. Dr. Oxley told me 
 that Mr. Haynes was going on with Cecil's Let- 
 ters 7 , that he had two or three transcribers at 
 
 work, TTie Theological Works of Dr. Pocock, 2 vols. fol. 
 1740. He died 19th Feb. 1741-2. 
 
 s Lot 1464. The Pasthyme of People, fol. No date, sold 
 for ll. 
 
 4 Lot 1614. Caxton's Boetius alone in Thorpe's Cata- 
 logue of 1849 is marked 105/. See " N. & Q.," 1" S. i. 126. 
 
 * Qy. Lot 1585, which sold for 31. Is. For a notice of 
 this cop}', see Nichols's Literary Illustrations, iv. 166. 
 
 c John Rocque's Survey of London, Westminster, and 
 Southwark, 1746, 1751. 
 
 ' Collection of State Papers, edited by Samuel Haynes 
 and Wm. Murdin. Lond. 1740-59, 2 vols. folio.
 
 20 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDY8. 
 
 work : intended to publish a volume at a time, 
 and gives hopes that Sir Walter Ralegh's will be 
 published among them. Mr. Smith shewed me 
 some good specimens of his art in reviving the 
 illuminated letters in old MSS., and intimated that 
 the Countess of Pomfret is very skilful in this work. 
 Mr. Ames called at Chambers. Thanked him 
 for his ancient Greek inscription of Crato ; tells 
 me he had given Mr. Ward my last commu- 
 nications for his History of Gresham College* 
 about the time of knighting the Greshams. In- 
 formed him of a picture of Sir Thomas Gres- 
 hatn's at the old Countess of Oxford's sale. They 
 are to come and see it ; and Mr. Thompson to see 
 the old record of Caxton's death and burial at 
 St. Margaret's, Westminster, for the use of Mr. 
 Lewis, whose Life of that our first printer is 
 in the press. Received the bookseller's title (in 
 a proof) of Mr. Hayward's British MUSK, which I 
 noways like ; and the abridgement they have pro- 
 cured of my Preface to it by a hasty hand, igno- 
 rant of the subject, and who has ungratefully left 
 out the acknowledgments which the author ex- 
 pressly desired I would make of those communi- 
 cations which have much enriched his said collec- 
 tion from our own poets. 8 
 
 8 The British Muse, by Thomas Hayward, 3 vols. 12mo. 
 Lond. 1738. In Oldys's annotated Langbaine, he thus 
 complains of the publisher's cupidity : " To this book I 
 wrote the Introduction, but the penurious publishers (to 
 contract it within a sheet), left out a third part of the 
 best matter in it, and made more faults than there were 
 in the original." Poor Oldys appears most sensibly to 
 have lamented the loss of this elaborate Dissertation on 
 the previous Collections of English poetry. In his own 
 copy of The British Muse (afterwards Thomas Warton's, 
 and latterly Mr. Douce's), he has thus expressed himself: 
 " In my historical and critical review of all the collec- 
 tions of this kind, it would have made a sheet and a half 
 or two sheets ; but they for sordid gain, and to save a 
 little expense in print and paper, got Mr. John Campbell
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 21 
 
 8. Now I have found the author of Mr. Booth's 
 fine MS. in Defence of the Lawful Regiment of 
 Women, to have been Henry Earl of Northampton 
 himself; and he had this beautiful copy of it 
 made in the year 1613, which he then presented to 
 Sir Robert Cotton, to be preserved in his library. 
 The Dedication to Queen Elizabeth consists of 
 fifty pages. The rest of the book, 426 pages more 
 in folio, appears to have been written in the 32nd 
 year of her reign, or A.D. 1590. Mr. Booth told 
 me he bought the MS. in Chester. See A. Wood's 
 Athen. Oxon., Fasti, i. 102., edit. 1721 (Bliss's edit. 
 Fasti, i. 182.) 9 
 
 Mar. 15. Mr. Joseph Morgan's Life and Cha- 
 racter of Prince Henry, published from Sir Charles 
 Cornwallis and several other historians, dedicated 
 to the Prince of Wales, in which I find myself 
 mentioned with commendation for the Life of Sir 
 Walter Italegh 10 ; so that now there have been 
 
 to cross it and cramp it, and play the devil with it, till 
 they squeezed it into less compass than a sheet." Ac- 
 cording to Warton, this work is the most comprehensive 
 and exact common-place book of our most eminent 
 poets, throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth and 
 afterwards. 
 
 Wai pole (Royal and Noble Authors, i. 177.,ed. 1759), 
 in his Life of the Earl of Northampton, mentions a MS. 
 of this work as being then in his possession, and another in 
 the Bodleian [Arch. A. 170.] In Harl. MS. 7021, art. 11, 
 occurs, " An Answere to the Coppie of a rayleinge Invec- 
 tive against the Regement of Woeinen in "general!, with 
 certaine maliparte Exceptions to divers and sundry Mat- 
 ters of State; written unto Queene Elizabeth by the 
 Right Honourable Henry Lord Howard, late Earle of 
 Northampton." 116 pages, fairly written. 
 
 10 The work alluded to by Oldys is entitled The Life 
 and Character of Henry- Frederic, Prince of Wales, writ- 
 ten by Sir Charles Cornwallis, sometime Treasurer of His 
 Royal Highness's Household. The Dedication ia signed 
 J. M. Lond. 8vo. 1738. At pp. 49, 44., Mr. Oldys is 
 commended as " a very exact and faithful writer," and 
 " an accurate biographer."
 
 22 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLBYS. 
 
 the following encomiums written concerning the 
 same in manuscript and print. 
 
 Letter from the Earl of Oxford, dated April 
 19, 1734: 
 
 "SlB, 
 
 " By this day's post I received the enclosed 
 letter and paper from the Rev. Mr. Baker, of 
 St. John's College. You will let me know if you 
 would have me write to him again for any more 
 papers relating to Sir Walter Ralegh, as he men- 
 tions, and I will. I am, your humble servant, 
 
 " OXFOED. 
 
 " P.S. You see that I take care to get you all 
 the information I can that you may depend on." l 
 
 Extract of another letter written by the said 
 Earl, and dated 10 Dec. 1734 : 
 
 " You see I omitt no opportunity to furnish you 
 with every thing I can possibly towards the perfect- 
 ing the good work you have undertaken, and indeed 
 you deserve all encouragement, for you take true 
 pains." 
 
 In the Literary Magazine, 8vo. for January, 
 1736, there is an abstract of this Life introduced 
 with these words : " It is the duty of a biographer 
 to be industrious in collecting his materials, care- 
 ful in his choice of them, and regular in digesting 
 them. Mr. Oldys has failed in neither of these 
 particulars. He has taken in all the assistance 
 that could be had from printed books and manu- 
 scripts of the . best credit. He has been indefati- 
 
 1 The kindness of this noble Earl is also thus acknow- 
 ledged by Oldys in his Life of Sir Walter Ralegh, Works, 
 ed. 1829, i. 62.: "The three letters, whereof 1'have here 
 given the substance in Ralegh's own words, were com- 
 municated to me by the Right Hon. the Earl of Oxford 
 [Edward, the second Earl], from the collections of the 
 reverend and learned Mr. Baker of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, who copied them out of the originals."
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDT8. 23 
 
 gable in the search flf authorities, and made a 
 proper and judicious use of whatever publick re- 
 cords or private anecdotes could afford for his 
 purpose." 
 
 Extract of a letter from Scarborough, by Rob* 
 Robinson, Esq., Recorder, dated 10th October, 
 1 736 ; no consequence no more than the quotation 
 from Mrs. Elizabeth Cooper in her Muses' Library, 
 8vo. 1737, in her character of Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 A letter from Mr. George Vertue to me, dated 
 October 13, 1743, sent with Geo. Gascoigne's 
 Steele Glass, a Satyre, 4to. 1576, wherein he has 
 these words : " The more particular reason (of 
 sending that poem) is the recommendatory lines 
 (before it) by Raleigh 2 , which may perhaps have 
 escaped you, though I know your great researches 
 and acquisitions on his account are beyond what- 
 ever has been or is likely to be made again, 
 wherein you have obliged the learned and curious 
 world ; and, as you further intend it, I should be 
 glad to hear that nothing is denied to your ingeni- 
 ous enquiries." 
 
 17. Wrote the Dedication of Mr. Hay ward's 
 British Miise to the Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 
 which she approved of. 
 
 3 As to the internal evidence of this poem being Ra- 
 leigh's, the critics are at variance. Oldys and Brydgea 
 assume that it is completely in Raleigh's favour: Mr. 
 D'Jsraeli, also, though he hesitates about the spelling of 
 the name [Rawely], says that "these verses, both by 
 their spirit and signature, cannot fail to be his;" while 
 Mr. Tytler says, that " although written in the quaint 
 style of his age, their poetical merit is below his other 
 pieces, and it is difficult to believe that they flowed from 
 the same sweet vein which produced the answer to Mar- 
 low's Passionate Shepherd." Oldys (Life of Ralegh, i. 
 22., ed. 1829), however, says that " the poem itself, to 
 me, discovers, in the very first line of it, a great air of 
 that solid axiomatical vein which is observable in other 
 productions of Ralegh's muse : 
 
 ' Sweet were the sauce would please each, kind of taste." "
 
 24 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 18. To remember it be enquired of Mr. Mar- 
 tin 3 , what memorials he has, among Mr. Le Neve's 
 papers relating to Norfolk, of Sir John Fastoll'e, 
 for augmenting my life of him, which is inserted 
 in the General Dictionary [10 vols. fol. 1734- 
 1741.] 4 Also to ask Mr. Anstis if he has any fur- - 
 ther account than what he has publishM of him. 
 Mr. Locker 5 promised me to borrow of Dr. Raw- 
 linson Father Parsons' (or Cresswell's) Answer to 
 Queen Elizabeth's Proclamation against the Se- 
 minary priests, which is a MS., and, as he says, in 
 English, though I never saw any but the Latin 
 one, printed in two or three places abroad, A 
 1592, 1593, &c., as I have quoted it in the Life of 
 Ralegh. Father Parsons does not deny it to be 
 his, and Watson, in his Quodlibets [4to. 1602, p. 
 107.], often calls it his ; but Lord Coke and other 
 contemporary writers constantly ascribe it to 
 Father Cresswell. 6 
 
 20. To speak with Mr. Birch about an abstract 
 of the Life of Ralegh for the General Dictionary. 
 Also to ask him whether, in his late edition of 
 Milton's Prose Works, he has inserted or mentioned 
 A Copy of a Letter from an Officer of the Armey 
 
 5 Honest Tom Martin of Pal grave : ob. Mar. 7, 1771. 
 
 4 Oldys's Life of Sir John Fastolff was reprinted, with 
 many additions, in the Biographia Britannica, 1747 66 ; 
 also in Kippis's, revised by Mr. Gough. 
 
 s John Locker, Esq. barrister, and commissioner of 
 bankrupts. He is styled by Dr. Johnson " a gentleman 
 eminent for curiosity and literature." Ob. May 29, 
 1760. 
 
 In Dodd's Church History, ed. 1730, vol. ii. pp. 405. 
 419., it is attributed to Robert Parsons as well as to 
 Joseph Creswell. The Bodleian Catalogue has the fol- 
 lowing note : " Auctor fuit vel Jos. Creswellus vel Rob. 
 Parsons, Jesuita, vel utrique junctim." It is written to 
 prove the lawfulness of rising against what the writer 
 calls an heretic prince, and entitled, " Elizabethan Anglise 
 reginae in Catholicos sui regni edictum, cum responsione ad 
 siugula capita ; per D. Audream Philopatrum, presbyte-
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 25 
 
 tn Ireland to his Highness the Lord Protector, con- 
 cerning the changing of the Government, dated from 
 Waterford, 24 of June, 1654, in4to., attested under 
 the hand of Henry Earl of Clarendon, to be written 
 by Milton 7 In the Literary Note Book, written 
 with tliat Earl's own hand, whence I draw this in- 
 formation, and which is in my possession, there 
 is also a book entered with this title, which should 
 be enquired after, The Life of Edward Lord Her- 
 bert, Baron of Cherbury and Castle Islands in Ire- 
 land, and Knight of the Order of the Bath, written 
 by himself for the instruction of his posterity 
 This MS. was lent me (says my Lord) by the 
 Lady Dowager Herbert, daughter to the Earl of 
 Bradford, June llth< 1696. 8 
 
 22. Saw Mr. Ames in the afternoon, and gave 
 him more materials for Mr. Ward of Sir Thomas 
 Gresham, from Sir Robert Cotton and David Pa- 
 rum," 8vo. 1592; 8vo.et4to. 1593. A reply to this work was 
 written in English, entitled "An Advertisement written 
 to a Secretarie of my L. Treasurer's of Ingland, by an 
 Inglishe Intelligencer as he passed throughe Germanie 
 towardes Italie. Anno Dom. 1592." 8vo. Consult also 
 Miscellanies Historical and Philological, Sfc. found in a 
 Nobleman's Study, p. 171, 1703, and Oldys's Life of Sir 
 fTalter Raltgh, i. 168., ed. 1829. 
 
 7 This Letter is in the British Museum among the 
 King's Pamphlets (Press mark 104 a. 10.) It is signed 
 R. G., and dated " Waterford, 24 lune, 1654;" but on the 
 copy in Thomason's collection, he has written " A feigned 
 date," and has substituted that of 1656 with his pen. 
 The pamphlet makes 23 pages of 4to. The style is Mil- 
 tonic. On a copy in the library of Mr. Frederick Hen- 
 driks, the word Wellworth is written in a contemporary 
 hand. See " N. & Q.," 2<-< S. xi. 205. 
 
 8 This book, which Walpole pronounced " the most ex- 
 traordinary account that was ever given seriously by a 
 wise man of himself," was first printed at Strawberry 
 Hill in 1764. For a most amusing account of the manner 
 in which Walpole obtained the use of the MS., see his 
 Letter to Montagu of 16th July, 1764. The most com- 
 plete edition is said to be that published by Jeffrey, Lon- 
 don, 1826. 
 
 D
 
 26 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 pillon. 9 Bought for him at Bacon's auction, 
 Arnold's Chronicle for 9*. 6d., and for Mr. Thomp- 
 son, John Collins his Discourse on Salt and 
 Fishery [4to. 1682], with the Treatise of Water- 
 machines^ for 4s. 9d. To dine with him on 
 Sunday, and meet Dr. Oxley about Cecil's 
 Letters. 
 
 . 24. Met Mr. Calverley, Hayward, &c., at the 
 Greyhound Tavern, in the Strand, and they finished 
 about the Sportsman. Mr. Hayward to go to 
 Andover on Monday the 27th. 
 
 26. Dined with Mr. Ames. Had some talk with 
 Dr. Oxley and Mr. White about the intended 
 publication of Cecil's Letters 10 , and was asked if I 
 would assist in it. Understand that they would 
 publish from the beginning of old Cecil's adminis- 
 tration to the end of Robert Earl of Salisbury's 
 Life, 1612; but find that they are inclined to 
 leave out the letters and testimonies of Princess 
 Elizabeth's girlish frolicks with Ambrose Dudley. 1 
 Were these letters to be fairly published by an 
 indifferent and unbiassed person who had intimacy 
 enough with the period of time they comprehend, 
 to know what would be most needful to complete 
 the history of it, he might probably find enough 
 to satisfy the most curious out of this collection. 
 
 9 Of David Papillon, Esq., of Acryse or Aukridge, in 
 Kent, who, after sitting in Parliament for Romney and 
 Dover, was appointed one of the Commissioners of Excise 
 in 1742, there is a brief memoir in Nichols's Literary 
 Anecdotes, v. 470., et seq. 
 
 10 A Collection of State Papers left by William Cecil, 
 Lord Burghley, edited by Samuel Haynes, A.M. fol. 1740. 
 
 1 Afterwards Baron L'Isle and Earl of Warwick. Pro- 
 bably Oldys was thinking of Elizabeth's girlish tricks 
 with Sir Thomas Seymour (Lord Seymour of Sudley) 
 which are not suppressed in the Burghley State Papers 
 (see pp. 99 102.). Lord Seymour made his addresses to 
 the Princess Elizabeth with -so much warmth that the 
 Council found it necessary to interfere, and the deposi- 
 tions of several persons taken on that occasion have been 
 preserved by Haynes in the above work.
 
 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDYS. 27- 
 
 But where many important things must be stifled 
 in favour to the character of one man, History 
 descends as corrupted to posterity through the 
 wilful partiality of the knowing, as through all 
 the involuntary imperfections of ignorance. 
 
 31. Much talk with Mr. Jernegan 2 about his 
 late lottery ; the troubles and opposition he has 
 had in it ; by what means he avoided the Act of 
 Parliament ; how the ladies stood his friend ; and 
 upon what proffer his fine bason and ewer, which 
 was at first so much admired by Lord B n, came 
 to be slighted. Also why he made those emblems 
 upon his medals, rather than a representation of 
 the great cistern or himself upon them. Also of 
 the talents of Vanloo 3 , the portrait painter, so 
 much in vogue now at court; and concerning a 
 
 Erint to be made of Capt. Robert Jenkins, who 
 ad his ear cut off by the Spaniards 4 ; and, lastly, 
 of his strange projects to prevent all disputes in 
 religion, provide fortunes for all younger sons, 
 
 2 Mr. Henry Jernegari, fourth son of Sir Francis Jer- 
 ningham or Jernegan. of Cossey, in Norfolk, a goldsmith 
 and jeweller, in Russell Street, made a curious silver cis- 
 tern (of which there is a fine engraving by Vertue), which 
 was disposed of by -lottery about the year 1740. The 
 price of a ticket was five or six shillings, and the pur- 
 chaser had a silver medal worth about three shillings 
 into the bargain. There were 30,000 tickets, and the 
 medals induced many people to buy them. He died 8th 
 .Nov. 1761, and was buried at St. Paul's, Covent Garden. 
 See Nichols's Lit. Anec. ii. 513. 
 
 3 This was John Baptist Vanloo, who came to London 
 in 1737, and whose portraits of Colley Gibber and Mac 
 Swinney the actor, procured him the patronage of the 
 Prince and Princess of Wales and Sir Robert Walpole. 
 
 4 In June, 1731, the Rebecca, commanded by Capt. 
 Jenkins, was taken in her passage from Jamaica by a 
 Spanish Guarde Costa, who put all on board to the tor- 
 ture. The captain was hung up three times, once with a 
 cabin boy at his feet, and afterwards had one of his ears 
 cut oil', bidding him to carry it to his king, and tell his 
 majesty, that if he were present they would use him in 
 the same manner. Gent. Mag. i. 265. ; viii. 336. 
 
 D 2
 
 23 DIARY OF WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 and marry all the daughters without any portions. 
 He certainly is a pleasant man in his nature, of an 
 open, generous, and brave spirit, and no wonder 
 he should be somewhat conceited, or strive by 
 uncommon flights and fancies to make the abili- 
 ties of his mind appear extraordinary, who has 
 been by nature so liberally endowed with those of 
 the body, having been a man of the greatest 
 agility in his time, very personable ; and it is 
 much his elegant form and features are not more 
 declined, considering how much he has been lately 
 harassed by this troublesome engagement ; how 
 much more possibly by his amours and gallantries ; 
 and that though he yet appears not above forty, 
 he is drawing on towards fifty years of age. 
 
 Apr. 6. Passed some time with Mr. Caban very 
 merrily ; promis'd to come and bring the French 
 Books he so much recommends. To enquire more 
 particularly about the translator of Milton's Pa- 
 radise Lost into French, with whom he seems to 
 have be^n acquainted when he was last in France. 
 
 14. Mr. Vertue called. Memorandum, when I 
 write to Mr. Hayward, to mention the plays Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu was to have had of him 
 for Lady Pomfret. 
 
 20. Remember to go with Mr. Ames to Mr. 
 Pate 5 to get a sight of some observations he has 
 in manuscript on The History of the Three Im- 
 postors.^ Mr. Lewis his Life of Caxton to be out 
 in three weeks. 
 
 5 William Pate, the friend of Dean Swift, who lived 
 over against the Royal Exchange, and was commonly 
 called " the learned tradesman." In 1734 he was one of 
 the sheriffs of London, and died in 1746. Nichols's Lit. 
 Anec. i. 99. 
 
 6 Oldys here alludes to the Crux Bibliographica, the 
 famous tract De Tribus Impostoribus, on the existence 
 and author (styled by Sir Thomas Browne " that villain 
 and Secretary of Hell") of which so many disputes have 
 been moved by the bibliographers of the last, century. 
 Mr. James Crossley, in "N. & Q.," 2 nd S. xi. 204.
 
 DIARY OP WILLIAM OLDTS. 29 
 
 22. The merry Gascon promised to procure me 
 of Capt. Le Croise a sight of the famous book 
 called The History of the Three Impostors, the 
 manuscript whereof is valued at five guineas. 
 The French manuscript is a translation, or pre- 
 tends to be so, from the Latin ; and has a French 
 dissertation upon it prefixed, which, by the begin- 
 ning, whereof he shewed me a copy, should be the 
 same as that Mr. Ames talks of. 
 
 28. Finished the Catalogue of my English Lives, 
 8vo. in 74 pages, concerning above 200 English 
 persons. Mr. Caban, among the French authors 
 he brought for me, did lend me one somewhat 
 like Mr. Hayward's Collection in three volumes, 
 but is far from being so general or various ; for 
 the French collection is confined chiefly to love, 
 as the very title declares, being called Sentimens 
 (T Amour tirez des Meilleurs Poetes Modernes, par 
 le Sieur Corbinelli, 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1665. 
 
 May 15. Paid Mr. Ames yesterday, being Sun- 
 day, at his house, for two copies of Mr. Lewis's 
 Life of Caxton, 10s. 
 
 Mar. 1. [1739 ?] Bid 35 guineas and a half for 
 a conversation piece which had Tenier's name 
 painted upon it, at Cock's auction of Mons. Beau- 
 vais' Collection of Curiosities, for his Lordship 
 [Oxford]. But Sir Paul Methuen got it for 36 
 guineas. Gave his Lordship my manuscript of 
 Sir Fra. Walsingham's Table Book. 
 
 4. Left my poem on the Peace with Mr. C. 
 [Coxeter ?] 
 
 15. Met the Committee, &c., at the Crown and 
 Anchor Tavern, against St. Clement's church : 
 Mr. Broughton and Mr. Campbell there. 
 
 21. Dined with my Lord according to his invi- 
 tation by letter yesterday ; Lord Duplin there, 
 and Duke of Portland. 
 
 27. Received 20?. of Lord Oxford to lay out ; 
 and promise of 200. per annum as secretary. 
 
 D3
 
 30 
 
 CHOICE NOTES. 
 
 BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 As supplementary to the curious fragment of a Diary 
 by William Oldys, we have now the pleasure of presenting 
 to our readers a few Choice Notes from his manuscript 
 Adversaria, which may not be without their value and 
 instruction to the student of Biography and Biblio- 
 graphy. Every man of letters, but especially the lovers 
 of our early English literature, may learn something 
 from the literary researches of this indefatigable anti- 
 quary. By the publication of his valuable work, The 
 British Librarian, Oldys was among the first to direct 
 public attention to the old and valuable literature of our 
 country, by collecting materials for its literary history 
 during the Middle Ages. So true is the quaint and beau- 
 tiful teaching of Chaucer 
 
 " For out of the olde fieldes, as men saithe, 
 Cometh all this newe corn fro yere to yere, 
 And out of olde bookes, in good faithe, 
 Cometh all this newe science that men lere." 
 
 Ardently devoted from his early days to the pursuit of 
 literature, and secluded in some degree from the world, 
 we can only get a glimpse of Oldys's personal history 
 and habits of life from those curious memoranda which 
 have escaped destruction, and which may occasionally be 
 discovered in public and private libraries. ED. 
 
 "July 20, 1749. Was informed this day by 
 M r . Thomas Odell's daughter that her father, who 
 was Deputy Licenser of the Plays, died the 24 th 
 May, 1749, at his house in Chapel Street, West- 
 minster, of the gout in his stomach, ajjed 58 years, 
 and was buried in Chapel Churchyard, Westmin-
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 31 
 
 ster. He was writing An History of the Charac- 
 ters be had observed, and Conferences he had held 
 with many eminent persons he had known in his 
 time. He was a great observator of everything 
 curious in the conversation of his acquaintance ; 
 and his own conversation was a living chronicle 
 of the remarkable intrigues, adventures, sayings, 
 stories, writings, &c. of many of the Quality, 
 Poets, and other Authors, Players, Booksellers, 
 &c. who flourished especially in the present cen- 
 tury. He had been a popular man at elections, 
 and sometime Master of the Playhouse in Good- 
 man's Fields ; but latterly was forced to live re- 
 served and retired by reason of bis debis. He 
 published two or three dramatic pieces." 1 
 
 July 31. Was at Mrs. Odell's in Chapel Street, 
 Westminster. She returned me Mr. Budgell'a 
 papers. Saw several of her late husband's papers, 
 mostly Poems in favour of the Ministry, and 
 against Mr. Pope. One of them printed by the 
 late Sir Robert Walpole's encouragement, who 
 gave him ten guineas for writing, and as much for 
 the expense of printing it ; but through his advice 
 it was never published, because it might hurt 
 his interest with Lord Chesterfield and some other 
 noblemen who favoured Mr. Pope for his fine 
 genius. The tract I liked best of bis writings, 
 was the History of his Play-house in Goodman's 
 Fields. [Remember that which was published 
 against that playhouse, which I have entered in 
 my London Catalogue 3 ]. Saw nothing of the 
 
 1 Odell is noticed in Baker's Biographia Dramatica, 
 . v., where it is stated that " he brought four dramatic 
 pieces on the stage, all of which met with some share of 
 success. Their titles are as follows ; Chimera, Com. 1721. 
 Pdtron, Opera, n. d. Smugglers, Farce, 1729. Prodigal, 
 Com. 1744." The copyright of The Prodigal was assigned 
 to Watts for twelve guineas on 9th October, 1744. 
 
 * Letter to Sir Richard Brocas, Lord Mayor, 8vo. 
 1730. [By Dr. Francis Hare, Bishop of Chichester.]
 
 32 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 History of his Conversations with Ingenious Men ; 
 his Characters, Tales, Jests, and Intrigues of 
 them, of which no man was better furnished with 
 them. She thinks she has some papers of them, 
 and promises to look them out, and also to enquire 
 after Mr. Griffin, of the Lord Chamberlain's of- 
 fice, that I may get a search made about Spenser. 
 
 Sept. 27, 1 749. Mr. Vertue sent me a transcript 
 of King Charles his Patent to Ben Jonson for 1 OOl. 
 per annum. Also extracts from the accounts of 
 Lord Stanhope, Treasurer of the Chamber to 
 King James, from the Year 1613 to 1616, relating 
 to the payment of the Players for acting of Plays 
 in and between those Years at Court. Also Mr. 
 Robinson sent me part of his Letter in print to 
 the Speaker, Arthur Onslow. 3 Remember the 
 story of the 350/. in Bank bills found in a volume 
 of Archbishop Tillotson's Sermons by the executor 
 of Sir Simon Urlin, whose books and money they 
 had been. Of Alexander Ross, his treasure in 
 old gold found between the covers of his library. 
 
 DBYDEN. Remember my large bundle of Pam- 
 phlets, all written by, for, or against Mr.Dryden, in 
 fol., 4to., and 8vo. And my Chronological Draught 
 or Skeleton of his Personal Story, to be enlarged 
 into a Life of him, when that shall be published, 
 which is to be written by Mr. Broughton for the 
 Biographia Britannica. 
 
 To search the old papers in one of my large 
 deal boxes for Mr. Dryden's letter of thanks to 
 my father, for some communications relating to 
 Plutarch, when they and others were publishing 
 
 5 " The Case of the Chief Justice of Gibraltar, truly 
 and impartially stated, in a Letter address'd by him to 
 the Right Hon. Arthur Onslow, Esq., Speaker of the 
 House of Commons." 8vo. It is signed Robert Robin- 
 son, who was, for a short period, Chief Justice of Gibraltar, 
 and dated Lincoln's Inn, 30 Nov. 1749.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 33 
 
 a translation of all Plutarch's Lives in 5 vols. 
 8vo. 1683. 
 
 Mr. Dryden's Poem to King William, of which 
 I have two copies in MS., with a Discourse pre- 
 fixed, containing an Apology for his past Life and 
 Writings, dedicated to the Lord Dorset, appears 
 not likely to be of his writing, but rather an im- 
 position on the world in his name, to expose the 
 inconstancy of his principles. 4 
 
 The story of Mr. Dryden's dream at Lord Exe- 
 ter's at Burleigh, while he was translating Virgil, 
 as Signor Verrio, then painting there, related it 
 to the Yorkshire painter, of whom I had it, lies in 
 the parchinent-book in quarto, designed for his 
 Life. . . . Now entered therein. 
 
 See my life of Mary, Countess of Pembroke, in 
 the Parchment budget of Biography. I lent her 
 play \_Antoniut\i &c., to Mr. Collins to hflp him 
 in her Life : then gave the book to Mr. Coxeter. 
 
 Old Counsellor Fane of Colchester, who, in 
 forma pauperig, deceived me of a good sum of 
 money which he owed me, and not long after set 
 up his chariot, gave ine a parcel of manuscripts, 
 and promised me among others (which he never 
 gave me, nor anything else, besides a barrel of 
 oysters), a manuscript copy of Randolph's Poems 
 an original, as he said, with many additions, 
 never printed, being devolved to him as the 
 author's relation. 
 
 See my account of the Life of Thomas Rawlins 
 in the little paper book, 12mo., among the poets 
 in the Biographical Budget. Remember in my 
 first volume of Poetical Characteristics the epi- 
 taph on Mr. Rawlins. 5 
 
 4 See Malone's Life of John Dryden, P rose Works, i. 
 422., ed. 1800. 
 
 5 Thomas Rawlins was engraver to the Mint, and died 
 in that employment in 1670. Ue was author of a tragedy
 
 34 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 It has been affirmed to me, that Samuel Cooper, 
 the miniature painter, would steal a lace upon his 
 nail ; and remember the complexion, air, and all 
 other distinguishments, so exactly, as to present 
 any person with their portrait, who never knew 
 they had sat to him for it. 
 
 I gave above threescore letters of Dr.Davenant 
 to his son, who was envoy at Frankfort in 1703 to 
 1708, to Mr. James West 6 , with one hundred and 
 fifty more, about Christmas, 1746 ; but the same 
 fate they found as grain that is sowed in barren 
 ground. 
 
 I lent the tragical lives and deaths of the 
 famous pirates, Ward & Dansiker, 4to., London, 
 1612, by Robert Daborn alias Dabourne, to Mr. 
 T. Lediard, when he was writing his Naval His- 
 tory, and he never returned it. See Howel's 
 Letters of them. 
 
 The famous Queen Elizabeth's old mulberry 
 tree, with a large head and spacious arms upheld 
 by props, like the pages that supported her train, 
 now growing with other large trees of that kind 
 in one of the gardens at Carlisle House in Lam- 
 beth Marsh, and full of fruit this July, 1753. It 
 has the most reverend marks of antiquity upon 
 it of any tree I ever saw of the kind. It had 
 been split by the weight of its own shade and 
 fruit, but is braced at the upper part of the trunk 
 with iron. The shade may be near forty yards in 
 circumference. The fruit is rich. Four hundred 
 pottles were gathered when I saw it about Sep- 
 
 called Rebellion, 1640, 4to., and again 1654, 4to. He also 
 published (says Oldys) a book of Poems, under the title 
 of Calanthe, 8vo., 1648; and likewise, if not the same, 
 Good Friday ; or, Divine Meditations on the Passion of 
 Christ, and with it some other small pieces of poetry, 4to., 
 1663. 
 See ante, p. 3.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 35 
 
 tember that year, and probably another hundred 
 left. The ground, all under and about the tree, 
 looked as if all bloody by people'treading upon 
 the fallen fruit. 
 
 See my account of the great yews in Tankersly 
 Park, Yorkshire, while Sir Richard Fanshaw was 
 prisoner in the Lodge there in 1655, in my bota- 
 nical budget : especially Talbot's Yew, which a 
 man on horseback might turn about in. 
 
 Old Lady Viscountess de Longueville (grand- 
 mother to the Earl of Sussex, who died in 1763, 
 aged near 100,) has told me, that she well remem- 
 bered Mr. Dryuen's dining with her husband at 
 their house in town. The most remarkable thing 
 she recollected of his figure was an uncommon 
 distance between his eyes. This old lady was a 
 living chronicle, and retained the most perfect 
 memory to the very last : was daughter of Sir 
 John Talbot of Lacocke ; had been Maid of 
 Honour to Queen Anne, when Princess of Den- 
 mark (she had a daughter, afterwards Maid of 
 Honour to her when Queen,) before the Revolu- 
 tion, at which time she went with the Court (the 
 Queen, if I remember right,) to pay a visit to 
 Mr. Waller, the poet, at his seat at Becconsfield ; 
 at which time, although he was very old, he re- 
 ceived them with great gallantry and politeness. 
 Mr. Waller was then above eighty, Lady Longue- 
 ville survived him seventy-six years. Here we 
 have an instance of two persons only that could 
 have carried down the memory of any fact more 
 than 150 years without any intermediate reporters. 
 A remarkable instance ! 7 
 
 7 We happen to know of another remarkable instance. 
 James Stuart, the architect (better known as the Athe- 
 nian Stuart), died on the 1st February, 1788, aged 76. 
 His son, Commander James Stuart, R.N., was bora on 
 the 13th April following, and is still living, honoured and
 
 36 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 Lady Longueville's father had a house in Pall 
 Mall, not far from the Duchess of Mazarine's. 
 She well remembered Mons. Sieg. Evremont, a 
 little old man in his black silk coif, who was used 
 to be carried every morning by their window in a 
 sedan-chair to the Dutchess's house, at which time 
 he always took with him a pound of butter made 
 in his own little dairy, for her Grace's breakfast. 
 
 This old lady remembered the time when the 
 fashionable hour of dining was twelve o'clock, 
 and when the plays begun at three in the after- 
 noon. The interest of her fortune had brought 
 her in ten per cent. She was used to tell many 
 bon-mots of Charles II. Her father was one day 
 going down to Whitehall with his lady, and met 
 the King in the Mall in St. James's Park. " So, 
 Jack," says the King, " where are you going ? " 
 " To Whitehall Chapel to prayers," said he. 
 " Well," said the other, " and have you taken 
 care to carry your wife's Prayer-book in your 
 pocket ? " 
 
 This old lady had an hereditary attachment to 
 the House of Stuart ; yet she frankly acknow- 
 ledged that Bishop Burnet's History of his Own 
 Time gave a very exact and true account of the 
 state of the Court, agreeably to her own notions 
 and remembrance. 
 
 The said Charles II.'s dying request to bis bro- 
 ther was " to take care of Carewell " (meaning 
 Madame Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, pro- 
 nounced Carewell by the English,) " and not let 
 poor Nelly (meaning Nell Gwin) starve." 8 
 
 respected by all his friends, in the vicinity of Epping- 
 forest. The architect, born in the reign of Queen Anne, 
 may have seen the great Duke of Marlborough, as his 
 son assuredly has, on many occasions, both seen and ad- 
 mired the late Arthur, Duke of Wellington. 
 
 8 Thus far Oldys. Bishop Percy has added the follow- 
 ing additional note : 
 
 ' She was wont to tell many little anecdotes of Charles
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 37 
 
 SIK EDWARD DYER, a man of fine parts and ac- 
 complishment", was a dependant upon the Court 
 in Queen Elizabeth's reign, but one of those who 
 would not fawn and cringe, and long had expec- 
 tations given him from her of preferment suitable 
 to his merits. It happened as he was one day 
 walking under her window that Her Majesty was 
 looking out, and seeing him in a very pensive 
 mood, she had a mind to be jocose. " Sir Ed- 
 ward, Sir Edward," says she, " what does a man 
 think of when he thinks of Nothing ? " "A wo- 
 man's promise," answered he with a smile. The 
 Queen shrunk in her head, and said to somebody 
 near her, " Well, this anger would be a brave pas- 
 sion for making men witty, if it was not so base a 
 one as keep them poor." 9 
 
 II. 's Queen, whom she described as a little ungraceful 
 woman : so short-legged, that when she stood upon her 
 feet you would have thought she was on her knees ; and 
 yet so long-waisted, that when she sat down, she ap- 
 peared a well -sized woman. Her mother's father was 
 Sir Henry Slingsby, who was beheaded in the Great Re- 
 bellion. She was related to the Duchess of Buckingham, 
 Lord Fairfax's daughter, whom she described to be much 
 such another in person as the Queen Catherine, a little 
 round crumpled woman, very fond of finery. She remem- 
 bered paying her a visit, when she (the Duchess) was in 
 mourning, at which time she found her lying on a sopha, 
 with a kind of loose robe over her, all edged or laced 
 with gold. This I mention because Fairfax, in his Life 
 of the Duke of Buckingham, says 'if she had some of the 
 vanities, she had none of the vices of her sex.' " 
 
 9 Sir Edward Dyer had most probably recently pub- 
 lished his tract The Prayse of Nothing. By E. D". Im- 
 printed at London, in Fleete-streate, beneath the Con- 
 duite, at the signe of S. John Euangelist, by H. Jackson, 
 1585, of which the only copy known is preserved in the 
 Bodleian library, among the books of Bishop Tanner. 
 This tract has been privately reprinted by Mr. J. P. 
 Collier, the impression limited to 25 copies, which cost, 
 including the binding, 121. 10s., that is 10s. per copy. Pp. 
 44. 4to.
 
 38 CHOICE NOTES BT WILLIAM OLDT9. 
 
 WANLEY. All the account of the Harleian li- 
 brary [in Nicolson's Historical Libraries^ 1736, 
 p. vi.], was written by Mr. Humphry Wanley, 
 librarian to the Lord Treasurer Harley, as his 
 son, the most noble Edward, Earl of Oxford, my 
 most invaluable friend and patron, informed me 
 in the year 1730; but it would make a volume 
 as big as this to give a just idea of this library. 
 Mr. Wanley died July 6, 1726. See the Diary of 
 his own Life in the Harleian library. 
 
 QUEEN ANNE. When the Lord Treasurer Ox- 
 ford recommended Sir Symonds D'Ewes' manu- 
 scripts to be purchased by Queen Anne for a 
 public library, as the richest collection in England 
 next to Sir Robert Cotton's, she said, " It was no 
 virtue for her, a woman, to prefer as she did, arts 
 to arms ; but while the blood and honour of the 
 nation was at stake in her wars, she could not, 
 till she had secured her living subjects an honour- 
 able peace, bestow their money upon dead let- 
 ters." Whereupon the Earl stretched his own 
 purse, and gave 6000Z. for the library. 
 
 " TBINARCHODIA." In a manuscript volume, 
 formerly in the possession of James Petit An- 
 drews, Esq., entitled Trinarchodia : the several! 
 Raignes of Richard the Second, Henrie the Fourth, 
 and Henrie the Fifth, is the following note by 
 Wm. Oldys, who appears to have been its former 
 possessor : "By what I can find, in perusing 
 this book, so full of uncouth and obscure phrases, 
 metaphorical allusions, distant, abstracted con- 
 ceits, and mystical learning, the author was a 
 clergyman, and calls King Charles II. his master. 
 He began this book on the 7th Nov. 1649, and 
 ended it on All Souls' Day, 1650. It further 
 seems, these three reigns and the Idyllia were 
 written for the press ; but not to be published 
 till after his death, and then without his name ;
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 39 
 
 yet the Idyttia, by being said to be revised and 
 enlarged, looks as if it had been published before." 
 
 BROWNE. William Browne [author of Britan- 
 nia's Pastorals] was reputed a man not only the 
 best versed in the works and beauties of the 
 English poets, but also in the history of their 
 lives and characters : wherefore he was pitched 
 upon to draw out the line of his poetic ancestors, 
 from Josephus Iscanius down to himself, which 
 must have been a delectable and useful labour, 
 from a man not only of his learning and taste, 
 but who had the advantage of living so much 
 nearer the times when our most renowned culti- 
 vators of English poetry adorned this isle. 10 
 
 CHAUCER'S PORTRAIT. Winstanley, in his Lives 
 of the Poets, p. '26., says, " Thomas Occleve, of 
 the office of the privy seal, sometime Chaucer's 
 scholar, for the love he bore him, caused his 
 picture to be truly drawn in his book De regimine 
 principis ; according to which, that his pic- 
 ture drawn upon his monument was made." 
 To this passage Mr. Oldys added the following 
 note in the margin of his copy of Winstanley 
 " This book, De regimirte principis, a pretty thick 
 iblio, written, in English stanzas, on vellum, with 
 that picture of Chaucer on the side of the verses, 
 is in the possession of Mr. West of the Temple, 
 who showed it me, Feb. 27, 1735." 1 
 
 10 An edition of Wm. Browne's Works was published 
 by Thomas Davies in 1772, 3 vols. ll'mo., with some short 
 notes by the Rev. William Thompson. 
 
 1 Some curious particulars of this portrait of Chaucer 
 are given in Kippis's Biog. Britan. iii. 465. 467. ; Wai- 
 pole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. 1849, i. 30. ; Gent. Mag. 
 Oct. 1841, p. 370.; and in Warton's History of English 
 Poetry, ii. 263. Mr. Warton informs us, that " it is in one 
 of the Royal manuscripts of Occleve's poem in the British 
 Museum that he lias left a drawing of Chaucer ; accord- 
 ing to which, Chaucer's portraiture was made on his 
 1
 
 40 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS, 
 
 CHUBCHYABD. Thomas Churchyard, who was 
 called the old Co'urt Poet almost all Queen Eliza- 
 beth's reign, was a gentleman born : by his studies at 
 Oxford and his travels, a man of learning and experi- 
 ence : by his services and sufferings in the wars, a 
 man of valour and merit: by his attendance on courts 
 and great men, a man of manners, address, polite 
 conversation, and other engaging qualities; and 
 with all this he died a beggar, without ever hav- 
 ing it in his power to make himself so by extra- 
 vagance. All who have spoken of him know 
 little of his story, as Fuller, Winstanley, and even 
 Anthony Wood, who says, he laboured much to 
 recover the titles of his writings, in that very im- 
 perfect catalogue he gives us of them in his life. 
 [Wood's Athena, by Bliss, i. 727.] But from some 
 of them he never saw we collect, he was born in 
 Shrewsbury about the year 15'20; came to Henry's 
 court in 1537 ; had served in the wars abroad ; 
 and was subject at home under eight [?] crowned 
 heads : had also been in the service of two or 
 three of the noblest families in England : had de- 
 dicated books and pamphlets, in poetry and prose, 
 flf his own composing and translation, from Latin 
 and some modern languages, to above twenty 
 great personages of fortune and distinction : most 
 generously recorded the praises and celebrated 
 the memories of half the great men of his time. 
 Yet with all his fighting and writing; loss of 
 
 monument, in the chapel of St. Blase in Westminster 
 Abbey, by the benefaction of Nicholas Brigham, in the 
 year 1556. From this drawing, in 1598, John Speed pro- 
 cured the print of Chaucer prefixed to Speght's edition of 
 his Works ; which has since been copied in a most finished 
 engraving by Vertue in Urry's edition, 1721, fol. Yet it 
 must be remembered that the same drawing occurs in the 
 Harleian MS. 4866. fol. 91., written about Occleve's age, 
 and in the Cotton. MS. Oth. A. 18. Ot-cleve himself men- 
 tions this drawing in his Consolatio Servilis. It exactly 
 resembles the curious picture on board of our venerable 
 bard, preserved in the Bodleian gallery at Oxford."
 
 CHOICE NOTES BT WILLIAM OLDTS. 41 
 
 much blood and time in camps and courts, in a 
 fearful and fruitless attendance and dependence 
 upon the ungrateful great for above sixty-seven 
 years, never could get more than a scanty pension 
 from Queen Elizabeth 2 , and that, according to 
 his own words, seems to have been through the 
 interest of Sir Walter Ralegh ; but so scanty, 
 that upon the death of Dr. John Underbill, Bishop 
 of Oxford, one of his best friends, he had no bet- 
 ter prospect or resource, in 1592, of sustaining 
 himself to the end of his natural course, than ex- 
 posing again his aged and scarified limbs to the 
 hardships of war in foreign service, as he miser- 
 ably complains in his poem of The Unhappy Maii 
 Dear Adieu. He did struggle on, abroad and at 
 home, to salute King James with a congratulation 
 soon after his entrance and coronation 3 , anno 1604 
 [1603 ?], when he could not be less than eighty-four 
 years of age, if not more. What notice was then 
 taken of him we find not, nor when he died, but 
 it could not be long after 4 , when somebody did 
 cover his bones in Westminster Abbey, and hide 
 as much as they could such a shameful monument 
 and testimony to their country of the ingratitude 
 that reigns in courts and courtiers, in masters and 
 patrons, towards their servants and dependants. 
 
 2 See " A Pleasant Conceits, penned in verse, collour- 
 ably sette out, and humblie presented, on New-yeere's 
 day last, to the Queene's Majestie at Hampton Court, 
 anno Domini 1593-4," printed in Nichols's Progresses of 
 Queen Elizabeth, iii. 232. 
 
 5 A Paean Triumphal upon the King's Entry to London 
 from the Tower. 1603. 
 
 * Arrived at length at the advanced age of eighty- 
 four. Churchyard died in Westminster about the 1st of 
 April, 1604, and was certainly buried, as the parish 
 register evinces, on the 4th day of the same month, in 
 the quire of St. Margaret's Church, near his favourite 
 Skelton, and not in the church-porch, according to a 
 ludicrous epitaph in Camden's Remains. George Chal- 
 mers's Life of him in Churchyard's Chips, 8vo. 1817. 
 I
 
 42 CHOICE NOTES BT WILLIAM OLDT8. 
 
 SHADWELL. The character of Capt. Hackum^ 
 in Thomns Shadwell's comedy The Squire of Al- 
 satia, was drawn (as I have been told by old John 
 Bowman the player) to expose Bully Dawson, a 
 noted sharper, swaggerer, and debauchee, about 
 town, especially Blackfriars and its infamous pur- 
 lieus. 
 
 Tom Shadwell died suddenly of an apoplexy 
 (or by taking too large a dose of opium given him 
 by mistake) at Chelsea, near London, Nov. 20, 
 1692, in the fifty-third year of his age, and wag 
 buried in the church there the 25th of the same 
 month. See his Funeral Sermon by Nich. Brady, 
 4to. 1693. 
 
 If Shadwell could not match Ben Jonson in his 
 learning, in the deep reach of his plots, the inno- 
 cence of his humorous characters, and the chastity 
 of his morals, and other qualifications of his mind, 
 he did at least in the corpulency of his body. 
 \Vhence among many other sarcasms, we may ac- 
 count for this extraordinary epitaph of Tom 
 Brown : 
 
 " And must our glorious Laureat then depart ? 
 Heav'n, if it please, may take his loyal heart; 
 As for the rest, sweet Devil, bring a cart." 
 
 SPENSER. Ask Sir Peter Thompson if it were 
 improper to try if Lord Effingham Howard would 
 procure the pedigrees in the Heralds' office, to be 
 seen for Edward Spenser's parentage or family ; 
 or how he was related to Sir John Spenser of 
 Althorpe, in Northamptonshire, to three of whose 
 daughters, who all married nobility, Spenser de- 
 dicates three of his poems. 
 
 Of Mr. Vertue, to examine Stow's memoran- 
 dum book. Look more carefully for the year 
 when Spenser's monument was raised, or between 
 which years the entry stands 1623 and 1626. 
 Sir Clement Cottrell's book about Spenser. 
 
 Capt. Power, to know if he has heard from
 
 CHOICE NOTES BT WILLIAM OLDTS. 43 
 
 Capt. Spenser about my letter of inquiries relating 
 to Edward Spenser. 
 
 Of Whiston, to examine if my remarks on Spen- 
 ser are complete as to the press. Yes. 
 
 Remember when I see Mr. William Thomp- 
 son 5 , to inquire whether he has printed in any of 
 his works any other character of our old poets 
 than those of Spenser and Shakspeare ; and to 
 get the liberty of a visit at Kentish Town, to see 
 his collections of Robert Greene's works, in about 
 four large volumes of quarto. He commonly 
 published a pamphlet every term, as his acquaint- 
 ance Tom Nash informs us. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE. There was a very aged gentle- 
 man living in the neighbourhood of Stratford 
 (where he died fifty years since) who had not 
 only heard, from several old people in the town, 
 of Shakspeare's transgression, but could remem- 
 ber the first stanza of that bitter ballad, which, 
 repeating to one of his acquaintance, he preserved 
 it in writing ; and here it is neither better nor 
 worse, but faithfully transcribed from the copy 
 
 5 William Thompson, a warm lover of our elder bards, 
 and no vulgar imitator of Spenser, was the second son of 
 the Rev. Francis Thompson, Rector of Brough in West- 
 moreland. He was entered as a scholar at Queen's Col- 
 lege, Oxford, where he graduated A.M. in 1738. He 
 afterwards became fellow of the same college, and suc- 
 ceeded to the livings of Weston and Hampton Poyle 
 in Oxfordshire; after which (according to Alex. Chal- 
 mers) he became Dean of Raphoe in Ireland, where he 
 died about 1766. D'Israeli informs us, that " he was the 
 reviver of Bishop Hall's Satires in 1753, by an edition 
 which had been more fortunate if conducted by his friend 
 Oldys, for the text is unfaithful, though the edition fol- 
 lowed was one borrowed from Lord Oxford's library, pro- 
 bably by the aid of Oldys." In 1757, Thompson published 
 two volumes of Poem*, "among which those entitled " The 
 Nativity ; " " Sickness ; " and " The Hymn to May," have 
 met with considerable approbation.
 
 44 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 which his relation very courteously communicated 
 to me 6 : 
 
 " A parliemente member, a justice of peace, 
 At home a poor scare-crowe, at London an asse ; 
 If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
 Then Lucy is lowsie whatever befall it : 
 He thinks himself greate, 
 Yet an asse in his state, 
 We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate. 
 If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, 
 Sing lowsie Lucy, whatever befall it." 
 
 If tradition may be trusted, Shakspeare often 
 baited at the Crown Inn or tavern in Oxford, in 
 his journey to and from London. 7 The landlady 
 was a woman of great beauty and sprightly wit, 
 and her husband, Mr. John Davenant (afterwards 
 mayor of that city), a grave melancholy man, 
 who, as well as his wife, used much to delight in 
 Shakspeare's pleasant company. Their son, young 
 Will. Davenant (afterwards Sir William) was then 
 a little school-boy in the town 8 , of about seven or 
 eight years old, and so fond also of Shakspeare, 
 that whenever he heard of his arrival, he would 
 fly from school to see him. One day an old towns- 
 man observing the boy running homeward almost 
 
 6 According to Mr. Capell, this ballad came originally 
 from Mr. Thomas Jones, who lived at Tarbick, a village 
 about eighteen miles from Stratford- upon- Avon, and died 
 in 1703, aged upwards of ninety. Mr. Wilkes (adds Ma- 
 lone) grandson of the gentleman to whom Mr. Jones re- 
 peated this first stanza of the ballad, appears to have been 
 the person who gave a copy of it to Mr. Oldys and Mr. 
 Capell. " What is called a ' complete copy of the verses ' 
 contained in Malone's Shakspeare by Boswell, vol. ii. p. 
 565., is evidently not genuine." (Collier's Shakspeare, 
 ed. 1858, i. 70.) See also Halliwell's Shakspeare, p. 129, 
 130. ; and Malone's Shakspeare, by Boswell, ii. 140. 
 
 7 See Wood's Athena, Hi. 802. (Bliss) for the anecdote 
 of Shakspeare stopping at the Crown Inn, at Oxford. 
 
 8 He was born at Oxford in February, 1605-6, and on 
 the 3rd of March following, was baptized at St. Mar- 
 tin's Church, in which parish his father's house stood.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 45 
 
 out of breath, asked him whither he was posting 
 in that heat and hurry. He answered, To see his 
 god- father Shakspeare. "There is good boy," said 
 the other, "but have a care that you don't take 
 God's name in vain." This story Mr. Pope told 
 me at the Earl of Oxford's table, upon occasion 
 of some discourse which arose about Shakspeare's 
 monument, then newly erected in Westminster 
 Abbey ; and he quoted Mr. Betterton the player 
 for his authority. I answered, that I thought 
 such a story might have enriched the variety of 
 those choice fruits of observation he has presented 
 us in his Preface to the edition he had published 
 of our Poet's works. He replied, " There might 
 be iu the garden of mankind such plant* as would 
 seem to pride themselves more in a regular pro- 
 duction of their own native fruits, than in having 
 the repute of bearing a richer kind by grafting ; 
 and this was the reason he omitted it." 9 
 
 One of Shakspeare's younger brothers, who 
 lived to a good old age, even some years as E 
 compute, after the restoration of King Charles II., 
 would in his younger days come to London to 
 visit his brother Will, as he called him, and be a 
 
 9 Mr. Oldys might have added, that he was the person 
 who suggested to Mr. Pope the singular course which he 
 pursued in his edition of Shakspeare. " Remember," 
 says Oldys, in his annotated Langbaine, art. Shakspeare, 
 " what I observed to my Lord Oxford for Mr. Pope's use, 
 out of the Cowley's preface." See Cowley's Works, Pre- 
 face, p. 53. ed. 1710, 8vo., where he savs, " This has been 
 the case with Shakspeare, Fletcher, Jon son, and others, 
 part of whose poems I should presume to take the bold- 
 ness to prune and lap away, if the care of replanting them 
 in print did belong to me." Pope adopted this unwar- 
 rantable idea; striking out from the text of his author 
 whatever he did not like; and Cowley himself has suf- 
 fered a sort of poetical punishment for having suggested 
 it, the learned Bishop Hurd having pruned and lopped 
 away his beautiful luxuriances, as Pope, on Cowley'a 
 suggestion, did those of Shakspeare. Malone.
 
 46 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 spectator of him as an actor in some of his own 
 plays. This custom, as his brother's fame en- 
 larged, and his dramatick entertainments grew 
 the greatest support of our principal, if not of all 
 our theatres, he continued, it seems, ao long after 
 his brother's death, as even to the latter end of 
 his own life. The curiosity at this time of the 
 most noted actors [exciting them] to learn some- 
 thing from him of his brother, &c., they justly 
 held him in the highest veneration. And it may 
 be well believed, as there was besides a kinsman 
 and descendant of the family, who was then a 
 celebrated actor among them 10 , this opportunity 
 made them greedily inquisitive into every little 
 circumstance, more especially in his dramatick 
 character, which his brother could relate of him. 
 But he, it seems, was so stricken in years, and pos- 
 sibly his memory so weakened with infirmities 
 (which might make him the easier pass for a man 
 of weak intellects), that he could give them but 
 little light into their inquiries ; and all that could 
 be recollected from him of his brother Will in 
 that station was, the faint, general, and almost 
 lost ideas he had of having once seen him act a 
 part in one of his own comedies, wherein being to 
 personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long 
 beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and 
 unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported 
 and carried by another person to a table, at which 
 he was seated among some company, who were 
 eating, and one of them sung a song. 1 
 
 Verses by Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, occa- 
 
 10 Charles Hart, the actor, was born about the year 
 1630, and died in August, 1683. If he was a grandson of 
 Shakspeare's sister, he was probably the son of Michael 
 Hart, her youngest son. Malone. 
 
 1 See the character of Adam in As You like it, Act II. 
 Sc. vlt.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 47 
 
 sioned by the motto to the Globe Theatre Totus 
 mundus agit histrionem : 
 
 Jonson. 
 
 " If, but stage actors, all the world displays, 
 Where shall we find spectators of their plays? " 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 " Little, or much, of what we see, we do ; 
 We are all both actors and spectators too." 
 
 Poetical Characteristic's, 8vo. MS. vol. i., some- 
 time in the Harleian library ; which volume was 
 returned to its owner. 
 
 Old Mr. Bowman, the player, reported from 
 Sir William Bishop, that some part of Sir John 
 FalstafTs character was drawn from a townsman 
 of Stratford, who either faithlessly broke a con- 
 tract, or spitefully refused to part with some land 
 for a valuable consideration, adjoining to Shak- 
 speare's, in or near that town. 
 
 King James the First honoured Shakspeare 
 with an epistolary correspondence ; and I think 
 Sir William D'Avenant had either seen or was 
 possessed of his Majesty's letter to him. See Pre- 
 face to Lintot's edition of his Poems? 
 
 A probable computation of the thousands of 
 people of both sexes whom Shakspeare's Plays 
 
 2 At the conclusion of the advertisement prefixed to 
 Lintot's edition of Shakspeare's Poems, it is said, " That 
 most learned prince, and great patron of learning, King 
 James the First, was pleased with his own hand to write 
 an amicable letter to Mr. Shakspeare; which letter, 
 though now lost, remained long in the hands of Sir Wil- 
 liam D'Avenant, as a credible person now living can 
 testify." Mr. Oldys, in a manuscript note to his copy of 
 Fuller's Worthies, observes, that " the story came from 
 the Duke of Buckingham, who had it from Sir William 
 D'Avenant." Dr. Farmer, with great probability, sup- 
 poses that this letter was written by King James in re- 
 turn for the compliment paid to him in Macbeth. The 
 relater of this anecdote was Sheffield, Duke of Bucking- 
 ham. Malone.
 
 48 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDY3. 
 
 have maintained to this day, would appear in- 
 credible to anyone who did not maturely con- 
 sider it. 
 
 ATKYNS'S GLOUCESTERSHIRE. There was copy 
 enough for two large volumes in folio, though we 
 have but one. The original manuscript of the 
 second volume, together with many printed copies 
 of the first, being all accidentally burnt in the 
 fire that happened at Mr. Bowyer's house [Jan. 
 29, 1712-13], in which the first volume was 
 printed, and the second was at the press. 3 
 
 BEHN. See my account of her Life in the 
 parchment volume, 4to., also in the General Dic- 
 tionary ; and now by Parson Broughton, in Biog. 
 Britannica, 1746. See several of her Posthumous 
 Poems in the Muses' Mercury, or Monthly Mis- 
 cellany, 4to. 1707, which have not been taken no- 
 tice of in any account of her. 
 
 Mrs. Behn translated one of the books of Cow- 
 ley's Latin poem on Plants. In this translation, 
 when she comes to Daphne, who was turned into 
 the Bay-tree, she makes the following insertion of 
 her own : 
 
 " I, by a double right, thy bounties claim, 
 Both from my sex, and in Apollo's name. 
 Let me with Sappho and Orinda be, 'I 
 
 Oh ever sacred nymph, adorned by thee, > 
 And give my verses immortality." 
 
 See what Tate in his Preface, and Dryden says 
 of her, and Capt. Alexander RadclifF in my Life 
 of her and Prior. About a dozen lines against 
 her in the Satire on Translators, first printed in 
 
 5 The plates of Atkyns's Gloucestershire, except two 
 or three, having escaped the fire of Mr. Bowyer's printing- 
 office in White Friars, the work was republished in 1768 
 by Win. Herbert, the editor of Ames's Typog. Antiquities ; 
 but by a singular fatality, a great part of this second 
 edition was also destroyed bv fire. Nichols's Lit. Anec. 
 v. 266.)
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 49 
 
 the State Poems [4to. 1689], then in R. Cross's 
 Collection of Poems, p. 74. 8vo. 1747. Southerne's 
 acknowledgments to her in his Life in the General 
 Dictionary; and Burnet's character of her in the 
 Vol. x. in the account of Mrs. Wharton. Lord 
 Lansdowne has a poem on her. 
 
 As to Mrs. Behn's character, it is allowed that 
 she was of a capacity above most of her sex who 
 have obliged the public. She had a ready com- 
 mand of pertinent expressions, and was of a 
 fancy pregnant and fluent : whence it is that she 
 wrote with a facility, spirit, and warmth, espe- 
 cially in amorous subjects, superior to every 
 other poetess of the age, and many of the poets 
 too ; so that none among us may, perhaps, more 
 justly be called the ENGLISH SAPPHO, equalling 
 her either for description, or perhaps experience, 
 in the flames of love, and excelling in her per- 
 sonal temptation to it; being a graceful comely 
 woman, with brown hair, and a piercing eye, as 
 one picture represents her whether the same 
 painted by Mr. Riley I am not positive. 4 I am 
 told, moreover, by one who knew her, that she 
 had a happy vein in determining any disputes 
 qr controversies that might arise in company ; 
 having such agreeable repartees at hand upon all 
 occasions, and so much discretion in the timing 
 of them, that she played them off like winning 
 cards. Mrs. Behn was between forty and fifty 
 years of age at the time of her death, which was 
 hastened by an injudicious physician. 
 
 John Downes, the prompter, in his Roscius 
 Anglicanus, 8vo. 1708, says, Mrs. Behn wrote also 
 The Jealous Bridegroom about 1672, a good play, 
 which lasted six nights ; and that Mr. Otway first 
 
 4 Pope has the following couplet on her dramatic 
 writings : 
 
 " The stage how loosely does Astrea tread, 
 Who fairly puts all characters to bed."
 
 50 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM 01DYS. 
 
 tried to act on the stage the King's part in this 
 play, but the great audience dashed him and 
 spoiled him for an actor ; and that Nat. Lee hav- 
 ing the same fate in acting Duncan in Macbeth, 
 ruined him for a performer also, and from that 
 time their genius set them upon poetry. 
 
 Old Mr. John Bowman, the player, toid me that 
 Mrs. Behn was the first person he ever knew or 
 heard of, who made the liquor called Milk Punch. 
 
 Langbaine, in his notice of Mrs. Behn's tragi- 
 comedy Widow Ranter, or the History of Bacon 
 in Virginia, 1690, remarks " For the story of Ba- 
 con I know no history that relates it; but his 
 catastrophe is founded on the known story of 
 Cassius, who perished by the hand of his freed- 
 man Dandorus, believing his friend Brutus van- 
 quished." Oldys adds, " There was an insurrec- 
 tion in Virginia a little before, made by one 
 Nathaniel Bacon, a great opposer of the royal 
 party there, in conjunction with one Drummond 
 a Scot, and among others. 5 Bacon died there in 
 1675, as near as I can compute, or 1676, as others; 
 and his accomplices being routed and subdued by 
 the royal party, thirteen of them were hanged, 
 some say eighteen.' There were two or three 
 pamphlets published on the subject, one called 
 ' Strange News from Virginia ; being a relation 
 of all occurrences in that Country since the 
 Death of Nathaniel Bacon : with an Account of 
 thirteen persons tried and executed for their Re- 
 bellion there, 4to. 1676.' The account in this 
 pamphlet is extracted from a letter written by 
 Sir John Burrey, the admiral who transported 
 some soldiers thither. He arrived there on the 
 29th of January, and says that Bacon had been 
 
 5 The whole of the narrative connected with this affair 
 of Bacon is preserved in one thick volume in Her Ma- 
 jesty's State Paper Office, London. There are besides, in 
 the same office, a variety of scattered papers relative to 
 the same subject.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILUAM OLDTS. 51 
 
 dead two months before. Query, if the Bacon 
 before mentioned was not that Nat. Bacon of 
 Gray's Inn 6 , who in 1647 and 1651, published 
 his two volumes, 4to. of The Historical Discourse 
 on the Government of England, in which he was 
 blackened. It has been twice reprinted in folio ; 
 and it is said Mr. Selden assisted him in it ; but 
 I think that does not evidently appear. See 
 Bishop Nicolson's descriptive character of this 
 book [English Hist. Library, p. 193., ed. 1736.] 
 Old Mr. Nathaniel Booth of Gray's Inn has as- 
 sured me, that this Nathaniel Bacon did go over 
 to Virginia ; but he could not remember what he 
 had heard he did there. See more in my Cata- 
 logue of English Lives, fol., in the notes, &c." 7 
 
 ELDERTON. This Elderton was a famous come- 
 dian, who flourished about 1570 ; a facetious 
 fuddling companion, who, having a great readi- 
 ness at rhyming, composed abundance of sonnets 
 and catches upon love and wine, which were then 
 in great vogue among the light and merry part of 
 the town ; but he was not more notable for his 
 drollery and his doggrel than he was for his drink- 
 ing, insomuch that he was seldom remembered for 
 his singular faculty in either of the former, but his 
 thorough practice in the latter was joined to it. 
 Wherefore we find him called the Bacchanalian 
 
 6 Or his son, for the insurgent is called in The History 
 of the American Plantations, 2 vols. 8vo., Nat. Bacon, 
 jun. and Col. Bacon, a young sprightly man, who had 
 been a lawyer too. Oldys. 
 
 7 For biographical notices of Mrs. Behn consult the 
 History of her Life and Manners, written by One of the 
 Fair Sex, prefixed to her Histories and Novels, 2 vols. 
 1 JUKI. 1735 ; Kippis's Biog. Britannica ; Langbaine's Ac- 
 count of Dramat li Poets, p. 17., ed. 1691; Gibber's Lives 
 of the Poets, iii. 17; Freeman's Kentish Poets; Retrospec- 
 tive Rev., 1853, i. 1 18. ; Nichols's Poems, i. 85. ; Geneste's 
 Hist, of Hie Stage, ii. 79. ; and "N. & Q." 1" S. xi. 184. ; 
 2< S. viii. 265. ; ix. 242. 
 
 F2
 
 52 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDY8. 
 
 Buffoon, the red-nosed ballad-maker, and such 
 like. It seems by this excessive habit he indulged 
 himself in, over his strong drink, that he fell a 
 martyr to Sir John Barleycorn, as some of his 
 contemporary writers have hinted. See the con- 
 troversial writings of Dr. G. Harvey and Thomas 
 Nash. We find he was dead before the year 
 1592, and Mr. Camden has preserved this epitaph 
 on him : 
 
 " Hie situs est sitiens, atque ebrius Eldertonus, 
 Quid dice, hie situs est? hie potius sitis est." 
 
 Remains, p. 382, 4to. 1614. 
 
 Which may be thus rendered or imitated : 
 
 Dead drank here Elder-ton doth lie ; 
 Dead as he is, he still is dry : 
 So of him it may well be said, 
 Here lie, but not his thirst, is laid. 8 
 
 FABIAN. Fabian wrote a continuation of his 
 Chronicle, probably to his own death, which was 
 in the custody of John Stow, and unprinted in 
 1600. 9 Out of this unprinted part, Hackluyt 
 
 8 Stow says (Survey, p. 217., 4to. 1599) that Elderton 
 was an attorney of the sheriffs' court in the city of Lon- 
 don about the year 1570, and quotes some verses which 
 he wrote about that time, on the erection of the new por- 
 tico with images at Guildhall. Warton thinks the fol- 
 lowing lines by -Bishop Hall in his Satires were levelled 
 at Elderton : 
 
 " Some drunken rimer thinks his time well spent, 
 If he can live to see his name in print ; 
 Who when he once is fleshed to the presse, 
 And sees his handsell have such fair successe, 
 Sung to the wheele, and sung unto the payle, 
 He sends forth thraves of ballads to the sale." 
 
 For notices of Elderton, see Ritson's Bibliographica 
 Poetica, p. 198., ed. 1802; Warton's History of English 
 Poetry, iii. 431., ed. 1840 ; Hall's Satires, by Singer, p. 
 114.; Harleian Miscellany, by Park, x. 266274.; and 
 Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, i. 88, 89. 
 
 9 Stow, in the collections which he made for his Survey, 
 speaks of a Continuation by Fabian himself, as low as the
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 53 
 
 cites a note of Sebastian Cabot's discoveries, anno 
 13 Hen. VII. ; but the first edition I have seen 
 continues the History, as I remember, to 1509, 
 and that was printed in 1533 10 [2 vols. fol.], and 
 Fabian died in 1512. Of Fabian, and the edi- 
 tions of his History, see Tyrrell's Preface ; Hearne's 
 Preface to Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, p. 
 32. ; Strype in Abp. Parkers Life, p. 235. ; and 
 what I have said in my Fuller's Worthies* 
 
 MILTOX. Remember my dates of all his works 
 at the end of his Life by E. Philips ; and what I 
 have observed in Toland's Life of him, and Bayle's 
 observation on his style. See one of Mist's Jour- 
 nals upon him [Toland] and his Amintas, and the 
 Answer. 
 
 third year of Henry VIII., "which Boke (he adds) I 
 have in writen hand." (MS. Harl. 538.) It is not im- 
 probable, as Sir Henry Ellis conjectures, that it might 
 have gone from Stow's Collection to Sir Robert Cotton's. 
 
 10 The edition of 1533 was the second : the first edition 
 was printed by Richarde Pynson in 1516. In the Gren- 
 ville library are two copies of the third edition, 1559. 
 One of the copies contains the following MS. note : " It 
 has not, as far as I know, been noticed, that two editions 
 of this Chronicle were printed in the same year by Kyng- 
 ston. The present copy contains matter respecting 
 Queen Elizabeth at p. 566 to the end, wjiich is not to be 
 found in the copies of usual occurrence." The other copy 
 [No. II.] appears to agree with the preceding to page 565. 
 Pages 566 to the end of 571 differ in the relation of the 
 death of Queen Mary, which in the first is stated to have 
 taken place on the XVII. of December, 1558, and in this 
 copy the XVII. of November is named. The former edi- 
 tion terminates with the coronation of Elizabeth on the 
 15th of January, and the printing of th8 book is stated 
 to have been finished on the 26th of April, 1559. The 
 last event mentioned in this copy is the Queen's riding 
 to the Parliament on the 8th of May, though the title- 
 page mentions " Mense Aprilis," as in the former edition. 
 
 A valuable bibliographical account of Fabian's Chro- 
 nicle is prefixed to the quarto edition of 1811, edited by Sir 
 Henry Ellis. 
 
 F3
 
 54 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDTS. 
 
 See my pamphlet containing the castration of 
 his [Milton's ?] History. His own observations on 
 himself. See my Universal Spectator on his Spirit 
 of Liberty ; and the pamphlet written against him, 
 called No Blind Guides*, &c., and the verses in 
 MS. which I found at the end of another old 
 pamphlet, where I have mentioned the Psalm 
 which Milton, or his father,- set to music. Peck's 
 Life and Works, fyc., 1740. Wm. Benson's erect- 
 ing of his monument ; settling 1000Z. for trans- 
 lating his Paradise Lost into Latin on young 
 Dobson the interest while he was doing it, and 
 the principal when done. 
 
 Milton's cipher for secret communication, with 
 others used by the republicans under Oliver, I 
 had among the Royal Letters in Clarendon's col- 
 lections which I redeemed from perdition, and 
 presented to my late noble Lord of Oxford, and 
 they are still preserved in the Harleian library : 
 but God knows how soon that magnificent collec- 
 tion of Manuscripts may undergo the same dis- 
 persion as the printed books, which were sold to 
 Tom Osborne my neighbour for less than 13,0002., 
 though the binding only of the least part of them 
 by his Lordship, cost him 18,OOOZ. 
 
 A Verbal Index to Milton's Paradise Lost was 
 published by Mr. Coxeter in 12 mo., 1741, printed 
 for Innis and Brown. 
 
 Lauder is now writing a book to prove Milton 
 a plagiary. He begun in one of the Magazines. 
 See an answer in Mag. Feb. 1749, and Dr. Kirk- 
 patrick in The Sea Piece, 8vo., 1750, Preface. 
 See also a pamphlet published against Lauder, 
 called Miltonomastix. See also, Furius: or a 
 Modest Attempt towards an History of the Life and 
 Surprising Exploits of the famous W. L., Critick 
 and Thief-catcher, 8vo., 1748. 3 
 
 * By Sir Roger L'Estrange, published in 1660. 
 
 3 Lauder was discovered to have forged most of his
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 55 
 
 SUCKLING. The largest account of Sir John 
 Suckling is in Lloyd's Memoirs, being near six 
 pages in folio, and not a dozen lines of solid his- 
 tory. The whole beginning is a chain of hyper- 
 boles, and the whole life may serve to feed the 
 eyes with a full meal of words, and leave the mind 
 quite hungry for the subject matter. My ac- 
 count of him much more complete in the quarto 
 volume of Lives, parchment cover. See also the 
 references in my Fuller's Worthies and Winstanley. 
 He was patron to Thomas Nabbes, the dramatic 
 poet, who dedicated his comedy, Covent Garden, 
 to him, acted in 1632, printed in 4to. 1638. At 
 Theobald's, 19th Dec. 1630, Sir John Suckling of 
 Witham knighted. (Thos. Walkley's Cat. of 
 Dukes, if-c., 8vo. 1639.) 
 
 Recollect where I have set down the story my 
 Lord Oxford told me he had from Dean Chet- 
 wood, who had it from Lord Roscommon, of Sir 
 John Suckling's being robbed of a casket of jewels 
 and gold when he was going to France -by his 
 valet, who I think poisoned him, and stuck the 
 blade of a penknife in Sir John's boot to prevent 
 his pursuit of him, and wounded him incurably in 
 the heel besides. 4 It is in one of my pocket-books, 
 white vellum cover the white journal that is not 
 gilt. 
 
 Remember the MS. account I have about Sir 
 John Suckling's being beaten by Mr. Digby his 
 rival. 5 See the lampoon on him in the pamphlets 
 
 parallels, or to have taken them from Hog's Latin ver- 
 sion of Milton's poem by Dr. Douglas, now [1764] Canon 
 of Windsor. Percy. Furius was written by Henderson, 
 a bookseller. 
 
 4 Suckling was robbed by his valet-de-chambre, and 
 putting on his boot in a passionate hurry to pursue the 
 thief, a rusty nail concealed at the bottom of one of them 
 pierced his heel, and brought on a mortification, of which 
 he died. Warton on Pope, ii. 109. 
 
 8 For the particulars of this cudgelling, see the Straf- 
 forde Letters, 1739, i. 336.
 
 56 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 
 
 on the Scots' expedition in Morgan's Phoenix Bri- 
 tannicus. Query, if it is not in his tragedy The Sad 
 One, that I remarked a passage in ridicule of Ben 
 Jonson. In The Tryal of Skill, or New Session 
 of the Poets, fol. 1704, Suckling accuses Thomas 
 Cheek with having murdered his goblins in every 
 page. 
 
 Sir John Suckling has verses before Coryat's 
 Crudities, 4to., 1611. 
 
 A Letter concerning a Married Life, subscribed 
 John Suckling, London, Nov. 18, 1629, in the 
 Ashmolean Library, Oxon. 
 
 Sir John Suckling's Letter to Mr. Henry Ger- 
 min, 1640, a manuscript among the Collection of 
 Poems of Thomas Brotherton of Hey in Lan- 
 cashire. 
 
 An Elegy upon the Death of the Renowned Sir 
 John Sutlin, 4to., 1642, with another short poem 
 "To Sir John Sutlin upon Aglaura." First a 
 bloody tragedy, then by the said Sir John turned 
 to a comedy. These poems are in one short 4to., 
 but to the copy before me is written " Authore 
 Gulielmo Norris." 
 
 See Thomas Stanley's Poems, 8vo., 1651, on Sir 
 John Suckling's Picture of Poems. On Sir John 
 Suckling's Warlike Preparations for the Scottish 
 War, in Sir John Mennis's Musarum Delicice. 
 Also, in Anthony Hammond's Miscellany of Poems, 
 8vo., 1720. Another Poem, pretended to be writ 
 from France by Sir John Suckling, 4to., 1641. 
 The Conversion of Sir John Suckling from a 
 Papist to a Protestant, 4to., 164 1. 8 
 
 JOHN TBUSSEL. Both Bishop Nicolson and 
 
 6 The best account of Sir John Suckling is in the Life 
 prefixed to Selections from his Works, by the Rev. Alfred 
 Suckling, 8vo., 1836. The whole of Sir John Suckling's 
 Works, containing his Poems, Letters, and Plays, were 
 published several times by Tonson; and ia two neat 
 volumes by T. Davies, 1770.
 
 CHOICE NOTES BY WILLIAM OLDYS. 57 
 
 Dr. Kennet seem very censorious in their account 
 of John Trussel's Description of the City of Win- 
 chester, neither of them appearing to have ever 
 seen it; nor even Anthony Wood, from whom 
 their intelligence is derived. For it is a manu- 
 script in the Norfolcian library, and seems not, 
 in a folio volume as it is, too voluminous for the 
 description of such a city, considering there is a 
 preamble on the origin of cities in general also 
 before it. 7 
 
 7 Besides the MS. in the Norfolcian library, Gough 
 (British Topog., i. 387.) states that " in a catalogue of 
 the famous Robert Smith's books, sold by auction 1682, 
 No. 24., was a MS. entitled ' A Description of the City 
 of Winchester, with an historical relation of divers me- 
 morable occurrences touching the same ; and prefixed to 
 it, a preamble of the original of Cities in general, by J. 
 Trnssel,' fol., which was purchased by a Mr. Rothwell." 
 This MS., written by Trussel about 1620, was in the 
 library of John Duthy, Esq., who permitted Dr. Milner 
 to make extracts from it for his History and Antiquities 
 of Winchester, 4tO., 1801.
 
 58 
 
 LONDON LIBRAKIES. 
 
 [The following interesting notices of the London Li- 
 braries at the commencement of the last century must be 
 considered as the joint-production of John Bagford and 
 William Old ys names dear to every literary antiquary. 
 At the death of William Oldys on the 15th of April, 1761, 
 his printed books and manuscripts were purchased by 
 Thomas Davies the bookseller, in whose Catalogue of 
 April 12, 1762, this manuscript is entered as No. 3613, 
 and entitled, " Of London Libraries : with Anecdotes of 
 Collectors of Books, Remarks on Booksellers, and on the 
 first Publishers of Catalogues," 4to. That a work bearing 
 so alluring a title from the pen of William Oldys should 
 awaken the curiosity of bibliographers is what might 
 be expected. Mr. Bolton Corney informs us, that " Mr. 
 Heber, whose copy of [Davies's] Catalogue of 1762 lies 
 before me, has marked this article with N.B. N.B. It 
 evidently set him on the gui vive." (Curiosities of Litera- 
 ture Illustrated, second edition, p. 169.) Mr. John Fry, 
 too, in a note to this article copied from Davies's Cata- 
 logue, in his Bibliographical Memoranda, 4to. 1816, p. 37., 
 adds, " This must be a curious article ; Query. In whose 
 possession is it ? " 
 
 The manuscript now before us, however, does not fully 
 correspond in contents with those set forth in the title-page 
 advertised by Davies, as the last two topics are unnoticed ; 
 so that we may have only a portion of a larger work left 
 incomplete by our assiduous antiquary. Nevertheless, in 
 the account of the London Libraries now presented to 
 our readers, Oldys has thrown open, not merely " to stu- 
 dents and carious persons," as the charter of the British 
 Museum has it, but to the public at large, the inexhaus-
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 59 
 
 tible treasures contained within them, and as such his 
 work will be acceptable to every student engaged in bio- 
 graphical and historical researches. 
 
 The history of this literary relic is soon told. It was 
 commenced by the ingenious John Bagford, whose first 
 rough and incomplete draft is among his Collectanea in the 
 Harl. MS. 5900, foL 44., and was printed in The Monthly 
 Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious, ii. 167., 4to., 1708. 
 Bagford died at Islington on May 15, 1716, aged sixty- 
 five. Oldys availed himself of the fugitive collections of 
 this industrious bookseller, or rather book-broker, and 
 from his extensive acquaintance with the literary trea- 
 sures of the metropolis, was better qualified to carry out 
 the object proposed by his more humble precursor. Dr. 
 William Hunter became the fortunate possessor of Oldys's 
 manuscript, as it was discovered in his Museum, now 
 belonging to the University of Glasgow. We are in- 
 debted to the kindness of His Grace the Duke of Argyle 
 for securing us the opportunity of giving it publicity ; 
 as also to the Rev. Principal Barclay for his assistance, 
 and to the Curator of the Museum, Dr. Rogers: the 
 latter gentleman having been at considerable pains to 
 procure us a Transcript of the MS., and then adding to 
 his kindness by collating it with the original.] 
 
 The learned and ingenious men of all countries 
 are apt to inquire wherever they go after the re- 
 positories of learning and ingenuity ; and not only 
 content themselves with what they moot of it 
 among the living, but must be satisfied also with 
 what testimonies thereof has been left by the 
 dead. 
 
 Yet foreign nations have the art of representing 
 more considerably their treasures of this kind 
 than we have, and indeed they appear so to the 
 eye, though, setting aside the greater pomp and 
 parade of their books, England may produce as 
 many that are learnedly and solidly written, per- 
 haps as that magazine of arts may, Rome itself. 
 
 London and Westminster are well stored not
 
 60 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 only with printed books, but manuscript records, 
 and other muniments of great antiquity, besides 
 statues, models, paintings, and all other curiosities 
 both in Art and Nature, though we are not so 
 ostentatious, as I said, of them, have not the 
 talent of magnifying them so much as some of 
 our neighbours have. 
 
 TOWER OF LONDON. Of our Public Records 
 in the Tower, those which are particularly in 
 Wakefield Tower, are in great number, and well 
 worth the inspection of the curious. They have 
 of late had a due regard paid to them ; have been 
 now modelled and digested, and reposited in cases. 1 
 In the White Tower are vast number of records 
 relating to Monasteries, &c., several letters of 
 Kings, Princes, Dukes, &c., from several parts of 
 the world, as Tartary, Barbary, Spain, France, 
 Italy, &c., to our Kings in England, also restored 
 very conveniently to order and method. The 
 building itself was a chapel of the palace, and is a 
 very uncommon sort of structure, and by the late 
 Queen's liberality rendered both useful and orna- 
 mental. 
 
 CHAPTER HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. In the Ex- 
 chequer at Westminster, the Records were lately 
 in the custody of the Lord Treasurer. There are 
 the two most ancient books in this kingdom, made 
 in William the Conqueror's time, called the Dooms- 
 day Books ; the one in quarto containing the De- 
 scription or Survey of Essex, Norfolk, and Suf- 
 folk ; the other, in folio, being the same for all the 
 shires in England, from Cornwall to the River 
 
 1 In 1703, Queen Anne appointed that proper care 
 should be taken to provide a convenient and safe place 
 for depositing all the Records in this Tower, and a suffi- 
 cient number of clerks to clean, sort, digest, &c., the same, 
 under the inspection of William Petyt, Esq.
 
 LONDON LIBRAEIES. 61 
 
 Tyne, well worth the notice. 2 There are also 
 many other ancient and rare Records, as Pow'ell 
 in his Repertory 3 , Prynne, Cotton, and above all, 
 the seventeen volumes of Rymer's Fcedera, suffi- 
 ciently evidence. 4 
 
 The Parliament Rolls are in an old stone 
 tower in the Old Palace Yard, Westminster, and 
 the Papers of State, from the beginning of Henry 
 VIII. to this time, are kept in the fine built gate 
 as you go through to the Cockpit, and is called the 
 
 2 A very carefully-executed lithographic facsimile of 
 so much of Domesday Book as relates to the count}' of 
 Kent is in the course of preparation by Mr. Netherclift. 
 It will be accompanied by a translation and illustrative 
 notes by the Rev. L. B. Larking, from whose vast know- 
 ledge of all that relates to the History of Kent, much 
 valuable light will assuredly be thrown upon the nature 
 of this invaluable national record. That portion which 
 relates to Cornwall has lately been copied and printed by 
 photozincography by Colonel Sir Henry James, R.E., by 
 order of Her Majesty's Government; and may be pro- 
 cured of any bookseller for a few shillings. 
 
 3 " Repository of Records remaining in the Four Trea- 
 suries on the Receipt side at Westminster, the two* 
 Remembrancers of the Exchequer ; with a Brief Intro- 
 ductory Index of the Records in the Chancery and Tower ; 
 in which is contained whatsoever may give satisfaction 
 to the searcher for tenure or title in anything." By 
 Robert Powell. London, 1634, 4to. Rymer's Fcedera, 
 edited by George Holmes, makes 20 vols. fol. 1727 
 1735. 
 
 * The Chapter House is situated on the south-east side 
 of Westminster Abbey, immediately adjoining the en- 
 trance to Poets' Corner. It contained muniments of the 
 most valuable, but miscellaneous nature. In 1807, the 
 Record Commission ordered an Inventory to be made 
 of them. Three copies only were taken of it; one of 
 them, with coloured drawings of the building, is at the 
 British Museum, Addit, MS. 8977. Sir Harris Nicolas 
 made an abstract of the Alphabetical Index, which he 
 printed in the Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1830, p. 118. See also 
 Thomas's Hand-Booh of the Records, pp. 287-297. The 
 documents have recently been transferred to the Rolls 
 Office, Chancery Lane.
 
 62 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 Paper Office. It was built by Henry VIII., and 
 is one of the most curious pieces of workmanship 
 in Europe for flint work, and it is reported that 
 Hans Holbein was the architect. 5 Dr. Forbes is 
 now collecting all the State Papers here relating 
 to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in order to pub- 
 lish them in several volumes in folio. 6 
 
 COTTONIAN LIBRARY. Sir Robert Cotton's Li- 
 brary of Manuscripts, founded by himself,the fruits 
 of forty years' inquiry, expense, interest, and assist- 
 ance, bequeathed through Act of Parliament for 
 the public benefit. They are gathered into about 
 1000 great volumes, and reposited in fourteen 
 wainscot presses under the distinction of the twelve 
 Caesars, and of Cleopatra and Faustina. They 
 are now in Lord Ashburnham's house 7 by the 
 
 5 For views of Holbein's gate, Whitehall, see Vetusta 
 Monumenta; Londina Illustrata; Smith's Westminster; 
 and Dodsley's London. When Strype drew up his addi- 
 tions to Stow, the uppermost room, in Holbein's gateway, 
 was used as the State Paper Office. (Book vi. p. 5.) 
 
 6 A. Full View of the Public Transactions in the Reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. By Patrick Forbes, M.D. Lond. 1740-1., 
 fol. 2 vols. A series of letters and other papers of state, 
 written by Queen Elizabeth and her principal ministers, 
 and by the foreign princes and ministers with whom she 
 had negociations, illustrated with facsimile autographs. 
 Are these the earliest facsimiles published in England ? 
 See Ayscough's Catalogue, p. "J9. f for a list of Dr. Forbes's 
 papers in the British Museum. 
 
 7 The Cottonian library was deposited in Ashburnbam 
 House in 1730. On the 23rd Oct. 1731, a fire broke out 
 and consumed a portion of the collection. The MSS. of 
 the Royal and Cottonian libraries at this time were in 
 the same room above the one where the fire commenced. 
 At the first alarm, Mr. Casley took care to remove the 
 famous Alexandrian MS. in the Royal Collection, and 
 now in the British Museum, Royal MS. 1 D. v. viii. 4to. 
 From " A Report of the Committee appointed to View 
 the Cottonian Library," Lond. 1732, fol., it appears that 
 " the number of manuscript volumes contained in the li- 
 brary before the fire was 958 ; of which are lost, burnt, or
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 63 
 
 Abbey at Westminster, and ten rings of MSS. in 
 same room with them, as his library of printed 
 books are in the next, whereof Dr. Bentley 8 is 
 keeper at the salary of 200Z. per an., and Mr. 
 Casley 9 under-keeper. This Cottonian library 
 has been, and not improperly, called the English 
 Vatican, though the Pope's conclave made some 
 endeavours, after the foundation, 1631 10 , to incor- 
 porate it with that of Rome. It is the grand re- 
 pository to which our Antiquaries and Historians 
 have had access, to their great improvement and 
 elucidation, and the facility of this access has 
 greatly advanced the credit and use of it. 
 
 " Oranis ab illo 
 
 Et Camdene tua, et Seldeni gloria crevit." l 
 [" Camden to him, to him doth Selden, owe 
 
 Their glory : what they got from him did grow."] 
 
 entirely spoiled, 1 14 ; and damaged 98 : so that the said 
 library, at present, consists of 746 entire volumes, and 68 
 defective ones." Mr. Sims, in his Hand-Book to the Li- 
 brary of the British Museum, states, that "since 1842 one 
 hundred volumes written upon vellum, and ninety-seven 
 upon paper, have been restored under the directions of Sir 
 Frederic Madden." 
 
 8 Dr. Richard Bentley, the celebrated critic and classic 
 of Phalaris celebrity, succeeded Mr. Justel as Keeper of 
 the Royal Library at St. James's on Dec. 23, 1693. Ob. 
 July 14, 1742. In Addit. MS. 4696. (Brit. Mus.) is a 
 Schedule of all the MSS., parchments, written records, 
 and other memorials, and of the coins, medals, and other 
 rarities contained in the Cottonian library, made by Dr. 
 Richard Bentley the 10th of May, 1718. 
 
 9 Mr. David Casley drew up "A Catalogue of the 
 Manuscripts of the King's Library ; an Appendix to the 
 Catalogue of the Cottonian Library, together with an Ac- 
 count of Books burnt or damaged by a late fire," &c. 
 Lond. 1734, 4to. 
 
 J0 Sir Robert Cotton commenced his splendid collection 
 in 1588 ; was knighted 1603 ; created a baronet 1611 ; and 
 died in May, 1631, his death being hastened by the loss 
 of his library, which had been twice taken possession of 
 by government. 
 
 1 Weever's Funeral Monuments, Preface. 
 o 2
 
 64 10NDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 It consists of ancient MSS. in Divinity, His- 
 tory, and especially relating to English History, 
 ecclesiastical and civil : " in so much, that the 
 fountains have been fain to fetch water from the 
 stream," says Fuller ; " and the secretaries of state 
 and clerks of the council glad from hence to bor- 
 row back again many originals which, being lost 
 by casualty or negligence of officers, had been 
 neglected" to be recovered to their proper re- 
 positories when some danger of fire or necessity 
 of repairs, &c., I have heard, had removed them 
 for protection to this known preserver of such 
 instructive curiosities, with many ancient Saxon 
 Charters, coins, &c. 2 
 
 In the drawers are many choice Roman anti- 
 quities not mentioned in Dr. Smith's Catalogue 3 : 
 as a brass image, fibulas, lamps, rings, seals, 
 weapons, and other great rarities, taken notice of 
 by very few who have seen that place. There are 
 many old reliques which belonged to the Monas- 
 teries here in England before the Dissolution. 
 Amongst others, the claw of a griffin with a silver 
 hoop, on the great end of it a Saxon inscription ; 
 but I take it rather to be the horn of some animal. 
 There is an old painted altar that belonged to the 
 Monastery of Great Saint Bartholomew, London ; 
 some pictures of the Kings of England (also of 
 Camden, Spelman, Attwood, Ben Jonson, &c.) on 
 
 2 Vide Nicolson's Preface to Part III. of his Historical 
 Libraries; Letters of Journey through England [by Paul 
 Hentzner, ed. 1757, p. 30.]; Fuller's Worthies; Life of 
 Sir Robert Cotton [by Dr. Thomas Smith?]; and The 
 Present State of the Cotton Library ffol. 1732.]. Oldys. 
 
 3 Dr. Thomas Smith, Fellow of Magdalen College, 
 Oxford, compiled a Catalogue of this library, entitled 
 " Catalogus Librorum MSS. Bibliotherse Cottonianae, etc. 
 Scriptore Thoma Smitho, Eccles. Anglicans Presbytero." 
 Oxon. 1696, fol. It is valuable as affording a clue to the 
 identification of the burnt manuscripts. The Catalogue 
 at present in use was prepared by Joseph Planta, Esq., 
 fol. 1802.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 65 
 
 board, the oldest I have seen. There is a large 
 book with several excellent designs for the En- 
 trance of Henry VIII. 4 I shall leave the descrip- 
 tion of these most excellent MSS., as to their 
 antiquity, illuminations, curious writing, purport, 
 &c., to a more able performer. Had the late Mr. 
 Humphrey Wanley 5 had encouragement he could 
 have exhibited this library to the world with as 
 much advantages as Lambecius has done the 
 Emperor's at Vienna. 6 The ancient Genesis there 
 deserves a particular description. 7 It is in all 
 probability one of the rarest manuscripts in the 
 world, and as old as any : it is in Greek capitals 
 with figures, and well worthy the regard of the 
 most curious. The place where those jewels were 
 reposited, before the last removal, is the remain- 
 ing part of the palace of St. Edward, the King ; 
 and one of the oldest structures of those times. 8 
 
 * " Designs for interviews in the time of Henry VIII." 
 BagforcCsMS. 
 
 5 In the year 1701, Humphrey Wanley, Matthew Hut- 
 ton, and John Anstis, three eminent antiquaries, were 
 appointed to examine carefully into the state of the Cot- 
 tonian Library. Their report, dated June 22, 1703, is 
 extant in manuscript, prefixed to a copy of Dr. Thomas 
 Smith's Catalogue of the Cott. MSS. in the King's library 
 at the British Museum, which also contains Wanley's MS. 
 Catalogue of the Charters in the Cottonian collection. 
 
 6 Peter Lambecius, a learned bibliographer, was born 
 in 1628, and died in 1680. His great Catalogue of the 
 imperial library was published in 8 vols. fol. from 1665 to 
 1679, under the title of Commentariorum de auguslissima 
 Bibliotheca Ccesarea Vindobonensi, libri octo. 
 
 7 The invaluable MS. of the Greek Genesis (Cotton. 
 MS. Otho, B. vi.), written upon vellum in the fourth 
 century, with miniatures, was supposed to have been ir- 
 recoverably damaged by the fire at Ashburnham House? 
 but has since been restored under the directions of Sir 
 Frederic Madden. 
 
 8 This last sentence was written by Bagford, but 
 slightly altered, and that incorrectly, by Oldys. Cotton 
 House," near the west end of Westminster Hall (the place 
 alluded to) was sold to the Crown in the reign of Queen 
 
 08
 
 66 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY LIBRARY. In the great 
 cloister of the abbey is a well-furnished library, 
 considering the time when it was erected by Dr. 
 Williams, Dean of Westminster and Bishop of 
 Lincoln ; who was a great promoter of learning. 
 He purchased the books of the heirs of one Baker 
 of Highgate, and founded it for public use 
 every day in Term, from nine to twelve in the 
 forenoon, and from two till four in the afternoon. 
 The MSS. are kept in the inner part, but by an 
 accident many of them were burnt. There I saw 
 that pompous and rare book of the Rules and 
 Ceremonies of the Coronation of our Kings of 
 England. There is a MS. Catalogue of the books 
 in the library. 9 In the room called the Museum, 
 
 Anne for 4500Z., by Sir John Cotton, the great-grandson 
 of the founder of the library. In 1712, the library was 
 removed to Essex House in the Strand, and again in 
 1730, to Ashbarnham House ; the following year to the 
 old Dormitory of Westminster School ; and eventually 
 transferred in 1753 to the British Museum. 
 
 9 There was also a library belonging to the King's palace 
 at Westminster, as appears from an order in Council in the 
 reign of Edward VI. for " purging the library of Westmin- 
 ster of all missals, legends, and other superstitious volumes, 
 and delivering their garniture to Sir Anthony Aucher." 
 (Collier's Ecchs. Hist. ii. 307., fol.) Dean Williams con- 
 verted a waste room, situate in the east side of the clois- 
 ters, into a library; which he enriched with the valuable 
 works from the collection of Sir Richard Baker, author of 
 The Cftronicles of the Kings of England, which cost him 
 500Z. A Catalogue of this library is in Harl. MS. 694. 
 There is also a MS. Catalogue, compiled in 1798 by Dr. 
 Dakin, the precentor, arranged alphabetically. See Bot- 
 field's Cathedral Libraries of England, pp. 430 464. ; and 
 an interesting paper on this library by W. H. Hart, Esq., 
 F.S.A., read at the meeting of the London and Middle- 
 sex Archaeological Society, Oct. 25, 1860, and printed in 
 the Gent. Mag for March, 1861, p. 239. It is scarcely 
 necessary to remind our readers of the admirable descrip- 
 tion of this library given by Washington Irving in his 
 Sketch Book.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 67 
 
 at Westminster, is a collection of books given by 
 Dr. Busby for the use of the scholars. 1 
 
 OLD ROYAL LIBKAHT. St. James's Library 
 was founded by King Henry VI II., is well fur- 
 nished with choice books collected by John Leland, 
 and others at the Dissolution of the Abbeys. 
 There is a great quantity of books that were first 
 printed, both on vellum and paper, in all languages. 
 The Catalogue of the MSS. is printed in the Gene- 
 ral Catalogue of Manuscripts in England. 2 This 
 library was founded for the use of the Princes of 
 the Blood, as Prince Edward ; and our Kings be- 
 sides, had several studios and libraries at several 
 places ; as Whitehall, Hampton Court, Nonsuch, 
 Windsor, Oatlands, Greenwich, &c. ; but this at 
 St. James's was the chief, and hath been used and 
 highly esteemed by the learned in all times. The 
 keeping of it hath from time to time, in the seve- 
 ral reigna, been by Leland, Delayne, Traherne 3 , 
 Ascham, Patrick Young (Patricius Junius), and 
 now in the keeping of Dr. Bentley. It would 
 redound much to our reputation that foreigners 
 were better acquainted with it. 
 
 ARTILLERY GROUND (West.) There was for- 
 merly a piece of ground taken in and walled not 
 far from St. James's, near Leicester Fields, by the 
 
 1 The " Museum " is now called the Library at West- 
 minster School. It consists principally of old editions of 
 the Classics. Many Oriental Books were added about 
 Warren Hastings' time. The most recent bequests made 
 to it were by the late Sir Everard Home, the eminent 
 surgeon, and the late Dr. Bull, Canon of Christ Church, 
 Oxford. 
 
 2 " Catalogus Lib. MSS. Angliae et Hibernia? in nnum 
 collecti, cum Indice Alphabetico," fol. Oxon. 1697. An 
 account of the old Royal library is given in Birch's Life 
 of Prince Henry, ed. 1760, pp. 161166. 
 
 5 Delayne and Traherne are omitted in Mr. Edwards's 
 list of Royal librarians in his Memoirs of Libraries, i. 424.
 
 68 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 procurement of Prince Henry for the exercise of 
 arms, which he much delighted in ; and there was 
 a house built at one end of it for an armory, and 
 a well-furnished library of all sorts of books relat- 
 ing to Feats of Arms, Chivalry, Military Affairs, 
 Encamping, Fortification, the best that could be 
 collected of that kind, and in all languages, at the 
 cost and charge of that Prince, who had a learned 
 librarian, whose name I have forgot. It was 
 called the Artillery Ground, and continued till the 
 Restoration of King Charles II., and then fell into 
 the hands of Lord Gerard, who let the ground out 
 to build upon about the year 1677. 4 
 
 ABP. TENISON'S LIBRARY. In the churchyard 
 of St. Martin's in the Fields Dr. Thomas Teni- 
 son, then rector of that parish, but since Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, built a noble structure, 
 extremely well contrived for the placing of the 
 books and lights. It was begun and finished in 
 the year 1684, and by him well furnished with the 
 best modern books in most faculties. There any 
 student may repair, and has liberty of making 
 what researches he pleases, first giving in his name 
 and place of abode. 5 
 
 4 The western Artillery Ground is better known by the 
 name of the Military Garden. "On the west side of 
 Lord Newport's garden (where Gerard Street, &c., are 
 now situate) was a Military, or Artillery Ground, wherein 
 were exercised the militia of Middlesex, and trained 
 bands of Westminster." (Maitland's London, p. 1335.) 
 " Where Gerard Street is, was an Artillery Ground, or 
 Military Garden, made by Prince Henry." (Walpole, 
 ed. Dallaway, v. 60.) The library connected with this 
 Armory was doubtless incorporated with the old Royal 
 Library at St. James's, as we are informed by Mr. Thomas 
 Watts," the Assistant Keeper of the Printed Books at the 
 British Museum, that many of Prince Henry's volumes re- 
 lating to military matters are now in the national library. 
 
 5 Abp. Tenison's library was in Castle Street, St. Mar- 
 tin's Lane, immediately behind the National Gallery, and 
 was open to the parishioners of St. MartinVin-the-Fields ;
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 69 
 
 LAMBETH LIBRARY. At Lambeth Palace 
 over the Cloyster is a well furnished library. The 
 oldest of the books were Dudley's, Earl of Leices- 
 ter, which from time to time have been augmented 
 by several archbishops of that see. It had a great 
 loss in being deprived of Archbishop Sheldon's 
 admirable Collection of Missals, Breviaries, Pri- 
 mers, &c., relating to the service of the church, as 
 also Abp. Bancroft's. 6 There is another apart- 
 ment for MSS., not only belonging to the see, 
 but those of the Lord Carew [George, Earl of 
 Totness,] who had been Deputy of Ireland, many 
 of them relating to the state and history of that 
 kingdom. 7 
 
 GRAY'S INN hath a library for the use of the 
 students of that society, most of them relating to 
 
 St. James's, Westminster; St. Anne's, Soho; and St. 
 George's, Hanover Square. For particulars of it, see Eve- 
 lyn's Diary, loth Feb. 1683-4 ; and Report of Public 
 Libraries, 1849, p. 64. It was dispersed by auction in the 
 month of June, 1861. 
 
 6 Abp. Bancroft's valuable collection of books and 
 MSS. had actually been placed in the archiepiscopal 
 library ; but owing to his deprivation, he eventually pre- 
 sented them to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which 
 he was Master from 1662 to 1665. 
 
 7 When the archiepiscopal library occupied those old 
 galleries above the cloisters, the want of warmth and 
 comfort was such an infliction, that the late Sir Harris 
 Nicolas was wont to say, that in winter none but Cap- 
 tain Parry or his crew could possibly make use of the col- 
 lection. It is now lodged and admirably arranged in the 
 noble hall, built or restored by Archbishop Juxon. An 
 elaborate catalogue of the tracts in this library was drawn 
 up by Dr. Ducarel, in 3 vols. fol. 1773. The Rev. H. J. 
 Todd drew up one of the manuscripts, 1812 ; and the Rev. 
 Dr. Maitland published two lists of its Early Printed 
 Books in 1843 and 1845, 8vo. For an account of this 
 library and its early librarians, see Ducarel's History of 
 Lambeth Palace, 4to. 1785, pp. 47-70.; also Botfield's 
 Cathedral Libraries of England, pp. 189-258.
 
 70 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 the laws and history of this kingdom ; first founded 
 by the Lord Verulain. 
 
 LINCOLN'S INN hath a good library of law, much 
 augmented by that of the Lord Chief Justice Hale, 
 amongst which are many MSS. of his own writ- 
 ing. 8 
 
 THE Two TEMPLES have each a library. The 
 Lord Chief Justice Coke gave most if not all his 
 excellent MSS. of Law and History to the Inner 
 Temple. The Middle Temple is frequently re- 
 sorted to. Walter Williams, Esq., was the keeper 
 about twenty years ago. 9 
 
 CORPORATION LIBRARY. In the Guild Hall of 
 the City of London is the Treasury of their Re- 
 cords, Charters, Laws, Privileges, Acts of Com- 
 mon Council, their Paper Book in the Chamber- 
 lain's Office, some very ancient, and most of them 
 
 8 Lincoln's Inn library is the oldest in London, it dates 
 from 1497, when John Nethersale made a bequest to- 
 wards the building of a library for the benefit of the stu- 
 dents of the laws of England. The present library was 
 opened Oct. 30, 1845, and is 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, 
 and 44 feet high. A Catalogue of the Printed Books, to 
 which is prefixed a bhort Account of the MSS. was pub- 
 lished in 1 835. A Catalogue of the MSS. was compiled, 
 in 1837, by Mr. Hunter; and another of the printed 
 books by Mr. VV. H. Spilsbury, the librarian, in 1859. 
 
 9 The library of the Middle Temple was founded by 
 Robert Ashley, Esq. by Will, dated 27 Sept. 1641. Three 
 Catalogues have been printed : 1. Catalogus Librorum 
 Bibliottiecae Honorabilis Societatis Medii Templi Londini. 
 Impress. Anno. Dom. 1734. Carolo Worsley, Armigero 
 Thesaurario Existente, 4to. 2. Catalogus Continens, 
 Additi Fuerunt, ab Anno 1734, ad hoc tempus. Impress. 
 Anno Dom. 1766. Prehonorabili Thoma Sewell, Milite, 
 Scriniorum sacrorum Magistro, Thesaurario exist ente, 
 4to. 3. Bibliotheca Illustris Medii Templi Societatis in 
 Ordinem juxta- rerum naturam redacta ac digesta: V. 
 Iduum Sept. M.DCC. Auspicio et Sumptu Barth. Shower, 
 Militis, Hujus ^Edis Quajstoris. Lond. 1700, 8vo.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 71 
 
 are in the custody of their Town Clerk; there 
 are great variety, and worthy the sight of the 
 
 curious. 1 
 
 In the days of King Edward VI., in the chapel 
 called the Lord Mayor's Chapel adjoining to 
 Guild Hall, was a large library all of manuscripts. 
 They were borrowed with an intent never to be 
 returned by the Duke of Somerset to furnish his 
 study in his pompous house in the Strand. They 
 are reported to have been five [three ?] cart 
 loads. 2 I mention this to note that the city had 
 then a Public Library besides others that were 
 within the walls, as at the Greyfriars in Newgate 
 Street, now called Christ Church, containing a 
 great number of manuscripts of which Sir Richard 
 Whittington was the chief donor, at a great ex- 
 pense, no doubt, seeing we are informed by Cle- 
 ment Reyner, of the great sum which a manuscript 
 of Lyra cost that worthy citizen, 3 
 
 1 These charters, records, &c., are still in the custody 
 of the Town Clerk. 
 
 3 The ancient library, founded by Sir Richard Whit- 
 tington in the fifteenth century, was of some extent and 
 importance, as is shown by the will of John Carpenter, 
 Town Clerk, which directs some of his books to be placed 
 in the Common Library at Guildhall for the profit of the 
 students there, and those discoursing to the common peo- 
 ple. In the records of the corporation is a petition of 
 John Clipstone, the librarian, in the reign of Henry VI., 
 to the Mayor and Aldermen, in which he speaks of the 
 great attendance and charge of the library. Mr. W. H. 
 Overall's paper in the London and Middlesex ArchcEologi- 
 cal Transactions, vol. i. p. 352. 
 
 s The most considerable Franciscan collection of books 
 seems to have been at the London monastery on the site 
 of Christ Hospital, Newgate Street, for which the first 
 stone of a new building was laid by Sir Richard Whit- 
 tington on the 21st Oct. 1421. After it was completed 
 100 marks were expended on a transcript of the works of 
 Nicholas de Lira, to be chained in the library. Stow's 
 Survey by Strype, book iii. 130. Whittington's library 
 was a handsome room, 129 feet long, and 31 feet broad,
 
 72 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 The White Friars spared for no cost to procure 
 books, and their Collection must be large and 
 choice. Bishop Bale, one of their fraternity, says 
 that no book was to be sold but they had their 
 emissaries to buy it. The Carmelites engrossed 
 all the books they could lay their hands on, and 
 it is probable all the other Orders did the like. 
 So that a layman, though he had both money and 
 learning, would have but few come to his hands, 
 wherefore books and learning were seldom met 
 with out of a monastery. 
 
 SIGN COLLEGE was founded by Dr. White, 
 Vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West, in the year 
 16 ... [1623], for the use of divines and others in 
 and about London ; they are a body corporate. 
 Great part of their library was destroyed by the 
 fire in 1666 ; but some of the books were saved by 
 the vigilance of the librarian. Since it hath been 
 rebuilt, and the library plentifully supplied with 
 good books by the bounty of the Lord Berkeley 4 , 
 and of late by Sir Philip Sydenham, [Bart, of 
 Brympton in Somersetshire.] It is a most con- 
 venient place for situation, out of the noise of 
 coaches, and the only public library within the 
 walls of the city : a large spacious room, very 
 convenient, and capable of receiving many thou- 
 sand volumes to fill up the stands. There should 
 be a complete collection of bibles and of good 
 historians ; but benefactors too often bestow on 
 public libraries books of little value, such as come 
 cheapest or most casually to them. It has now a 
 good, industrious librarian, Mr. Wm. Reading, 
 who, observing there had not been a Catalogue 
 printed since the fire, though the collection has 
 been considerably augmented by the addition of 
 
 wainscoted throughout, and fitted with shelves neatly 
 carved, with desks and settles. It formed the northern 
 side of the quadrangle. 
 * George, first Earl of Berkeley, obit. 1698.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 73 
 
 four entire libraries, as well as by inferior bene- 
 factions, and the annual contributions of Sta- 
 tioners' Hall, and it having been publicly observed 
 by the Governors of the said college on his behalf, 
 that by reason of the narrowness of his salary, and a 
 heavy debt which has lain upon the college ever 
 since the rebuilding it after the aforesaid casualty, 
 there was no means to print a Catalogue, and 
 make him some moderate recompense for his la- 
 bour therein ; but by the assistance of about two 
 hundred subscribers advancing a guinea a-piece, 
 with the payment of another upon receipt of the 
 book, he did therefore publish Proposals to that 
 effect in Nov. 1721, and the catalogue is now 
 printed in a handsome folio volume, introduced 
 with an account of the ancient and present state 
 of the said college and library. 5 
 
 5 Sion College was founded by Letters Patent granted 
 by Charles I. in 1630, in conformity with the provisions 
 of the Will of the Rev. Thomas White, D.D. Canon of 
 Christ Church, and Vicar of St. Dunstan's in the West, 
 who died in 1623. The library was founded a few years 
 later by the Rev. John Simpson, one of Dr. White's exe- 
 cutors." A copy of every book entered at Stationers' 
 Hall was given to this library by Acts 8 Anne and 54 
 Geo. III. ; but in 1836 this privilege was taken away by 
 the Act 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 110, and a compensation 
 awarded of 363Z. 15s. 2d. payable annually from the Trea- 
 sury. The first catalogue of this library is entitled " Ca- 
 talogus Universalis Librorvm omnium in fiibliotheca 
 Collegii Sionii apud Londinenses. Vna cum Elencho 
 Interpretum S. S. Scripturae, Casuistarum, Theologorum 
 Scholasticorum, &c. Omnia per J. S. [J. Spencer] Biblio- 
 tbecarium (quanta potuit diligentia) ordine Alphabetico 
 disposita, in unam collecta et propriis sumptibus in Stu- 
 diosorjim usum excusa. Lond. Ex Officina Typog. Rob. 
 Leybourni, 1650, 4to." "An Account of the London 
 Clergy's Library in Sion College," by Win. Reading, is 
 appended to his Bibliothecce Cleri Londinensis in Collegia 
 Sionensi Catalogus. Lond. 1724, fol. The library at pre- 
 sent contains about 50,000 volumes. An Account of 
 Sion College, consisting of documents elucidating its his- 
 
 H
 
 74 LONDON LIBRARIES,. 
 
 ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL. There are other small 
 libraries within the city walls, as that of St. Paul's 
 School, first founded by Dean Colet, and since 
 rebuilt by the Company of Mercers. The founder 
 left them many good books, both in MS. and 
 print, mostly Grammatical in Hebrew, Greek, and 
 Latin ; they were destroyed in the Great Fire, 
 with Mr. Cromleholme's, the Upper Master of the 
 said school, which was a curious collection of 
 the best impressions and editions of the Classics, 
 neatly bound, the best private collection then 
 about London. 6 He was a great lover of his books, 
 and the loss of them hastened the loss of his life. 
 Since then they have been supplied by all sorts of 
 Lexicons, Dictionaries, and Grammars, in He- 
 brew, Chaldee, Greek, and Latin for the use of the 
 Upper Scholars, and with many other books of 
 more general matter and use. 7 
 
 In 1707, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's 
 purchased the library of Mr. Gery, Vicar of St. 
 Mary's, Islington, for 500Z., one moiety the gift of 
 Dr. Stanley a good beginning for a future 
 foundation. 
 
 HERALDS' OFFICE. In the Heralds' Office is a 
 curious collection of books relating to Heraldry, 
 Arms, Descents, Dignities, and Precedences, So- 
 lemnities, Processions, Coronations, Marriages, 
 Christenings, Visitations of Counties, Obits, and 
 Funerals. In the time of the civil confusions they 
 
 tory to the present time, has lately been printed for the 
 use of the Fellows. 
 
 6 Samuel Cromleholme was head-master 1657 to 1671. 
 He was the tutor of some remarkable men, such as the 
 great Duke of Marlborough, Bishop Cumberland", Mr. 
 Dodington, Dr. Gower, and the JRev. John Strype. 
 
 7 A list of the benefactors to the library of St. Paul's 
 School, together with a Catalogue of the books, will be 
 found in Knight's Life of Dr. John Colet, pp. 437. 475., 
 edit. 1724
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 75 
 
 lost many, which fell into the hands of some who 
 wanted the honesty to restore them. There has 
 been since some reparation made by the Earl of 
 Arundel's Collections the noble present of the 
 Duke of Norfolk, whereof a Catalogue was 
 printed in 4to. 168 1. 8 Also by those which had 
 been of Vincent's collection, and bought by 
 Ralph Sheldon, Esq., of Weston, in Warwickshire, 
 who gave them to the office 9 ; besides the libraries 
 of those valuable memorials in the particular 
 hands of the several heralds of the said office, as 
 Sir Harry St. George, more particularly of this 
 about 350 vols. fol., and Mr. Le Neve, the latter 
 of whom dying on the 24th Sept. 1729, bequeathed 
 his vast treasure of Historical Antiquities, con- 
 sisting of about 2000 printed books, and above 
 1200 MSS. interspersed with many notes of his 
 own, to a namesake who was no relation to him, 
 
 8 Evelyn, in his Diary, Aug. 29, 1678, says, " I was 
 called to London to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk, who 
 having at my sole request bestowed the Arundelian li- 
 brary on the Royal Society, sent to me to take charge of 
 the books, only stipulating that I would suffer the He- 
 ralds' chief officer, Sir William Dugdale, to have such of 
 them as concerned heraldry and the Marshal's office, 
 books of armory and genealogies, the Duke being Earl 
 Marshal of England." See more respecting this gift in 
 Nichols's Illustrations, iv. 63-66. The Catalogue is en- 
 titled, " Bibliotheca Norfolciana ; sive Catalogus libromm 
 Manuscriptorum et impressorum, quos Henricus Howard, 
 Dux Norfblcise, Regise Societati Londinensi, pro scientist 
 naturali promovendl donavit, ordine alphabetico disposi- 
 tus. 4to. Londini, 1681." A Catalogue of the Arundel 
 MSS. given to the College of Arms was drawn up in 
 1829 by Mr. W. H. Black, with a Preface by Sir Charles 
 George Young, the present Garter King of Arms, by 
 whom it was privately printed. 
 
 9 Augustine Vincent, Windsor herald, died Jan. 11, 
 1625-6. His son John, although a good genealogist, 
 herald, and antiquary, was so fond of liquor, that he 
 pawned some of his father's literary labours to pay tavern 
 bills. He disposed of 240 MSS. to Ralph Sheldon, Esq., 
 who bequeathed them to the College of Arms. Noble. 
 
 H 2
 
 76 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 nor had any curiosity in them, so they were sold 
 
 in Covent Garden about - 1 
 
 There was a catalogue of the books in the li- 
 brary at the College of Arms in London, collected 
 by Peter Le Neve, Esq., Norroy, a transcript of 
 which by Chas. Mawson in MS. fol. was in Scla- 
 ter Bacon's library. About a year and a half 
 after the death of Mr. Le Neve his books were 
 sold by auction, and what that antiquary had 
 been his whole life in getting together were scat- 
 tered again in two months. Not that I would 
 quarrel with auctions; they certainly are, for the 
 generality, of great convenience to the learned ; 
 but when a library is brought to such a degree of 
 perfection in any branch of science as this was in 
 Heraldry and History, both general and particu- 
 lar, I would have such a library preserved. "Tis 
 said that he had some pique with the Heralds' 
 Office a little before his death, so cut them off 
 with a single book, otherwise he had left them the 
 whole of his library. And there not being much 
 money to spare amongst them, they do not appear 
 to possess themselves of any considerable share in 
 it. The Earl of Oxford, it is thought, will have 
 some sweep at it ; but much of it is very likely to 
 
 1 " A Catalogue of the valuable library collected by 
 that truly laborious Antiquary, Peter Le N'eve, Esq. Nor- 
 roy King of Arms (lately deceased), containing most of 
 the books relating to the History and Antiquities of 
 Great Britain and Ireland, and many other nations: with 
 more than a thousand Manuscripts of Abstracts of Re- 
 cords, &c., Heraldry, and other sciences, several of which 
 are very antient, and written on vellum : also, a great 
 number of Pedigrees of Noble Families, &c., with many 
 other curiosities ; which will be sold by auction the 22nd 
 Feb. 1730-1, at the Bedford Coffee-house, in the Great 
 Piazza, Covent Garden, by John Wilcox, Bookseller in 
 Little Britain." This remarkable collection consisted of 
 nearly 1300 lots. It was followed by another sale on 
 March 19, 1730-1, of " Some Curiosities and Manuscripts 
 omitted in the previous Catalogue."
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 77 
 
 be divided among those who collect such rarities 
 more through curiosity than use, and have neither 
 purse nor abilities to make anything compleat 
 with or from them. The Catalogue of the He- 
 ralds' Library is in print, containing 124 pages in 
 8vo. ; and there is a Catalogue of all the books 
 relating to Heraldry, set forth by Mr. Gore at 
 Oxford, in quarto, 168- ; it has, I think, had ano- 
 ther impression. 8 
 
 In the Prerogative Office there is a large col- 
 lection of books all wrote on vellum, containing 
 the wills and testaments of our forefathers, care- 
 fully preserved with calendars for the readier re- 
 ference to their names. 
 
 The Bishops' Register Books are kept in each 
 particular Register's Office. 
 
 The civilians of Doctors' Commons did about 
 the year 1708 buy all the books of Common, 
 Canon, and Civil Law in the great library of Dr. 
 Oldys, then newly devised, which at his chambers 
 filled three large rooms. They are ranged in a 
 large room next the hall, and were then metho- 
 dized by the learned Dr. Pinfold. I think they 
 were above 1000 in number, besides some MSS. 3 
 They have made additional collections, and have a 
 good catalogue of them. 
 
 The parochial churches have their registers of 
 burials, christenings, and marriages. The halls 
 of each company have also their registers of those 
 they bind to trades or make free, and of their 
 
 2 Thomas Gore's Catalogue of Writers upon Heraldry 
 first appeared in 1668, and republished in 1674, 4to. with 
 many additions by the author and his friends. It is a 
 carious and useful book. 
 
 3 Dr. William Oldys, the civilian, died at Kensington 
 in 1708. " As a scholar," says Dr. Charles Coote, " he 
 was respectable ; as a civilian, he was learned ; as a 
 pleader, eloquent and judicious." The library of the Col- 
 lege of Advocates, Doctors' Commons, was dispersed by Mr. 
 Hodgson, on April 22, 1861, and seven following days. 
 
 u 3
 
 78 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 masters, wardens, and their charters, granted by 
 the several crowned heads, &c. 
 
 There are many records, books, and registers of 
 the Hospital of the Charterhouse by what Mr. 
 Hearne mentions in his account of that founda- 
 tion. 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, formerly the Grey Friars 
 [Newgate Street], hath a neat library for the use 
 of the masters and scholars, besides a collection 
 of mathematical instruments, globes, ships, with all 
 their rigging for the instruction of the lads de- 
 signed for the sea 4 ; and in their counting-house 
 is the picture of Edward VI., their founder, said 
 to be done by Hans Holbein 5 ; and in the great 
 hall a noble representation of King James II. sit- 
 ting on his throne with most of the nobility, privy 
 council, chancellor, governors, mayor and alder- 
 men, and the boys and girls on their knees, all 
 from the life by the famous Signior Verrio.s 
 
 4 The Rev. Wm. Trollope, in his History of Christ's 
 Hospital, 1834, p. 200., states that " in the mathematical 
 school there is a library, considerably dilapidated indeed, 
 but well worthy of preservation ; and devoutly is it to be 
 hoped, that it may not, for want of due attention, meet 
 with the same fate as the valuable astronomical appara- 
 tus, with which the observatory over the old school was 
 furnished." 
 
 5 At the upper extremity of the Court Room, under a 
 canopy, with the arms of England over it, is the Presi- 
 dent's chair ; behind which, in a panel, is a half-length 
 portrait, by Holbein, of the Royal Founder. The paint- 
 ing is in good preservation ; and represents the young 
 monarch in a standing position, with his left hand sup- 
 ported by the thumb fixed in his girdle, and the right 
 holding a dagger with a blue tassel. He stands under a 
 canopy of cloth of gold, fringed ; and is dressed in a crim- 
 son coat with half sleeves and basket-buttons, embroidered, 
 and lined with ermine. By this portrait, Edward ap- 
 pears to have been of a fair and delicate complexion, 
 with blue eyes, Grecian nose, full lips, and hair inclining 
 to red. Trollope. 
 
 6 Verrio's picture on the north side of the Hall was
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 79 
 
 MERCHANT TAYLORS' SCHOOL and Mercers' 
 Chapel School have their respective libraries si- 
 milar to that of St. Paul's. 
 
 GRESHAM COLLEGE has a very good library, but 
 depends on the Fellows of the Royal Society 5 those 
 were mostly collected by that noble antiquary the 
 Earl of Arundel. The MSS. he purchased in Ger- 
 many, when he was ambassador to the Emperor's 
 court, the journal of which was wrote by one 
 Crowne of his lordship's retinue 7 , though not so 
 well performed as the nature of the subject de- 
 served. These were the Remains of [Matthias 
 Corvinus] King of Hungary, and afterwards fell 
 into the hands of Bilibald Pirckeimer 8 , where is to 
 be seen his head graved by Albert Durer, one of 
 the first examples among us of sticking or pasting 
 of heads, arms, or ciphers into volumes. In this 
 expedition he bought up all the rare books, statues, 
 pictures, medals, and some entire libraries, with 
 the remains of that at Heidelberg. A private 
 MS. catalogue of these his German collections 
 mentions also those presented him by the Duke of 
 Saxony, particularly the drafts of his gold, silver, 
 and copper medals performed by his own hands, 
 in two volumes, with a very curious ancient MS., 
 among others of Vitruvius. The earl's collections 
 were given to that society by the Duke of Nor- 
 
 painted expressly for the Hospital, at the instigation of 
 our amusing diarist, Mr. Samuel Pepys ; but it was not 
 without considerable trouble that the reluctant painter 
 was induced to abide by his bargain. 
 
 7 A True Relation of all the Remarkable Places and 
 Passages observed in the Travels of the Lord Howard, 
 Earl of Arundell and Surrey, in his Embassy to the Em- 
 peror Ferdinand II. By William Crowne. Lond. 1637, 
 4to. "A work full of imperfections and errors." says 
 Oldys. 
 
 8 Bilibald Pirckheimer, whose portrait was engraved by 
 his friend Albert Durer in 1524, was a person of great 
 authority in the city of Nuremberg. He published seve- 
 ral works, and among others a humorous essay entitled
 
 80 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 folk 9 , and if a catalogue were taken according to 
 their merit, perhaps they could not be paralleled. 
 In the year 1687, Mr. Marmaduke Foster drew 
 up a catalogue, who was reputed to understand 
 printed books as well as most librarians in Europe ; 
 but before it was printed it was thought fit to be 
 curtailed by some who knew nothing of the matter, 
 so that it is not Mr. Foster's catalogue. But he 
 was not so well skilled in ancient manuscripts, as 
 is evident by two Irish ones, which he saith were 
 the Picts' language. It deserves a representation 
 more accurate, the titles and descriptions of the 
 printed books being imperfect and unsatisfactory, 
 and the manuscripts intermixed and confused with 
 them 1 ; nor in the large catalogue of MSS. printed 
 at Oxford 2 is justice done to those of this library. 
 
 Laws Podagra " The Praise of the Gout." He died in 
 1530, aged sixtj'. 
 
 9 Evelyn, in his Diary, Aug. 29, 1678, says, " I was 
 called to London to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk, who 
 having at ray sole request bestowed the Arundelian li- 
 brary on the Royal Society, sent to me to take charge of 
 the books. I procured for our Society, besides printed 
 books, near 100 MSS., some in Greek of great concern- 
 ment The printed books being of the oldest impres- 
 sions, are not the less valuable ; I esteem them almost 
 equal to MSS. Amongst them are most of the Fathers, 
 printed at Basil, before the Jesuits abused them with 
 their expurgatory Indexes : there is a noble MS. of Vi- 
 truvius." In 1831, by mutual agreement, the Arundel 
 MSS. belonging to the Royal Society, with the exception 
 of the Oriental, were transferred to the British Museum. 
 The Oriental, about fifty in number, were not received 
 until the year 1835. 
 
 1 Complete Catalogues of the Books, Manuscripts, and 
 Letters of the Royal Society were published in 1841. 
 They are sold to the Fellows and the public in two oc- 
 tavo volumes ; one, containing the Scientific works, the 
 other, the Miscellaneous literature, MSS., and Letters. 
 A MS. Catalogue has also been made of the Maps, Charts, 
 Engravings, Drawings, &c., which exceed 5000 in num- 
 ber. (Weld's Hist, of the Royal Society, ii. 474.) 
 
 2 Catalog! Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae et Hi- 
 bernise, Oxon. 1697, fol. torn. ii. part i. pp. 74-84
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 81 
 
 In the College of Physicians in Warwick Lane 
 is a fine collection, both in their own and other 
 faculties. Mr. Selden bequeathed them his phy- 
 sical books, and the Marquis of Doncaster [Dor- 
 chester] 3 , one of their members, bestowed his 
 whole collection upon them. 
 
 In WHITE CROSS STREET the library of Dr. 
 Daniel Williams, left to the public, the Catalogue 
 whereof makes a tolerable 8vo. volume. 4 
 
 DUTCH CHURCH. In Austin Friars, in the re- 
 maining part of the conventual church used by 
 the Dutch and Flemish to preach in, and allowed 
 of in the reign of Edward VI. Over the door at the 
 entrance is a library well furnished with books of 
 divinity, and many original letters in MS. (never 
 printed) of the first Reformers ; the printed books 
 mostly Dutch. The Ten Commandments there 
 are said to be written by the hand of Sir Peter 
 Paul Rubens. 5 
 
 5 Henry Pierrepoint, Marquis of Dorchester, who was 
 admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians for his 
 proficience in medicine and anatomy: ob. Dec, 8, 1680. 
 Dr. Lort says he left his library to this college, contain- 
 ing a remarkably good collection of civil law books, the 
 Catalogue of which has been published. Anthony Wood 
 calls him "the pride and glory of the college." See 
 Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, by Park, iii. 229. 
 Dr. Munk, in The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians 
 of London, i. 262 274., has given an interesting notice 
 of this distinguished nobleman. There is a Catalogue of 
 this library, entitled " Bibliothecae Collegii Regalis Me- 
 dicorum Londinensis Catalogus." With an Appendix, 
 8vo. 1757. 
 
 4 Catalogus Bibliothecse Danielis Williams. 8vo. Lond. 
 1727. Editio secunda, 8vo. 1801. Appendix, 8va 1808, 
 1814; also in 2 vols. 8vo. 1841. 
 
 * On the west end over the skreen is a fair library, in- 
 scribed thus : ' Ecclesise Londino-Belgicae Bibliotheca, 
 extructa sumptibus Mariae Dubois, 1659." In this library 
 are divers valuable MSS. and letters of Calvin, Peter 
 Martyr, and others, foreign reformers. Strype's Stow,
 
 82 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 FEENCH CHURCHES. In the French Church in 
 Threadneedle Street 3 , before the dreadful confla- 
 gration, was a library, and Minsheu mentions them 
 to have subscribed for his Dictionary.* If this be 
 true, then Mr. Ephraim Chambers is in the wrong 
 when, in his Cyclopedia, he particularises Bp. 
 Walton's Polyglot Bible to have been the first 
 book that was published by subscription in Eng- 
 land, an error he was led into by Anthony Wood. 
 
 The French congregation, that have a place of 
 worship allowed them in part of the Hospital of 
 the Savoy, have a library for the use of their mi- 
 nistry. 
 
 The Swedes have a church in Trinity Lane, and 
 a collection there. 
 
 JEWS' SYNAGOGUE. The Jews in their syna- 
 gogue in Be vis Marks, near Duke's Place, have a 
 collection relating to the ceremonial of their wor- 
 ship, the Talmud, and other Rabbinical learning. 
 Their rolls, whereon the Pentateuch is written, 
 are of fine calves' leather. 8 It is a fine building, 
 though not comparable to that at Amsterdam. 
 
 b. ii. p. 116. Is Bagford quite correct in attributing the 
 Decalogue in this church to Rubens ? Wra. Sanderson, 
 in his Graphice, p. 15., ed. 1658, informs us, that " King 
 Charles's love to this art [painting] begat three knight- 
 painters, Rubens, Vandyck, and Gerbier ; the last had 
 little of art or merit a common pen-man, who pensil'd 
 the Dialogue [Decalogue?] in the Dutch Church, Lon- 
 don, his first rise of preferment." An interesting paper 
 by the Rev. Thomas Hugo, on the early history of this 
 house of the Augustine Friars, is printed in The City Press 
 of Jan. 7, 1860. 
 
 6 On what is now the site of the Hall of Commerce. 
 
 7 " Mr. Ames has the paper or proposal Minsheu pub- 
 lished with all the subscribers' names about the year 
 1629." (0/dys.) Minsheu appears to have printed the 
 names of all the persons who took a copy of his Dictionary, 
 and continually added to it, as purchasers came in. 
 
 8 The great Synagogue, Duke's Place (now called St 
 James's Place), Aldgate, and the Spanish and Portuguese
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 83 
 
 FRIENDS' LIBRARY. The Quakers have been 
 some years gathering a library, but where reposited 
 I hear not (but the Baptists have one at Barbi- 
 can.) One of their brethren named John Whit- 
 ing, a man of good intelligence and assiduity, has 
 published a Catalogue of all the Friends' Books, 
 such as Naylor, written by that fraternity ; it 
 makes a moderate octavo, and was printed 1708.' 
 In my opinion 'tis more accurately and perfectly 
 drawn up than the Bodleian Library at Oxford is 
 by Dr. Hyde, for the Quaker does not confound 
 one man with another as the scholar does. Be- 
 sides, the Quaker is so exact and satisfactory, that 
 he not only gives you the title ample enough, and 
 the size and the town where printed, but the 
 number of sheets or leaves every distinct Trea- 
 tise contains, from the largest folio to the least 
 pamphlet ; and besides all that, what place every 
 author most considerable among them was of, 
 when and where he flourished, and died. 
 Francis Bugg, the notorious revolter from, and 
 scribbler against them, had the best collection of 
 their writings of any of the Brethren ; but I think 
 I have read in some of his rhapsodies that he 
 either gave or sold it to the library at Oxford. 
 
 Synagogue, between Xos. 10. and 11. Bevis Marks, have 
 in common a valuable library of Rabbinical and Jewish 
 literature, in a separate building close by. It is in con- 
 templation to make this library a Beth Hammedrash, or 
 Hebrew College, with a view to the home education of 
 Jewish Rabbles for England, in preference to receiving 
 them from abroad. The library, which is accessible to 
 students, has a manuscript catalogue, and arrangements 
 for printing it are now in progress, but somewhat de- 
 layed. 
 
 9 " A Catalogue of Friends' Books ; written by many 
 of the People called Quakers, from the beginning or first 
 appearance of the said people. Collected for a General 
 Service, by J. W. [John Whiting.] London: Printed 
 and Sold by J. Sowle, in White Hart Court in Gracious 
 Street, 1708." 8vo. pp. 238.
 
 84 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 DULWICH COLLEGE. In Dulwich College, 
 erected by Alleyn the comedian, there is a library 
 to which Mr. Cartwright, a player 1 , who was bred 
 a bookseller, and had a shop at the end of Turn- 
 stile Alley, gave a collection of plays 2 , and also 
 many excellent pictures. There is to be seen a 
 View of London, taken by Norden in 1603, and 
 at the bottom of it a view of the Lord Mayor's 
 show. 3 
 
 STATIONERS' COMPANY. It were to be wished 
 the Stationers' Company would erect a library to 
 their Hall, it being commodiously enough situated 
 for resort from all parts ; and so many of them 
 having got estates by the learned, it would de- 
 monstrate some gratitude to the sciences, and 
 
 1 William Cartwright, one of Killigrew's company at 
 the original establishment of Drury Lane. By his will, 
 dated 1686, he left his books, pictures, and furniture to 
 Dulwich College, where also his portrait still remains. 
 
 2 " Here comes in the Queen's purchase of Plays; and 
 those by Mr. Weever, the dancing- master ; Sir Charles 
 Cotterell, Mr. Coxeter, Lady Pomfret, and Lady Mary 
 Worthy Montagu." (Oldys.) It is clear from this note 
 that Oldys intended to enlarge this paper on the London 
 Libraries. See his Diary, ante p. 123. 
 
 3 " Mr. Norden designed a View of London in eight 
 sheets, which was also engraved. At the bottom of this 
 was the representation of the cavalcade of the Lord 
 Mayor's show, all on horseback, the aldermen having 
 round caps on their heads. The View itself is singular, 
 and different from all that I have seen, and was taken by 
 Norden from the pitch of the hill towards Dulwich Col- 
 lege going to Camberwell from London : in which college 
 on the stair-case I had a sight of it in company of Mr. 
 Christopher Brown. Mr. Secretary Pepys went after- 
 wards to view it by my recommendation, and was very 
 desirous to have purchased it. But since it is decayed 
 and quite destroyed by means of the moistness of the 
 wall. This was made about the year 1604 or 1606 to the 
 best of my memory, and I have not met with any other 
 of the like kind." Bagford's Letter to Hearne, Leland's 
 Collectanea, vol. i. p. Ixxxii. See also " N. & Q.," 2 nd S. 
 x. 372.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 85 
 
 repay their expences sufficiently in honour and 
 reputation. And this might easily be effected, if 
 every one at first would give one book of a sort, 
 and that of all pamphlets published weekly ; six 
 of a sort might be contributed here, to be sold or 
 exchanged for bound or other books, reserving 
 one of the pamphlets of a sort for the library. 
 And here, that I am mentioning the most concise 
 pamphlets or compositions, I must not pass by 
 unobservant, Mr. Tomlinson's [Thomason's] most 
 curious and costly collection of all the tracts or 
 pamphlets that came out from 1640 to 1660. I 
 think Bishop Kennett's Historical Register is an 
 attempt of some abridgments in this nature, for 
 he had a great collection, also a library of English ' 
 Lives, Characters, &c. 4 But Tomlinson's [Thoma- 
 son's] was so complete, and some of them so 
 scarce, even within the time of that period, that 
 King Charles I. (who encouraged his undertaking 
 for the knowledge of posterity, which otherwise he 
 had been soon weary of, through the great charge 
 of collecting, danger of preserving, and difficulty 
 of removing them from place to place out of the 
 army's reach), wanting a certain small pamphlet, 
 could get it nowhere. After strict inquiry, hear- 
 ing where it was, he went to St. Paul's Churchyard 
 and gave the bookseller ten pieces of gold only to 
 read it (besides near 100 MSS. on the King's 
 behalf, which nobody then dared print) in his 
 own house. 5 This collection, containing near 
 
 * The valuable manuscript collections of the industri- 
 ous Dr. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough in 107 
 volumes, chiefly relating to ecclesiastical history and bio- 
 graphy, are in the Lansdowne collection in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 5 George Thomason, the loyal bookseller of the Ro?e 
 and Crown, St Paul's Churchyard, has been already 
 noticed in " N. & Q." l rt Ser. vi. 175. 463. In the 2 nd 
 Ser. iv. 412., will be found some curious historical par- 
 ticulars of the remarkable preservation of this important
 
 86 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 30,000 several pieces, is uniformly bound in 
 above 2000 volumes of all sizes, was so well di- 
 gested, and every pamphlet referred to indivi- 
 dually, that the smallest tract of a single leaf might 
 be readily found therein, which was taken by Mar- 
 maduke Foster, the auctioneer, and is itself in 
 twelve volumes folio. For this collection the owner 
 is said to have refused four thousand pounds, yet 
 the present owner has not yet had, as I hear, above 
 three or two hundred pounds offered for them, and 
 that by the Duke of Chandos. After him, Miller 6 
 was famous for his great store of pamphlets ; but 
 his Catalogue does not distinguish them more par- 
 ticularly than in bundles, so is useless to the 
 reader now they are disposed of. John Dunton 7 
 
 collection of pamphlets. It was commenced in the year 
 1641, and continued until 1662 ; arranged and bound in 
 chronological order in 2220 volumes, containing above 
 30,000 separate publications. Thomason died in 1666, 
 and in his Will at Doctors' Commons, these pamphlets 
 are particularly mentioned, and a special trust appointed, 
 Dr. Thomas Barlow, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, being 
 one of the trustees. The 100 MSS., noticed by Oldys, are 
 bound up with the printed pamphlets in chronological 
 order. In 1647, Thomason published a Catalogue in 4to. 
 of his general stock, consisting of fifty-eight closely- 
 printed pages, entitled "Catalogus Librorum diversis 
 Italias locis Emptorum Anno Dom. 1647. A Georgio 
 Thomasono Bibliopola Londinensi apud quern in Csemi- 
 terio D. Pauli ad insigne Rosse coronatse prostant venales. 
 Londini, Typis lohannis Legatt, 1647." In the same year 
 a selection from this Catalogue was purchased by govern- 
 ment ; who ordained, that the sum of 500/. out of the 
 receipts at Goldsmiths' Hall should be paid to George 
 Thomason for a collection of books in the Eastern lan- 
 guages, lately brought out of Italy, that the same may 
 be bestovved upon the Public Library in Cambridge. 
 (Journals of the House of Commons, 24th Mar. 1647-8.) 
 
 6 For John Dunton's characteristic notice of William 
 Miller, see Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 613., and 
 Timperley's Diet, of Printing, p. 739. 
 
 7 Oldys probably alludes to John Dunton's Athenian- 
 ism, or New Projects; being 600 distinct Treatises (in
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 87 
 
 also collected a great many pamphlets to repub- 
 lish the scarcest and most remarkable of them, 
 none of the meanest of his projects, had his judg- 
 ment been answerable to his opportunities ; but he 
 laid himself down no rule of confinement, so pub- 
 lished two volumes of promiscuous and incoherent 
 things, and met with no encouragement to pro- 
 ceed any further. 
 
 Nor was the Collection of Historical and Politi- 
 cal Pamphlets in my own little library perhaps 
 very contemptible, being above 5000. 8 
 
 Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, who died a few years 
 since, had above 30,000 pamphlets. 
 
 HARLEIAN. For libraries in more expressly 
 particular hands, the first and most universal in 
 England, must be reckoned the Harleian, or Earl 
 of Oxford's library, begun by his father and con- 
 tinued by himself. He has the rarest books of all 
 countries, languages, and sciences, and the greatest 
 number of any collector we ever had, in manu- 
 
 prose and verse'). Lond. 1710, 8vo. In this first volume 
 you have (he says) twenty-four of those 600 projects 
 promised on the title. Nichols, in his Life of Dunton, 
 p. xxv., gives a list of thirty-five projects which was to 
 form the second volume of the Athenianism. 
 
 8 Bishop Kennett, in the Preface to his Historical Re- 
 gister, has wisely remarked, that " the bent and genius of 
 the age is best known in a free country by the pamphlets 
 and papers that come daily out, as the sense of parties, 
 and, sometimes, the voice of the nation." As supplying 
 materials of British history, Oldys duly estimated the 
 value of pamphlets to the historian and biographer, as is 
 obvious from his valuable " Dissertation upon Pamphlets," 
 contained in J. Morgan's Phoenix Britannicus, 4to. 1732 ; 
 and his " Copious and Exact Catalogue of Pamphlets in 
 the Harleian Library," 4to., in which will be found many 
 curious particulars of literary and biographical history. 
 Of course Oldys's " Copious Catalogue " describes but a 
 very small portion of the Pamphlets formerly in this 
 noble library, which at one time it is estimated contained 
 350,000 distinct articles. 
 
 12
 
 08 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 script as well as in print ; thousands of fragments, 
 some a thousand years old ; vellum books, some 
 written over ; all things especially respecting 
 English History, personal as well as local, particu- 
 lar as well as general. He has a great collection 
 of Bibles, &c., in all versions, and editions of all 
 the first printed books, classics, and others of 
 our own country, ecclesiastical as well as civil, by 
 Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, 
 Rastall, Grafton, and the greatest number of pam- 
 phlets and prints of English heads of any other 
 person. Abundance of ledgers, chartularies, old 
 deeds, charters, patents, grants, covenants, pedi- 
 grees, inscriptions, &c., and original letters of 
 eminent persons as many as would fill two hun- 
 dred volumes ; all the collections of his librarian 
 Humphrey Wanley, of Stow, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, 
 Prynne, Bishop Stillingfleet, John Bagford, Le 
 Neve, and the flower of a hundred other libraries. 9 
 
 BISHOP MOORE. Dr. John Moore, the late 
 Bishop of Ely, had also a prodigious collection of 
 books, written as well as printed on vellum, some 
 very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a 
 Capgrave's Chronicle, books of the first printing 
 
 9 The first considerable purchase of books by Robert 
 Harley, Earl of Oxford, was made in August, 1705, and 
 which by means of agents abroad as well at home, at the 
 time of his death, in 1724, was one of the most remarkable 
 libraries in England. Edward, the second Earl, that 
 noble patron of literature and learned men, continued to 
 make additions with equal zeal and liberality. At his 
 death on June 16, 1741, this noble collection included 
 nearly 8,000 volumes of MSS. ; about 50,000 volumes of 
 printed books; 41,000 prints; and about 350,000 pam- 
 phlets. The printed books were purchased by Thomas 
 Osborne for 13.000Z. to be dispersed ; but fortunately the 
 collection of MSS., containing 7639 volumes, exclusive of 
 14,236 original rolls, charters, deeds, and other legal in- 
 struments, was purchased by government for the sum of 
 10,000/.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 89 
 
 at Mentz, and other places abroad, as also at Ox- 
 ford, St. Alban's, Westminster, &c. After his 
 death his late majesty bought them for seven 
 thousand pounds, and gave them to the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. 1 
 
 EARL OF CLARENDON. Henry Earl of Claren- 
 don had a vast treasury of curiosities in this kind ; 
 he spent his whole time and substance too almost, 
 I may say, upon inquiries and purchases of books 
 and pamphlets, manuscripts, and medals ; in the 
 latter article whereof Mr. Evelyn was greatly be- 
 holden to his communications in the compiling 
 his Numismata [Lond. fol. 1697.] Of some of his 
 printed books, and such as were burnt at Corn- 
 bury, there are catalogues in print ; but not of 
 half the manuscripts he bought. For safety he 
 reposited them in St. Martin's Library, then built 
 by Archbishop Tenison, when Dr. Gibson, now 
 Bishop of London, took a catalogue of them, which 
 being styled Tenisoniana 2 , a just offence was taken 
 by the honourable owner, and as Dr. Rawlinson has 
 observed, the MSS. were immediately removed. 3 
 This noble Earl bought all Sir James Ware's col- 
 lection relating to Ireland, now in the possession 
 
 1 Dr. John Moore, successively Bishop of Norwich and 
 Ely,' died 31st July, 1714. His curious and magnificent 
 library, consisting of 30,755 volumes, was purchased in 
 1715 by George I. for 6,000 guineas, who presented it to 
 the Public Library at Cambridge. It fills up the rooms 
 on the north and weat sides of the court over the philoso- 
 phy and divinity schools, arranged in twenty-six classes. 
 For memoranda of his printed books and MSS. see Addit. 
 MSS. 5827. 6261. 6262., in the Brit. Museum. Vide 
 Hartshorne's Book Rarities in the University of Camfmdge, 
 pp. 18-24. 
 
 8 Dr. Gibson's Catalogue is entitled "Librorum Manu- 
 scriptorum in dnabus insignibus Bibliothecis, altera Te- 
 nisoniana Londini, altera Dugdaliana Oxonii Catalogus. 
 Oxon. 1692, 4to." 
 
 3 The English Topographer, p. 115., 1720, 8vo. 
 i3
 
 90 LONDON LIBBAKIES. 
 
 of tbe Duke of Chandos.* He had abundance of 
 other manuscripts, ancient and modern, of which 
 I have seen many chests full, for he was an inde- 
 fatigable collector, and held correspondence with 
 most of the learned and curious men of his time, 
 who were continually addressing him with some 
 historical or political observations and tracts or 
 others ; but bow scattered and consumed, most of 
 them I fear, it is a grief for me to think. 5 He 
 wrote many himself, and published some, but they 
 have not his name. He had great knowledge of 
 the history of the Peerage, Privileges, and Cus- 
 toms of Parliament, Prerogative, &c. Whilst 
 young, and with his father Sir Edward Hyde 
 abroad, he was much trained in reading, translat- 
 ing the epistolary intercourses of some of the most 
 eminent; (he) translated all Cardinal D'Ossat's 
 Letters into English 6 , and I have seen the fair 
 
 4 Sir James Ware's MS. collections relative to Ireland 
 were purchased of his heir by Henry, second Earl of 
 Clarendon, when lord-lieutenant in 1686, and after his 
 death by the Duke of Chandos. These underwent a 
 second dispersion by public auction, 1745-6. Dr. Milles, 
 Dean of Exeter, whose uncle had considerable property 
 in Ireland, purchased a large part, and deposited them in 
 the British Museum, Addit. MSS. 4755. to 4802. Of these 
 MSS. a Catalogue was printed at Dublin in 1648, and 
 again by Bernard, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum An- 
 gliee et Hilernice, torn. ii. part ii., p. 3., Oxon. 1697. 
 
 5 See an interesting chapter on the fate of the Claren- 
 don manuscripts in Lady Theresa Lewis's Lives of the 
 Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, 
 i. 65*-87.* 
 
 6 Arnoldus D'Ossat, Cardinal Bishop of Rennes, and 
 afterwards of Bayeux. In the beginning of the reign of 
 Henry IV. he was sent to Rome to effect a reconciliation 
 between Clement VIII. and his royal master. He died 
 on March 13, 1604. His Life, by Madame Thiroux D'Ar- 
 conville, is in 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1771. Dr. Rawlinson 
 says, " The Letters of this great Cardinal contain all the 
 negociations relating to the affair of the absolution of 
 Henry IV. ; and, according to the politicians, may be a 
 model to those who treat with the Court of Rome." The
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 91 
 
 copy of his own hand in a thick volume of above 
 1000 pages folio. His father then also engaged 
 him to a translation of the Marquis de Rosny's 
 negotiations in England, 1603, out of the Memoirs 
 of the said Marquis, afterwards Duke of Sully, as 
 the best rudiments of such knowledge as is neces- 
 sary in the arts of government and negotiation. 
 And indeed that account, though somewhat prolix, 
 is the most copious, and gives the best light into 
 the parties and factions, prospects and pursuits of 
 the English Court, the best introduction to our 
 history upon the succession of the Scottish line, of 
 any that is to be found in all our own chronicles. 
 At other times his father employed him as his 
 amanuensis, and in transcribing his own corre- 
 spondence, historical and political, particularly his 
 Essays and Discourses, Moral and Divine, whereof 
 during our domestic discords, he wrote many 
 abroad, as he did afterwards also in his exile. The 
 folio volume lately printed 7 contains not a quar- 
 ter of the said Chancellor Clarendon's Remains, 
 one of the most important of which, and that he 
 principally designed for posthumous publication, 
 was his own Life, fairly transcribed by his secre- 
 tary Mr. Shaw, for the press, in near 200 pages 
 folio ; but, through certain womanish fears of its 
 throwing some odium on the memory of other 
 persons, it has been denied the justice of clearing 
 his own. From such laudable applications of the 
 father, the son became such a lover of the like, 
 that I have been assured by his own sister, the 
 
 best edition is that of 1708, Lettres avec des Notes His- 
 toriques et Politiques de M. Amelot De la Houssaie, Amst. 
 12mo. 5 vols. 
 
 7 The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Hon. Edward, 
 Earl of Clarendon ; being a Collection of several valuable 
 Tracts written by that eminent Statesman, published 
 from his Lordship's original MSS. fol. 1727, 1751. These 
 tracts were obtained from the Chancellor's youngest 
 daughter, Lad}' Frances Keightley.
 
 92 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 Lady Francis Keightley, that he spent no less 
 than an hundred thousand pounds upon the collec- 
 tions aforesaid. 
 
 THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND made an admirable 
 collection of books in polite learning, particularly 
 the rarest editions of the classicks, &c. The King 
 of Denmark proffered his heirs thirty thousand 
 pounds for it, and Queen Zara 8 would have in- 
 clined them to part with it ; but for the honour of 
 England it still retains those jewels 9 , though it 
 could not that jewel little regretted, which the 
 French King gave twice that money for. 1 His Lord- 
 ship bought the' collection made by Mr. Adrian 
 Beverland 2 , which was very choice in its kind. 
 This is undoubtedly the best way of gathering a li- 
 brary, especially if the collector was of our own 
 profession, taste, &c. It saves a great deal of time, 
 trouble, and money; for duplicates and subjects 
 disregarded by one man will be as much another's 
 choice; besides, this wholesale method often supplies 
 the purchasers with many rarities he would other- 
 wise never have known of, or might search to 
 pick up singly in vain his whole life. This was the 
 method taken by the Earl of Anglesey, who in the 
 thirty years he disposed himself this way, bought 
 
 8 Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. 
 
 9 Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland (ob. 
 April 19, 1722) was distinguished by his encouragement 
 of learning and learned men. (Spectator, vol. vi. Dedi- 
 cation.) His library was removed to Blenheim in 1749, 
 comprising upwards of 17,000 volumes, in various lan- 
 guages, arts, and sciences, all arranged in elegant cases, 
 with gilt wire latticed doors. 
 
 1 Probably an allusion to the Pitt diamond, purchased 
 by the regent of France in 1717, as a jewel for the 
 crown. Jeffreys says the price paid for it was 125,0007., 
 other authors say 130.000/. 
 
 8 Adrian Beverland, a classical scholar, memorable for 
 his learning, the licentious character of his writings, and 
 his contrition. He died about 1713.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 93 
 
 several whole libraries, particularly that of Mr. 
 Oldenburgh, Secretary of the Royal Society. 3 
 Hence his collection was so numerous ; hence so 
 universal, so extraordinary for its abundance, as 
 well as scarcity thereof; hence such recourse, such 
 acknowledgment thereunto by many persons of 
 honour and learning, though possessed of very 
 great libraries themselves, for the sight of many 
 they could no where else see. But this, in October, 
 1686, was divided and dispersed again by an auc- 
 tion, as though it had never been, as appears by 
 the Catalogue then printed in quarto, and pub- 
 lished by Mr. Tho. Philipps, his Lordship's Gen- 
 tleman. 4 
 
 SIR HANS SLOANE has a very large Collection 
 of Books in all faculties and languages, old 
 printed books and manuscripts, whereof he has 
 about 3000 volumes, and above 1200 of them in 
 folio. Above all, his library is one of the most 
 complete in Travels, Voyages, and Natural His- 
 
 3 Henry Oldenburgh, a mathematician and natural 
 philosopher, born in 1626, and died in 1678. Vide 
 Wood's Fasti, (Bliss) ; Martin's Biog. Philosophica, p. 
 109; Worthington's Diary, i. 192; Gent. Mag. li. 629; 
 Nichols's Lit. Anec. iv. 442 ; and " N. & Q." 2nd S. vi. 
 270. 
 
 4 Arthur Annesley, first Earl of Anglesey of that 
 family: ob. April 6, 1686. The Catalogue of his library 
 is entitled " Bibliotheca Anglesiana, sive Catalogus vari- 
 orum librorum in quavis lingua, et facultate insignium : 
 quos cum ingenti sumptu et sumina diligentia sibi pro- 
 curavit Honoratiss. Arthur Comes D'Anglesey, Priyati 
 olim Sigilli Gustos, et Carolo Secundo a Secretioribus 
 Conciliia. Quorum Auctio habebitur Londini, in ..Kdibus 
 Nigri Cygni ex adverse Australis Porticus Ecclesiaa 
 Cathed. Paulin in Csemiterio D. Paul 25 die Octob. 1686. 
 Per Thomam Philippum, Generosum, olim Oeconomum 
 prsedicto Comiti. 4to. 1686." This sale is memorable 
 for the discovery of the Earl's note on the fly-leaf of a 
 copy of Eiiuav Bao-tAiKij, attributing this work to Bishop 
 Gauden, which occasioned a keen controversy.
 
 94' LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 tory in Europe. A large museum of natural and 
 artificial rarities, as shells, jewels, fossils, plants, 
 animals, medals, antique and modern, Roman and 
 Greek antiquities, ores of all sorts, a vast quantity 
 of which had been collected by that great virtuoso 
 Mr. William Charleton 5 , consisting together of 
 the greatest variety in England. He has great 
 books of plants, all exotic and native ; an extra- 
 ordinary collection of voyages, travels, and dis- 
 coveries in most European languages ; many 
 manuscripts never printed, in Latin, Italian, 
 Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Flemish, and 
 English. 6 
 
 DR. MEAD has also a renowned library, some 
 of which he picked up at Rome many years ago, 
 and industriously made improvements ever since. 7 
 
 The EARL OF CARBURY has a noble collection ; 
 amongst them many relating to mystical divinity. 
 
 The EARL OF KENT has spared for no cost to 
 collect a library of English history, journals of 
 parliament, visitations, pedigrees, &c. 
 
 s Evelyn, in his Diary, Dec. 16, 1687, says, " I car- 
 ried the Countess of Sunderland to see the rarities of 
 one Mr. Charlton [Courten is the family name] in the 
 Middle Temple, who showed us such a collection as I 
 had never seen in all my travels. It consisted of minia- 
 tures, drawings, shells, insects, medals, animals, minerals, 
 precious stones, &c. This gentleman's Collection is esti- 
 mated at 8,OOOZ." See also for Evelyn's second visit, 
 Mar. 11, 1690. 
 
 6 Sir Hans Sloane died on the llth Jan. 1753. His 
 collections, now in the British Museum, were purchased 
 by parliament for 20,0007. His MSS. consist of 4100 
 volumes, of which a Catalogue was compiled by Samuel 
 Ayscough, 2 vols. 4to. 1782. 
 
 > Richard Mead, M.D. died on Feb. 16, 1754. The 
 sale of his library in Nov. and Dec. 1754, lasted for fifty- 
 seven days, and realised 5518Z. 10s. lid.: his pictures, 
 coins, and other antiquities, 10,550/. 18$.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 95 
 
 The EARL OF PEMBROKE 8 is stored with anti- 
 quities relating to medals, lives, also with seals, 
 figures, busts and sculptures in marble and in 
 precious stones. 
 
 The LORD SOMERS'S collection consisted in the 
 laws of this and other nations in various languages, 
 and of our own English historians, both printed 
 and in manuscript. I think they are now in the 
 custody of Sir Joseph Jekyl, Master of the Rolls, 
 who being now dead, they are to be sold by auc- 
 tion. 9 
 
 The LORD HALIFAX 1 made an excellent collec- 
 tion ; they were well chosen and well digested. 
 
 The DUKE OF KINGSTON has also a very nume- 
 rous and valuable library, whereof he has printed 
 a Catalogue, 2 The Lord Hay 3 has also made 
 many curious collections for several years past. 
 
 8 Henry Herbert, ninth Earl. Vide Nichols's Literary 
 Anecdotes, passim. 
 
 a John Lord Somers died on the 26th of April, 1716. 
 Addison dedicated to him the first volume of the Spec- 
 tator. The collection called the Somers Tracts, first 
 printed in 1748, in sixteen volumes, 4to., and again in 
 1809 15, in thirteen volumes, 4to., edited by Sir Walter 
 Scott, consists of scarce pamphlets selected" principally 
 from the library of Lord Somers. A valuable collection 
 of original letters and other papers left by his lordship 
 was consumed in a fire which happened in the Cham- 
 bers of the Hon. Charles Yorke in Lincoln's Inn Square, 
 on the 29th Jan. 1752. 
 
 1 Charles Montagu, created Earl of Halifax, and 
 Viscount Sunbury, co. Middlesex, 14th Oct. 1714 : ob. 
 1715. 
 
 Evelyn Pierrepoint, the first Duke : ob. 1726. The 
 Catalogue of his library made seventy- seven sheets of 
 folio, of which only twenty copies were printed. It is 
 adorned with head and tail pieces of the Duke's house, 
 library, gardens, &c. 
 
 3 George Henry Hay, of Pedwardine, afterwards the 
 7th Earl of Kinnoul in Scotland : ob. 1758.
 
 96 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 His Lordship has also large and well chosen col- 
 lections in Civil Law and Mathematics. The Lord 
 Colerain and Bishop Kennett had a library of 
 lives. 
 
 RICHARD SMYTH. For persons of inferior rank, 
 we never had one more successful in his time for 
 picking up whatsoever was valuable and scarce, 
 and in such variety or abundance, than Mr. Henry 
 [Richard] Smyth, Secondary of the Poultry Comp- 
 ter. There was no day passed over his head in 
 which he visited not Moorfields, Little Britain, or 
 Paul's Churchyard ; and for many years together 
 suffered nothing to escape him that was rare and 
 remarkable. He had laid in a good stock of ac- 
 quaintance with all our writers and eminent men ; 
 knew their characters and their compositions, and, 
 therefore, how much from time to time he wanted 
 to make any argument, controversy, &c., com- 
 plete. He had pamphlets as valuable as manu- 
 scripts ; was an author, as well as a buyer of 
 books : but they fell to the auctioneer, Richard 
 Chiswell, at last, in May, 1682 ; and were sold at 
 the Swan in Bartholomew Close. So no footstep 
 of this extraordinary library remains, which makes 
 perhaps the richest Catalogue of any private li- 
 brary we have to show in print, making above 
 400 pages in a very broad-leaved and close 
 printed quarto. 4 
 
 MR. SECRETARY PEPYS was a great virtuoso in 
 collections of this nature ; they consisted much in 
 English History, both by land and sea, much re- 
 lating to the Admiralty and maritime affairs. He 
 
 * Richard Smyth's interesting Obituary has been edited 
 by Sir Henry Ellis for the Camden Societv. For notices 
 of this collector, consult "N. & Q." ! S.'ii. 389. ; 2 nd 8. 
 iii. 112. ; and viii. 87. The Sale Catalogue of Smyth's 
 library, with manuscript prices, is now in the British 
 Museum.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 97 
 
 collected very much from the Records in the 
 Tower ; had many fine models and new inven- 
 tions of ships and historical paintings of them 
 as the drawing of Henry VIII.'s navy ; had many 
 books of mathematics and other sciences : many 
 costly curiosities relating to the City of London 
 as views, maps, palaces, churches, coronations, 
 funerals, mayoralties, habits, heads of all our 
 famous men, drawn as well as printed ; the most 
 complete of anything in its kind. He had also 
 the copies and writing books of many dexterous 
 calligraphers ; the best collection in Europe, ex- 
 cept perhaps Mr. Robert More's, who succeeded 
 to Col. John Ayres, his collection as well as his 
 business in Paul's School for some years. A man 
 whose free and generous spirit appeared in his 
 pen, and his ingenious fancy at his finger's end. 
 Mr. Pepys collected also many graved devices, 
 title-pages, and frontispieces of foreign as well as 
 domestic gravers, much augmented by his nephew 
 and Mr. Jackson. With many other curious col- 
 lections, disposed very methodically for the easy 
 finding any author on any subject, and the least 
 piece as soon as the largest. 5 No catalogue is 
 
 5 The Pepysian library at Magdalene College is ad- 
 mirably described by the Rev. C. H. Hartshorne in The 
 Book Rarities in the University of Cambridge, pp. 219 
 269. Consult also Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iv. 550., 
 and The Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepyt, 
 Index. When may we expect a good biographical ac- 
 count of this remarkable man ? Owing to the increasing 
 weakness of his eyes, Pepys concluded his Diary with 
 these memorable words : "And so I betake myself to that 
 course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into 
 my grave: for which, and all the discomforts that will 
 accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me ! " 
 This was written on the 31st of May, 1669, but his death 
 did not take place until the 26th of May, 1703 ; so that 
 for a period of thirty-four years, comparatively little is 
 known of his personal history and connexion with the 
 republic of letters. We believe that the Life of Samuel 
 K
 
 98 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 perhaps now perfect except the Lord Maitland's, 
 digested by his own direction ; containing the 
 author's name, place where printed, printer's 
 name, date, and subject-matter contained in the 
 book, which must be of great use to the posses- 
 sors. 6 Catalogues of this nature would give us 
 very great intelligence in a little time. 
 
 The various tastes and pursuits of curious men 
 in their collections of this kind, would be divert- 
 ing to a satirical genius, when we know that the 
 famous Dryden, and also Mr. Congreve after him, 
 had collected some volumes of old ballads and 
 penny story books. Mr. Hearne had the like. 7 
 There's an author alive, I may venture to name 
 him, 'tis Mr. Robert Samber, who would needs 
 turn virtuoso too, and have his collection ; which 
 was, of all the printed tobacco papers he could 
 anywhere light of. 8 The conjunction made them 
 more observable : 
 
 " Et quae non prosunt singula, multa juvant." 
 
 Pepys has more than once been the topic of conversation 
 in the literary gatherings in Albemarle Street. 
 
 6 Richard "Maitland, fourth Earl of Lauderdale, whose 
 translation of Virgil, while it remained in manuscript, 
 was read and praised by Dryden. His Catalogue is en- 
 titled "Catalogus Librorum instructissimae Bibliothecse 
 Nobilis cujusdam Scoto-Britanni in quavis linguS, et 
 facultate insignium: qaibus adjicitur figurarum manu- 
 delineatarum, necnon tabularum sere incisarum per ce- 
 leberrimos Artis Chalcographicae Magistros, Collectio 
 refertissima. Quorum Auctio habenda est Londini, ad 
 insigne Ursi in vieo (vulgb dicto) Ave Mary-lane, prope 
 Ludgate-street, octavo die Aprilis, 1689, per Benj. Wai- 
 ford, Bibliop. Lond." It makes 150 closely-printed 
 pages in 4to. 
 
 7 In addition to Pepys's five folio volumes of curious 
 Old Ballads, and the two large folio volumes of prints 
 and drawings to illustrate the history of London, he made 
 a collection in four duodecimo volumes (mostly in black- 
 letter) of Penny Merriments, Penny Witticisms, Penny 
 Compliments, and Penny Godlinesses, each volume con- 
 taining about a thousand or fifteen hundred pages. 
 
 s See ' N. & a" 2nd S. xL 502.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 99 
 
 But that which is often begun in whim and hu- 
 mour, custom will by degrees turn to serious ap- 
 plication and solicitude, and so it has proved here. 
 But enough of this. 
 
 MR. WILD, who formerly lived in Bloomsbury, 
 had a good collection in husbandry and architec- 
 ture : so had MB. EVELYN. A certain Templar 
 one of astrology, witchcraft, and magic. 
 
 MB. THOMAS BRITTON, the small-coal man in 
 St. John's, Clerkenwell, had an excellent collec- 
 tion of chemical books, as appears by the printed 
 Catalogue, when they were sold by auction. He 
 had also a great parcel of music books, many of 
 them pricked with his own hand. 9 
 
 9 At the death of Britton, his valuable collection of 
 music sold for nearly 100Z. In a mezzotinto print taken 
 by Woolaston, Britton is represented tuning a harpsichord, 
 a violin banging on the side of the room, and shelves of 
 books before him. To this print are the following lines 
 by Prior : 
 
 " Tho' doom'd to Small Coal, yet to arts ally'd, 
 Eich without wealth, and famous without pride; 
 Music's best patron, judge of books and men, 
 Belov'd and honour' d by Apollo's train ; 
 In Greece or Rome, sure never did appear, 
 So bright a genius in so dark a sphere ; 
 More of the man had artfully been sav'd, 
 Had KNELLER painted, and had VERTUE grav'd." 
 
 Bagford and Britton used frequently to indulge in a 
 literary chit-chat on old books and old manuscripts, and 
 both agreed to retrieve what fragments of antiquity they 
 possibly could. We have before us the Sale Catalogue of 
 the Small Coal-Man's library, and a curious one it is, 
 containing just such an inventory of literary relics as 
 would have mightily pleased old Anthony Wood, Tom 
 Hearne, and Browne Willis. It consists of forty closely- 
 printed pages in quarto, and entitled "The Library of 
 Mr. Thomas Britton, Small-Coal Man : being a curious 
 Collection of Books in Divinity, History, Physick, and 
 Chimistry, in all volumes; also, an extraordinary Col- 
 lection of Manuscripts in Latin and English, will be 
 K 2
 
 100 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 DR. BEAUMONT collected all about mystical 
 divinity and spirits. Mr. C. T. P., &c., &c., col- 
 lections of feigned miracles, visions, prophecies, 
 revelations, possessions, and pious impostures of 
 all kinds. Captain ASTON, of voyages and travels 
 in most of the European languages, as well as 
 some on other subjects. Sir ANDREW FOUNTAIN, 
 antiquities, prints, and medals. Mr. Serjeant 
 Surgeon BERNARD, the fairest and best editions of 
 the classics in all volumes ; and MR. DOBBINS, a 
 good collection of surgery. Mr. Huckle, on Tower 
 Hill, of modern authors in all languages ; had 
 great knowledge, and made a good choice of cop- 
 per prints. Mr. Graham, Mr. Child, Mr. Chiche- 
 ley, Mr. Walter Clavell of the Temple, have been 
 noted for their collections both in print and MS. 
 This last bought Giordano's book 10 , and gave it one 
 of the Universities to be answered. 
 
 MR. BRIDGES'S choice and valuable library was 
 lately disposed of in Lincoln's Inn, the Catalogue 
 whereof makes a handsome bound octavo volume. 
 He had a collection of Wenceslaus Hollar's etch- 
 ings in four volumes, and they containing not all 
 his performances, which sold there for above 
 100Z. 1 
 
 sold by Auction at Tom's Coffee-house, adjoyning to 
 Ludgate, on Thursday the 1st of November [1715], by 
 John Bullord." 
 
 10 Giordano Bruno's Spacciode la Sestia Trionfante, 
 Paris, 1584, noticed in The Spectator, No. 389. Vide 
 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 593.; iv. 105. 
 
 1 Bridges's Catalogue is entitled " Bibliothecae Bridge- 
 sianae Catalogus: or, A Catalogue of the entire Library of 
 John Bridges, late of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., consisting of 
 above 4000 Books and Manuscripts in all languages and 
 faculties, particularly in Classics and History, and espe- 
 cially the History and Antiquities of Great Britain and 
 Ireland, which will begin to be sold by Auction on Mon- 
 day, 7th Feb. 1725-6, at his Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, 
 No. 6." 8vo. pp. 199. It realised 4160Z. 12s. Hearne in 
 his Diary, under Feb. 15, 1725-6, says " My late friend
 
 LONDON LIBBAKIES. 101 
 
 The late ME. THOMAS RAWLINSON has been the 
 greatest collector of books in our time who has 
 made his collections public ; for before his death, 
 as well as since, they have been sold by auction. 
 I think there have been seventeen or eighteen 
 large catalogues sold off from the 4th of Dec. 
 1721, when his first auction began at Paul's Coffee 
 House, to the 4th of March, 1733, when the last 
 auction of his books, including his MSS. began at 
 the same place, and the books are not all gone out 
 of London House yet ; but he out of one volume 
 made many, and all the tracts or pamphlets that 
 came to his hands in volumes and bound together, 
 he separated to sell them singly, so that what some 
 curious men had been pairing and sorting half 
 their lives to have a topic or argument complete, 
 he by this means confused and dispersed again. 
 He's called Tom Folio in the Tatlers. If his 
 purse had been much wider he had a passion be- 
 yond it, and would have been driven to part with 
 what he was so fond of, such a pitch of curiosity 
 or dotage he was arrived at upon a different 
 edition, a fairer copy, a larger paper, than twenty 
 of the same sort he might be already possessed of. 
 In short, his covetousness after those books he had 
 not increased with the multiplication of those he 
 had ; and as he lived so he died, in his bundles, 
 piles, and bulwarks of paper, in dust and cobwebs, 
 at London House in Aldersgate Street. 2 
 
 John Bridges, Esq.'a books being now selling by auction 
 in London (they began to be sold on Monday the 7th 
 inst.), I hear the}* go very high, being fair books, in 
 good condition, and most of them finely bound. This 
 afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls' College, 
 (I suppose Dr. Clarke,) that gave a commission of 8. for 
 an Homer in 2 vols., a small 8vo. if not 12mo. But it 
 went for six guineas. People are in love with good bind- 
 ing more than good reading." 
 
 * Thomas Kawlinson at first lived in Gray's Inn, where 
 he had four chambers so completely filled with books, that 
 his bed was removed into the passage. He afterwards 
 K 3
 
 102 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 Several more might be named who have been 
 famous for their libraries, as Thomas Sclater Ba- 
 con, Esq., whose collection amounted in the cata- 
 logue to 12,000, besides his vast quantities of 
 prints, pamphlets, &c., begun to be sold by Cock 
 the auctioneer, under the Ir'iazza in Covent Gar- 
 den, 14 March, 1736-7. 3 Mr. West of Lincoln's 
 Inn, Sir Thos. Sebright, Mr. Calamy, Mr. Raw- 
 linson, the apothecary, whose library sold to a 
 bookseller for above 10001. ; Mr. Jones's mathe- 
 matical library, Mr. Constable of Yorkshire, Mr. 
 Granger, Mr. Topham, famous for his Greek col- 
 lections, prints, and drawings ; Dr. Goodman, Dr. 
 Gray, Dr. Tyson, and Dr. Woodward. Mr. Good- 
 win of Finder had a valuable library, and Dr. 
 Salmon the largest collection of English folios in 
 any private hands, being near 2000 in number, 
 
 resided at London House in Aldersgate Street, where he 
 died on August 6, 1725, aged 44. At that time his li- 
 brary contained the largest collection of books which had 
 ever been offered to the public. The Catalogue of his 
 printed books consists of nine parts ; and the sale of his 
 manuscripts alone lasted for sixteen days. This biblio- 
 polist was certainly a remarkable man, in spite of Addi- 
 son's satirical notice of him in No. 158. of The Tatler. 
 Tom Hearne thought very highly of him. " Some gave 
 out, (he says) and published it too m printed papers, that 
 Mr. Rawlinson understood the editions and title-pages of 
 books only, without any other skill in them, and there- 
 upon they styled him TOM FOLIO. But these were only 
 buffoons, and" persons of very shallow learning. 'Tis cer- 
 tain that Mr. Eawlinson understood the editions and 
 titles of books better than any man I ever knew (for he 
 had a very great memory) ; but then besides this, he was 
 a great reader, and had read abundance of the best wri- 
 ters, ancient and modern, throughout, and was entirely 
 master of the learning contained in them. He had di- 
 gested the classicks so well as to be able readily and upon 
 all occasions (what I have very often admired) to make 
 use of passages from them very pertinently, what I never 
 knew in so great perfection in any other person what- 
 soever." Diary, Sept. 4, 1725. 
 5 See ante, pp. 18, 19.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 103 
 
 with quartos and octavos proportionable. Mr. An- 
 thony Collins had the largest collection of contro- 
 versial pamphlets, which are specified in two thick 
 octavo catalogues. 
 
 Now that I have mentioned the largest, let's not 
 forget the least compositors. 
 
 Old JOHN MURRAY of Sacomb has made scarce 
 publications of English authors his inquiry all his 
 life : he has been a collector above forty years at 
 all sales, auctions, shops, and stalls, partly for his 
 own curiosity, and partly to oblige such authors 
 and gentry as have commissioned him. His ac- 
 count of any old English book as to the complete- 
 ness, scarcity, value, and general character of it, 
 has always been regarded by Mr. Anstis, Hearne, 
 Le Neve, and many other knowing antiquaries, 
 who were better judges of the subject matter of 
 these books than himself.* 
 
 * Hearne has the following notices of this literary an- 
 tiquary in his Diary: "Aug. 23, 1726. Mr. Murray 
 told me formerly that he began to collect books at eleven, 
 now he says at thirteen, years of age. I thought Mr. 
 Murray had kept all his cariosities together, ever since 
 he began collecting, excepting duplicates; but be tells 
 me now, that besides duplicates, he hath parted, upon oc- 
 casion, wilh a vast number of things, and I find he lets 
 any one that wants have what books he hath, and 'tis 
 this way that he gets his support. 
 
 " Feb. 25, 1734-5. Mr. West, in his letter of the 17th 
 inst. from the Inner Temple, tells me he had a little be- 
 fore been fetch'd to Sacombe in Hertfordshire, by a mes- 
 senger, to our honest friend John Murray. He is in a 
 very declining way, occasioned by a slow fever, acquired 
 by overheating his blood in his last walk from London 
 thither, which is looked upon as twenty miles. 
 
 "Ap. 1. 1735. Mr. John Murray, who was very dan- 
 gerously ill lately at Sacombe in Hertfordshire, is since 
 gone to London (as Mr. West in his letter of March 17, 
 1734-5.) much recovered, so that 'twas hoped he got 
 strength daily." 
 
 John Murray was born on January 24, 1670, and died 
 Sept 13, 1748. Dr. Rawlinson possessed a painting of
 
 104 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 We have several parsons,. I see too, who begun 
 to turn the penny this way, and what with chop- 
 ping and changing, and selling and buying, ap- 
 pear to be great customers and friends to the 
 muses. 
 
 The booksellers abroad may be more learned, 
 and make better judgment of their books, than 
 ours, but I believe few are better stored. I have 
 known several of them mark at auctions in their 
 catalogues the prices that books go off at, and so 
 settle a value on their own to persons conform- 
 ably, which is a most erroneous valuation, to make 
 a general rule of a particular inclination or neces- 
 sity. I have given myself twenty shillings for a 
 thing that is worth to no other man, I believe, a 
 tenth part of that money, nor to me after I had 
 some little circumstance out of it. The atheisti- 
 cal book of Giordano Bruno sold at Paul's Coffee 
 House for 30Z. in 1709 ; it has scarcely sold for so 
 many pence since. 5 And a complete Holinshead 
 rose there some years after to 80Z. ; it has never 
 sold again for so many shillings. The value of it 
 was thought to lie in its being complete ; but now 
 the castrated sheets are reprinted you may have 
 many of the books complete, yet they will bear 
 no extravagant valuation : therefore the value 
 arose neither from a desire of knowledge which the 
 
 him, which was engraved by Vertue. He is leaning on 
 three books, inscribed " T. Hearne, V. III. Sessions 
 Papers, and Tryals of Witches," and holding a fourth 
 under his coat Underneath are the following lines, 
 signed G. N. : 
 
 " Oh ! Maister John Murray of Sacomb, 
 The works of Old Time to collect was his pride, 
 
 Till Oblivion dreaded his care: 
 Regardless of friends intestate he died, 
 So the rooks and the crows were his heirs." 
 
 5 Probably his Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante, Paris, 
 1584. Vide Nichols's Liter. Anecdotes, ii. 593. ; iv. 105., 
 and ante, p. 100.
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 105 
 
 scarce part would communicate, neither from its 
 intrinsic reinarkableness or instruction, nor even 
 from any use to be made of it, but merely from 
 the empty property of singularity, and being, as 
 the contending purchasers erroneously thought, no 
 where to be found. If there were no foolish bid- 
 ders, there would be no extortionate sellers of 
 books ; but Tom Guy had seen enough into the 
 course of business to justify the propriety of 
 founding an hospital for incurables, though he 
 might not have so grateful a meaning therein 
 towards some of the authors and purchasers who 
 helped to make him so rich, because he might be 
 apprehensive that their condition at worst might 
 be happier than his, inasmuch as it is more miser- 
 able to starve in the midst of riches than in the 
 privation of them. 6 
 
 But if we consider the stores of our booksellers 
 (it having been frequent with some of them to 
 make sales of 5000 books at a time, for others to 
 have gotten clear 300Z. or 400Z. by a sale and one 
 showed me of many, lately in Gray's Inn Hall, 
 which he had the liberty of sorting them in, as he did 
 assure me, were about 40,000 in number), we shall 
 find occasion to believe we exceed many foreign 
 
 6 Thomas Guy was the son of a lighterman atHorsley- 
 down, where he was born in 1644. He was apprenticed 
 on Sept. 2, 1660, to John Clarke, bookseller, in the porch 
 of Mercers' Hall, Cheapside. In this house, rebuilt after 
 the Great Fire, lie commenced business for himself; but 
 subsequently removed to a shop in the angle formed by 
 Cornhill and Lombard Street, since known as " The 
 Lucky Corner." Mr. Guy represented the borough of 
 Tamworth in parliament from 1695 to 1707, bis mother's 
 native place. He is said to have made bis fortune ostensi- 
 bly by the sale of Bibles; but more, it is thought, by 
 purchasing seamen's tickets, and by the sale and transfer 
 of stock in the memorable South Sea year of 1720. The 
 building and furnishing of his Hospital amounted to 
 18,792*. 16t. ; and the endowment to 219.499/. He died 
 on the 27th Dec. 1724, in the 80th year of bis age.
 
 106 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 traders in this commodity. For, except a few of 
 our most noted Latin authors, we send but few 
 abroad, and English hpoks are as little read there 
 as Dutch are here. But, on the other hand, we 
 have great importations every year from abroad, 
 especially France and Holland, of books in all 
 faculties, and in all languages, by Vaillant, Van- 
 denhoeck, Prevost, and Denoyere. I believe 
 James Woodman and his partner imported a thou- 
 sand pounds' worth every year. He also got over 
 all the foreign books that anyways treated of our 
 country or its natives, stained with prejudice in- 
 deed many of them, no disturbance perhaps to 
 him, because written by opposites in religion, 
 nevertheless acceptable and useful to us, as he 
 found by the advantage he made of them. 
 
 For these and other reasons, flowing from the 
 liberty of the press, it may be that such a man as 
 Christopher Bateman may have had more books 
 gone through his hands than any bookseller in 
 Paris, he having bought and sold so many libraries 
 for nearly fifty years together. His office or shop 
 hath been the magazine from whence many of the 
 gentlemen before mentioned have constantly sup- 
 plied themselves. No wonder our nation abounds 
 so in books, and we meet with such numerous 
 libraries wherever we turn, since we have some 
 to increase, and so few outlets of them. The 
 library of Vossius did indeed escape through some 
 sinister management as it is thought. A few upon 
 Trade, Travels, and Navigation have gone to the 
 Plantations ; and a few are sometimes sold by 
 ignorant women to grocers, chandlers, and trunk- 
 makers, but few are so ignorant as not to know 
 if the books they cannot read or want money for 
 are perfect, that the booksellers will give more 
 money for them. The best defence I know of for 
 to keep the ignorant from laying violent hands on 
 the works of the learned and preserve the inside 
 of a book is to deck the outside finely. And
 
 LONDON LIBRARIES. 107 
 
 though a wise man is not captivated with exter- 
 nals, yet he knows that finery will breed esteem 
 and veneration in fools. See what the learned 
 Gassendus says of Peiresc in his life. On this 
 topic of bookbinding a greater deference should 
 be paid to good manuscripts, which on the con- 
 trary I seldom meet with well bound. Whether 
 the authors, intending a second and fairer copy, 
 think anything good enough to contain the first, 
 or whether they modestly decline to show any os- 
 tentatious regard to their own compositions I know 
 not ; but so it is, that they commonly make such 
 a contemptible figure to the eye, both with outside 
 and within, that I am persuaded the foul and 
 slovenly writing, and the greasy parchment or 
 paltry paper covering of them, has promoted the 
 disregard and destruction of some of the finest 
 performances of our forefathers. 
 
 As for the auctioneers, I know not the name of 
 the first amongst us, not having seen the cata- 
 logue of Dr. Seaman's books, which were the first 
 that were published by auction 7 , however An- 
 
 7 Dr. Seaman's Catalogue is entitled " Catalogus Va- 
 riorum et Inw'gnium Librorum instructissimse Bibliotherae 
 Clarissimi Doctissimique Viri Lazari Seaman, S. T. D. 
 Quorum Auctio habebitur Londini in tedibus Defunct! in 
 Area et Viculo Warwicensi. Octobris ultimo. Cura Gu- 
 lielmi Cooper, Bibliopole, 1676. 4to. pp. 137." Dr. Sea- 
 man's residence was in Warwick Court, in Warwick Lane. 
 In the Preface to the Reader, the auctioneer stated, " It 
 hath not been usual here in England to make Sale of Books 
 by way of Auction, or who will give most for them ; but 
 if having been practised in other countries to the advan- 
 tage both of buyers and sellers, it was therefore conceived 
 (for the encouragement of learning) to publish the sale of 
 these books this manner of way ; and it is hoped that this 
 will not be unacceptable to scholars; and therefore we 
 thought it convenient to give an Advertisement concern- 
 ing the manner of proceeding therein." 
 
 Hearne thus notices this sale: " Feb. 13, 1722-3. The 
 first catalogue of books sold by auction was the library 
 of Dr. Seaman ; the second was that of the Rev. Mi
 
 108 LONDON LIBRARIES. 
 
 thony Wood mistook Mr. Smith's to be so. Those 
 that have been most conspicuous were Dunmore, 
 Ned Millington, of whom there is a poem in Tom 
 Brown's posthumous Works 8 , Marmaduke Foster, 
 Cooper, Bullard, &c., who have had vast quanti- 
 ties pass through their hands, as Smith's, Lord An- 
 
 Thomas Kidner, A.M., Rector of Hitchin in Hartford- 
 shire, beginning Feb. 6, 1676-7." On the progress of sell- 
 ing books by catalogues, see an article by Mr. Gough in 
 Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 608. ; and Dibdin's Bib- 
 liomania, 402. 408. 418., &c. In the British Museum is a 
 quarto volume containing the first eleven Catalogues of 
 Books sold by auction with the prices in manuscript, 
 namely, those of 1. Seaman, 31 Oct. 1676. 2. Kidner, 
 Feb. 1676-7. 3. Greenhill, Feb. 1677-8. 4. Manton, 
 March, 1678. 5. Worsley, May, 1678. 6. Godolphin and 
 Phillips, Nov. 1678. 7. Voetius, Nov. 1678. 8. Sanger 
 and Brook, Lord Warwick, Dec. 1678. 9. Apud Thea- 
 trum Sheldonianum, Feb. 1678-9. 10. Watkins and 
 Sherley, June, 1679. 11. Bishe, Nov. [1679?] To this 
 volume Mr. Heber has added the following MS. note : " This 
 volume, which formerly belonged to Narcissus Luttrell, 
 and since to Mr. Gough, is remarkable for containing the 
 eleven first Catalogues of Books ever sold by auction in 
 England. What renders it still more curious, is that the 
 prices of nearly all the articles are added in MS. When 
 it came into my possession it had suffered so much from 
 damp, and the leaves were so tender and rotten, that 
 every time the volume was opened, it was liable to injury. 
 This has been remedied by giving the whole a strong 
 coat of size. At Willett's sale, Booth the bookseller of 
 Duke Street, Portland Place, bought a volume of old Ca- 
 talogues for 21. 3s. (see Merly Catalogue, n. 531.), and 
 charged the same in his own shop Catalogue for 1815 
 211. (lot 6823). It contained merely the eight which 
 stand first in the present collection, of which Greenhill's 
 and Godolphin's were not priced at all ; and Voet's and 
 Sanger's only partially. However, it enabled me to fill 
 up a few omissions in the prices of my copy of Sanger's. 
 N.B. The prices of Willett's and the present copy did not 
 always tally exactly." At the sale of Heber's Library this 
 volume sold for 3/. 
 
 8 See the Works of Mr. Thomas Brown, ed. 1744, vol. 
 iv. p. 320., for " An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Edward
 
 LONDON LIBB ABIES. 109 
 
 glesey's 9 , Dr. Jacomb's, Earl of Ailsbury's, Lord 
 Maitland's, and those vast stocks of Scots and 
 Davis's of Oxford, with many others that has 
 much improved the curious, and let them into a 
 knowledge and value of what before lay dusty 
 and disposed in studios, warehouses, and lumber- 
 rooms. 
 
 But the better to know what we may inquire 
 after and what is to be had, we should consult the 
 catalogues of what have been amassed and is dis- 
 persed, or what still continues entire and unsepa- 
 rated. France, Spain, Italy, &c., spare no cost 
 and pains to illustrate, and set forth their col- 
 lections ; and if we were not wanting of encou- 
 ragement here, we have as able hands, as noble 
 collections, and as great a variety as any part of 
 Europe. But what numbers of useful and valu- 
 able books are imprisoned and concealed from the 
 world by the jealous or covetous temper of some 
 possessors ! How much is Science impeded and 
 prejudiced, mankind kept in the dark, and our 
 country dishonoured, so contrary to the spirit of 
 communication which men as men and sociable 
 creatures, much more those of knowledge, ought 
 to be endowed with, by not exhibiting catalogues 
 of their libraries to the world, or permitting the 
 ingenious to have recourse to them. 
 
 Millington, the famous Auctioneer." To the Elegy is sub- 
 joined the following Epitaph : 
 "Underneath this marble stone 
 Lives the famous Millington : 
 A man who through the world did steer, 
 I' tli' station of an auctioneer ; 
 A man with wond'rous sense and wisdom bleat, 
 Whose qualities are not to be expreat." 
 
 See ante, p. 93.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Advocates' library, Doctors' Commons, 77 
 
 Allott (Robert), " England's Parnassus," xli 
 
 Ames (Joseph), xviii. 2, 4, 6, 10-12, 18-20, 25-28, 82 
 
 Anglesey (Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of), library, 93 
 
 Anne (Queen), and a public library, 38 
 
 Anstis (John), Garter, xyii. 4, 11, 12, 14, 24 
 
 Artillery Ground, West, its library, 67 
 
 Arundel manuscripts, 75, 79, 80 
 
 Atkyns's Gloucestershire, 48 
 
 Austin (Mr.), his pudding baked in the Thames, 17 
 
 Bacon (Nathaniel) of Virginia, 50, 51' 
 
 Bacon (Thomas Sclater), library, 16, 18, 26, 76, 102 
 
 Bagford (John) on the London libraries, 58-109 
 
 Bayle's Dictionary, Supplement, xix 
 
 Behn (Mrs. Aphra), 4851 
 
 Bentley (Dr. Richard), librarian at St. James's, 63 
 
 Betterton (Thomas), actor, 45 
 
 Beverland (Adrian), 92 
 
 Bibliography as a science, xv xviii. xxvii 
 
 " Biographia Britannica," 1747-66, Oldys's contributions 
 
 to, xxx xxxii. ; its editors, xxxii. 32 ; second edition 
 
 by Dr. Kippis, xxxii. xl 
 Birch (Dr, Thomas), Oldys's letters to, xxxiii 
 Book auctions, the earliest, 108 
 Books, monev found in old, 32 
 
 Booth (Nathaniel) of Gray's Inn, xviii. 5, 8, 12, 21, 51 
 Bowman (John), actor, 47, 50 
 Bridges (John), Sale Catalogue of his library, 100 
 " British Librarian," by Oldys, xvi xviii. xxii. 11 15 
 Britton (Thomas), collection of books, 99 
 Brooke (John Charles), Somerset Herald, xxiii 
 Browne (Wm.), author of " Britannia's Pastorals," 39 
 Bruno (Giordano), "Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante," 
 
 100, 104 
 
 Brydges (Sir S. Egerton), xxv. xxvi 
 Burroughs (Samuel), Master in Chancery, 3 
 Butler (Samuel), noticed, 4
 
 I M > I. \ . HI 
 
 Caban (Mons.), noticed, 28, 29 
 
 Carbury (Earl of), library, 94 
 
 Caroline (Queen), Collection of Plays, 16, 84 
 
 Cartwright (Win.) bequeaths his books to Dulwich Col- 
 lege, 84 
 
 Casley (David), librarian, 62, 63 
 
 Catalogue of English Lives, by Oldys, 29 
 
 Catalogues of books, the earliest, 108 
 
 Caxton (William), printer, xxx 
 
 Charles II. 's dying request for his ladies, 36 
 
 Charlton (Wra.), a great virtuoso, 94 
 
 Chaucer (Geoffrey), on old authors, 30 ; portrait, 39 
 
 Christ Hospital, Newgate Street, library, 71, 78 
 
 Churchyard (Thomas), poet, 40, 41 
 
 Gibber (Theophilus), " Lives of the Poets," xlii 
 
 Clarendon (Henry, Earl of), library, 8992 ; Note Book, 
 25 
 
 Cooke (Thomas), miscellaneous writer, 4, 16 
 
 Cooper (Elizabeth), " The Muses' Library," xv. 1, 4, 7, 23 
 
 Cooper (Samuel), miniature painter, 34 
 
 Corney (Bolton) on Oldys's "Catalogue of Pamphlets in 
 the Harleian Library," xx vi ; and contributions to the 
 " Biographia Britannica," xxx 
 
 Corawallis (Sir Charles), "Life of Henry, Prince of 
 Wales," 21 
 
 Cotton (Charles), Life by Oldys, xxxviii. 15 
 
 Cotton House, Westminster, 65 
 
 Cottonian library, 6265 
 
 Coxeter (Thomas), xi. xlii. 16, 29, 33, 54 
 
 Cromleholme (Samuel), of St Paul's School, 74 
 
 Cromwell (Oliver), " Letters and Papers of State," 17, 18 
 
 Crowne (Win.), " Travels of Lord Howard," 79 
 
 Curll (Edmund), xv. xxviii 
 
 Daborn (Rob.), "Lives of Ward and Dansiker," 84 
 
 Danyell (John), of Deresbury, 8 
 
 Davenant (Dr. Charles), his letters, 34 
 
 Davenant (Sir William), 44, 47 
 
 Davies (Thomas), Catalogue of Oldys's library, xlv xliy 
 58 
 
 Domesday Book, origin of its name 6 ; fac- similized, 61 
 
 Dorchester (Henry rierrepoint, Marquis of), 81 
 
 D'Ossat (Cardinal), letters, 90 
 
 Drayton (Michael), Works, xxviii. xxix. xxxi 
 
 Dryden (John), vii. 32, 83, 35 
 
 Dulwich College library, 84 
 
 Dunton (John), collection of pamphlets, 86 
 
 Dutch Church, Austin Friars, library, 81 
 
 Dyer (Sir Edward) and Queen Elizabeth, 87
 
 112 INDEX. 
 
 Edward VI., picture by Holbein, 78 
 
 Elderton (Wm.), comedian, 51, 52 
 
 Elizabeth (Queen), her girlish tricks, 26 ; mulberry-tree, 
 
 34 ; colloquy with Sir Edw. Dyer, 37 
 Elyot (Sir Thomas), " The Goveraour," 13 
 Evremont (Mons. Sieg.), 36 
 Fabian (Robert), " Chronicle," 52, 53 
 Fane (Counsellor), a debtor to Oldys, 33 
 Fastolff (Sir 'John), xxxi. 14, 24 
 Florio (John), collection of Italian proverbs, xli 
 " Fly," an anacreontick, xiii 
 Forbes (Patrick), " Transactions in the Reign of Queen 
 
 Elizabeth," 62 
 
 French Churches in London, libraries, 82 
 Friends' library, 83. 
 
 Fry (John), notes on Oldys's library, xlv xlix 
 Fuller (Thomas) " Worthies," annotated, xlv. xlvi 
 Gascoyne (Richard), genealogist, viii x. xxxi 
 " General Dictionary," 1734-41, xix. 18, 24 
 Gervaise of Tilbury, " Ancient-Dialogue," 5, 6 
 Goodman's Fields playhouse, 31 
 Gore (Thomas), heraldic writer, 77 
 Gray's Inn library, 69 
 Greek Genesis MS., restored, 65 
 Gresham College library, 79 
 Grimes (Charles) of Gray's Inn, xviii 
 Grose (Capt.), his "Olio" characterised, xxxvi 
 Guy (Thomas), noticed, 105 
 Halifax (Charles Montagu, Earl of), library, 95 
 Harleian Catalogue of Printed Books, xxii xxv. 54 
 Harleian library, xviii xxiii. 38, 43, 54, 87, 88 
 Harleian Miscellany, xxv xxvii 
 Harley (Sir Edward), limning of, 13 
 Harris (Mr.), of Homerton, 7 
 Haslewood (Joseph), xxvi. 
 Haslin (Mr.), noticed, 15 
 Hawkins (Sir John), xL xxxviii. 15 
 Hay (George Henry, Lord), library, 95 
 Haynes (Sam.), " Collection of State Papers," 19, 26 
 Hayward (Thomas), " British Muse," xv. 4, 7, 8, 16, 17, 
 
 20, 23, 26, 28, 29 
 
 Heralds' College, its library, 7477 
 Herbert (Edward Lord), his Life, 25 
 " History of the Three Impostors," 28, 29 
 Holbein's picture of Edward VI., 78 
 Hollar (Wenceslaus), engraver, xxxi 
 Holmes (Geo.), Keeper of the Tower Records, 12 
 Jenkins (Capt. Robert), maimed by Spaniards, 27
 
 INDEX. 113 
 
 Jernegan (Henry), his silver cistern, 27 
 
 Jews' Synagogue, library, 82 
 
 Jones ( Wm.), collection of shells, &c., 12 
 
 Johnson (Dr. Samuel), xxii xxiv. xxviii 
 
 Jonson (Ben), Charles I.'s patent for 1001., 32 ; noticed, 47 
 
 Kennett (Bishop), his MS. collections, 85; on the value 
 
 of Pamphlets, 87 
 Kent (Earl of), library, 94 
 
 Kingston (Evelyn Pierrepoint, 1st Duke of), library, 95 
 Lambeth archiepiscopal library, 69 
 Langbaine (Gerard), "Dramatick Poets," annotated 
 
 copies, vii. xlii xliv 
 
 Lauderdale (Richard, 4th Earl of), Catalogue, 98 
 " Leicester's Commonwealth," 10 
 Le Neve (Peter), historical collections, 75, 76 
 Lewis (John), Life of Caxton, 10, 20, 28, 29 
 Libraries of London, historical notices, 58 109 
 Libri (M. G.), his annotated Catalogue, xxi 
 Lincoln's Inn library, 70 
 Locker (John), barrister, 24 
 Lockman (John), xix. 4 
 London, Oldys's books and pamphlets on, xlvii 
 London Corporation library, 70 
 Longueville (Viscountess de), longevity, 35 37 
 Lort (Dr. Michael), xxvii 
 
 Mackenzie (Roderick), collection of pamphlets, 87 
 Madox (Thomas), historiographer, 5 
 Maittaire (Dr. Michael), xxii. xxiii 
 Martin (Thomas) of Palgrave, 24 
 Massinger's Plays, 16 
 Mead (Richard), M.D., library, 94 
 Miller ( Win.), collection of pamphlets, 86 
 Millington (Edward), epitaph on, 109 
 Milton (John), letter to Cromwell, 25 ; noticed, 53, 54 
 Minshen's Dictionary, 82 
 Moffet (Dr.), " Health's Improvement," xxviii 
 Monson (Sir William), collections, 2 
 Moore (Dr. John), Bp. of Ely, magnificent library, 88 
 Mulberry tree at Carlisle House, 34 
 Murray (John) of Sacomb, 103 
 Nickolls (John), his Letters of Oliver Cromwell, 17 
 Norden (John), " View of London," 84 
 Norfolk (Edward Howard, Earl of), xxxiv. xxxv 
 Northampton (Henry, Earl of), " Defence of the Lawful 
 
 Regiment of Women," 21 
 Odell (Thomas), his manuscripts, 30, 31 
 Oldenburgh (Henry), mathematician, 93 
 Oldfleld (Anne), collection of Plays, 16
 
 114 INDEX. 
 
 Oldys (Dr. Wm.), civilian, v vii. 32, 77 
 
 OLDYS (WILLIAM), parentage, v ; visits Yorkshire, vii ; 
 patronised by the Earl of Oxford, xi. xix ; his Life of 
 Ralegh, xiii. 22 ; " British Librarian," xvi ; assists on 
 the Catalogue of the Harleian Library, xxii ; editor of 
 the " Harleian Miscellany," xxv ; his " Catalogue of 
 Pamphlets in the Harleian Library, xxvi ; articles in 
 the " Biographia Britannica," xxx ; pecuniary difficul- 
 ties, xxxiii ; appointed Norroy King-at-Arms, xxxv ; 
 death, xxxix ; portrait, ib. ; annotated Langbaine, 
 xlii ; sale of his library, xlv ; manuscripts, xlvii ; liter- 
 ary labours, 1 
 
 Oliver (Isaac), miniature painter, 13 
 
 Oliver (Peter), miniature painter, 13 
 
 Osborne (Thomas), bookseller, xxii xxviii. 54, 88 
 
 Oxford (Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of), xi. xii. xix xxi. 
 22, 29, 38, 45, 54, 55, 87, 88 
 
 Oxford (Robert Harley, 1st Earl of), 38, 87, 88 
 
 Oxley (Dr.), noticed, 19, 26 
 
 Pamphlets, Oldys's Dissertation upon, xii ; Catalogue of 
 the Harleian, xxvi. xxvii. 87 ; Thomason's Collection, 
 85, 86 ; Miller's, 86 ; Oldys's, 87 
 
 " Paradise of Dainty Devices," 7 
 
 Park (Thomas), xxv xxvii 
 
 " Pastyme of People," 18, 19 
 
 Pate (William), the learned tradesman, 28 
 
 Paterson (Samuel), bookseller, 3 
 
 Pembroke (Henry, 9th Earl of), library, 95. 
 
 Pembroke (Mary, Countess of), Life by Oldys, 33 
 
 Pepusch (John Chris.) musician, 4, 15 
 
 Pepys (Samuel), 79, 84; library, 96, 97 
 
 Physicians' College library, 81 
 
 Pirckheimer (Bilibald), portrait, 79 
 
 Pitt diamond, 92 
 
 Pope (Alex.), xix. 31, 45 
 
 Powell (Robert), " Repository of Records," 61 
 
 Ralegh (Sir Walter), Life by Oldys, xiii xv. 22 ; minia- 
 ture portrait, 14 ; poem, 23 
 
 Rastell (John), " Chronicles," 18 
 
 Rawlins (Thomas), engraver to the Mint, 33 
 
 Rawlinson (Thomas), book collector, 101 
 
 Reading (Rev. Wm.), Catalogue of Sion College library, 
 72,73 
 
 Reed (Isaac), xxvii 
 
 Robinson (Robert), Recorder of Scarborough, 23, 32 
 
 Rocque (John), " Survey of London, Westminster, &c., 
 19 
 
 Roe (Sir Thomas), " Negotiations," xi. 3
 
 INDEX. 115 
 
 Royal library at St. James's palace, 67 
 
 Royal Society, its library, 79, 80 
 
 St/Paul's Ca'thedral, its'library, 74 
 
 St. Paul's School, its library, 74 
 
 Samler (Robert), tobacco dilettante, 98 
 
 Bancroft (Abp.), library at Emmanuel College, 69 
 
 " Scarborough Miscellany," xii. xiii 
 
 Seaman (Dr. Lazarus), sale of hi books, 107 
 
 Seymour (Lord) of Sudley, and Queen Elizabeth, 26 
 
 Seymour's " London," its editor, 4 
 
 Shadwell (Thomas), dramatist, 42 
 
 Shakspeare (Wm.), collections for his Life, xl. 43 47 
 
 Sheldon (Ralph), manuscripts, 75 
 
 Simpson (Rev. John), founder of Sion College library, 
 73. 
 
 Sion College library, 72, 73. 
 
 Sloane(Sir Hans), xiv. 7, 18; library, 93 
 
 Smith (Dr. Thomas), Catalogue of Cotton. MSS., 64, 65 
 
 Smyth (Richard), book collector, 96 
 
 Society for the Encouragement of Learning, 3 
 
 Somers (John Lord), library, 95 
 
 Spenser (Edmund), noticed, 42, 43 
 
 Stationers' Company, a library suggested, 84 
 
 Strafforrt (Earl of), his "Letters," viii 
 
 Strype (John), historian, 7 
 
 Stuart, the Athenian, and his son, 35 
 
 Suckling (Sir John), dramatist, 55, 56 
 
 Sunderland (Charles, 3rd Earl of), library, 92 
 
 Sydney (Sir Philip), Defence of Robert, Earl of Lei- 
 cester, 10 ; miniature of, 13 
 
 Talbot (Thomas), engraving of " The Rose," 1, 2 
 
 Taylor (the Chevalier), xxxvii 
 
 Taylor (John), oculist, xxxiv. xxxvii 
 
 Taylor ( John), jnn., his "Records of my Life" quoted, v. 
 xii. xxxviii 
 
 Temple, destructive fire in the, 3 ; libraries, 70 
 
 Tenison (Abp.), library, 68, 89 
 
 Thomason (George), collection of Civil War tracts, 85, 
 86 
 
 Thompson (Sir Peter), xviii. 11, 13, 19, 20, 26 
 
 Thompson (Kev. Wm.), 39, 43 
 
 Tower of London, its Records. 60 
 
 " Trinarchodia," Oldys's remarks on it, 88 
 
 Trussel (John), MS. 'Description of Winchester, 5fl, 57 
 
 Twells (Rev. Leonard), 18 
 
 44 Universal Spectator," xi. 15 
 Vanloo (John Baptist), painter, 27 
 Verrio's painting at Christ Hospital, 78
 
 116 INDEX. 
 
 Vertue (George), xix. xxi. 1, 10, 12, 13, 19, 23, 32, 40, 
 42 
 
 Vincent (Augustine), Windsor herald, 75 
 
 Waller (Edmund), the poet, 35 
 
 Walsingham (Sir Francis), State Papers, 15; Table 
 Book, 29 
 
 Walton (Izaak), Life by Hawkins, xxxviii. 15 
 
 Wanley (Humphry), xviii. 38, 65 
 
 Ward (John), Gresham Professor, 6, 20, 25 
 
 Ware (Sir James), MS. collections, 90 
 
 Weaver (John), collection of Plays, 16, 84 
 
 Wentworth (Thomas), Marquis of Rockingham, vii x 
 
 West (James), bibliopole, 2, 3, 18, 34, 102, 103 
 
 Westminster Chapter House, its Records, 60 ; Parlia- 
 ment Rolls in Old Palace Yard, 61 ; Cotton House, 
 . 65 ; Abbey library, 66 
 
 Weston (Elizabeth Joanna), 1 1 
 
 White Cross Street library, 81 
 
 Whiting (John), Catalogue of Friends' books, 83 
 
 Whittington (Sir Richard), library at Grey Friars, 71 
 
 Wilcox (Mr.), bookseller, xxiii 
 
 Wild (Mr.), of Bloomsbury, his collections, 99 
 
 Williams (Dr. John), Bishop of Lincoln, gift to West- 
 minster Abbey library, 66 
 
 Williams (Dr. Daniel), library, 81 
 
 Wriothesley (Sir Thomas) Collections, xvii. 14 
 
 Yelverton manuscripts, 15 
 
 Yews, remarkable, 35 
 
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