"The Works of John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Marquis of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham, 1723.”

This quarto, handsomely printed on a white thin paper, has a very fine portrait of him by Vertue, and a good engraving of his Monument by Fourdrinier, and contains a specimen of the licence then in use. "George, &c. &c. Greeting. Whereas our trusty and well beloved John Barber, Printer, and Alderman of Our City of London, has humbly represented unto us, that he is now printing the Works of his Grace John Sheffield Duke of Buckinghamshire, in Verse and Prose; and: whereas the said John Barber has informed us, that he has been at great Expence in carrying on the said Work, and that the sole Right and Title of the Copy of the said Work is vested in the said John Barber; he has therefore humbly besought us to grant him our Royal Privilege and License for the sole printing and publishing thereof for the Term of Fourteen Years. We being willing to give all due Encouragement to so useful a Work, are graciously pleased to condescend to his Request, and do therefore hereby, so far as may be agreeable to the Statute in that behalf made and provided, grant unto the said John Barber our Royal License and Privilege for the sole printing and publishing the said Works of the said Duke of Buckinghamshire, for and during the Term of Fourteen Years, to be computed from the Day of the Date hereof, strictly charging and prohibiting all our Subjects within our Kingdoms and Dominions to re-print or abridge the same, either in the Like or in any other Volume or Volumes whatsoever, or to import, buy, vend, utter, or distribute any Copies of the same or any Part thereof re-printed beyond the Seas, during the said Term of fourteen Years, without the Consent and Approbation of the said John Barber, his Heirs, Executors, and Assigns, under his or their Hands and Seals first had and obtained, as they and every of them offending herein, will answer the contrary at their Perils: Whereof the Master, Wardens and Company of Stationers of our City of London, Commissioners and other Offi-cers of our Customs, and all other our Officers and Ministers, whom it may concern, are to take notice, that due Obedience be given to our pleasure herein signified. Given at our Court at St. James's the 18th Day of April 1722 in the Eighth Year of our Reign. By his Majesty's Command,

"CARTERET."

The Dedication is in these words: "To the memory of John Sheffield Duke of Buckingham. These his more lasting remains (the monuments of his mind, aud more perfect image of himself) are here collected by the direction of Catharine his

Duchesse::

Duchesse: Desirous that his ashes may be honoured, and his fame and merit committed to the test of time, truth, and Posterity."

Small engravings or head-pieces are placed over the titles of each ode or poem, taken from the subject of it; and the first letters are engraved with a back ground, derived from the same source. Some of the printer's tail-pieces are very good.

I have purposely avoided making any kind of observation on the various peculiarities in orthography, style, sentiment, or manner of introducing works to the publick, in the preceding part of this chapter. Much might have been said; but every thing I could have advanced must occur to every reader in perusing the extracts in their chronological series.

I shall conclude this chapter with the substance of some curious remarks on our language made about the reign of George I. by the anonymous author of "A Journey through England." He says, the Welsh and Scotch call it Sassenagh or Saxon, but erroneously, as it is not Saxon; and repeats what I have already mentioned relating to the endeavours made by William the Conqueror to suppress the English, in order to introduce the Norman French, in which he decreed all parliamentary and law proceedings should be written. This, however, he continues, never went farther than the lawyers, and the little scavengers of the law ;" for example, Oyez, which in Norman is to hear or listen, is by the common cryers in the several boroughs repeated, O yes; but they know no more what it means than they do when they go to a cook's shop, and ask for a kickshaw, from the French words quelque chose.

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And indeed Norman may very properly be called a learned language in England, where it is no where spoke, but acquired at the Inns of Court, and is a great ingredient in the law. In short, English is now composed of derivatives from the Greek and Latin; and what Saxon words are left, they have purged of the gutteral consonants, and it is become a very rich and soft language.

Dr. Tillotson, late Archbishop of Canterbury, hath very much improved it; as Sir Roger Lestrange and Mr. Dryden did very much in the reign of King Charles the Second, which was an age of wit, as that of King William was of learning; and both those reigns have much improved the language.

Mr. Addison and Sir Richard Steele's works have also spread the language abroad; for the great Le Clerc at Amsterdam, Leibnitz and the other learned

men

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men at the Universities abroad, study it. An extract from Dr. Ayloffe's communication to the above mentioned gentleman, relating to the University of Oxford, is much to my present purpose. But, relying on the best authorities, we shall only find King Alfred to have been the restorer of learning here: for national affairs in his reign being reduced to a peaceable state and condition, he, promoting all things that might either tend to the honour and advantage of his subjects, proceeded to many regulations; and, notwithstanding letters were at so low an ebb in the kingdom, that few on the South side of the Humber could read English, and scarce a priest understood the Latin tongue, he ordered Gregory's Pastoral to be translated into English, and sent a copy of it to every bishop; and, for the further advancement of knowledge, sent into France, for Grimbald and John the Monk, whom he placed at Oxford, restoring this University to its pristine glory ; for, by the heavy and continual wars of the Romans, Danes, and Saxons, learning was almost abolished and destroyed in Britain."

The vicissitudes of learning, the encouragement and debasement of this noble improvement of the human mind, have been so numerous, that I must beg leave to refer the reader for further and more minute information to those authors who had more space to enlarge on the subject.

CHAP.

CHAP. VII.

LIBRARIES.

NOTHING is known of the collections formed by the learned in the earliest stages of our history. The discoveries at Herculaneum and other places, overwhelmed by the ashes of Vesuvius, incontestably demonstrate, that the natives of Italy, contemporary with the Roman invaders of England, had depositaries of manuscripts. Therefore, whatever was the custom previous to their arrival in this country, the inhabitants of it must have known from them the necessity and convenience of collections for reference or amusement.

Immediately after the establishment of religious societies, they had their muniment rooms; and the monks, having little employment, soon added to their contents legends, chronicles, and leiger books. As the former and other subjects multiplied, they spread abroad, and kings, princes, and barons, may have had collections from the pens of the indefatigable members of monasteries, independ-. ant of the later supplies by professed clerks or scribes. The readers of my history of London will recollect, that I have given a catalogue of the MSS. in the library of Elsynge Spital in the reign of Henry VI. consisting of sixty-two articles; upon referring to which a tolerable estimate may be formed of the nature of most of our ancient libraries.

It has been my fate on other occasions to lament the indiscriminate destruction of manuscripts, when our religion was reformed. To that cause is partly to be attributed the paucity of materials for compiling a satisfactory sketch under this head; as to the collections in temporal hands, they were comparatively few, and constantly liable to destruction or dispersion through the endless disputes of our feudal lords. In the sacking of a castle, manuscripts seldom found protectors through a partiality for learning; and such as did escape and reach the time of Henry VIII. and the next following reigns, were generally destroyed, because

most

most of them related to subjects either remotely or intimately connected with the Roman catholic faith. Unfortunately, we had but one Cotton to rescue literature from the wretched state to which bigotry had reduced her.

The reader of this work will perceive the necessity I am under of being concise as to private libraries before the invention of printing. After the encouragement of that art had rendered books sufficiently moderate in their price, many public libraries were founded, which might be mentioned, with their contents chained to the desks a custom universal in churches, and which ceased when books became numerous. The reign of James I. has generally been termed a pedantic period. It is, however, certain, that the example of the monarch was of infinite service to literature; and libraries, both public and private, increased in a far greater proportion than the unhappy reign of his son permitted in his age.

The profligate conduct of Charles II., and the infatuation of his brother, prevented the publick from turning their attention this way; but after the Revolution of 1688, the people at large had time, security, and property, to indulge safely in their propensities for learning; and we find the following collections made subsequent to that period, noticed in a MS. preserved in the British Museum.

The person to whom we are indebted for this information observes, that liberaries might be collected without difficulty by societies of men, each presenting to a common stock" one book of a sort, in five years it would be a good library; and half a dozen of all the pamphlets that come out weekly, for the use of such as wanted them, and would present bound books for them, but still to keep one for the use of the library. One Mr. Tomlinson, who, with great pains and care, made such a collection from 1641 to 1660, King Charles I. wanting a particular pamphlet, and hearing Tomlinson had it, took coach and went to his house in Paul's church-yard to read it there, and would not borrow it, but gave him 10%.

"There are several hundred volumes bound uniform in folio, 4to. and 8vo. 80 well digested, that a single sheet may be readily found by the catalogue which was taken by Mr. Foster, and is twelve volumes in folio. This collection deserves to be publickly reposited.

"The apothecaries not long since had a design to collect all sorts of dispensatories and books relating to botanicks, as Herbals, &c.

* Something seems wanting here. The volumes referred to were all the pamphlets published in the great rebellion: they were purchased by the late King, and deposited by him in the British Museum, where they remain -S. A.