iah viii. 22--"Is there not tryacle at Gylyad?" Two other
peculiarities deserve passing notice. The seventh commandment
reads--"Thou shalt not break wedlocke"; and Genesis xxxix. 2--"And God
was with Joseph, and he became a lucky man." One of the smallest
Bibles in the collection is one that is said to have been carried about
by the Marquis of Montrose. It bears his autograph in more than one
place, written in a bold plain hand. It seems to have been lost for a
number of years, and only turned up after a more careful supervision
was exercised. It was printed in the French language at Sedan in the
year 1633. There are quite a number of mottoes or extracts copied by
the Marquis himself on the leaves of the Bible, taken from classical
authors, showing that the book was one for close companionship. Three
of these extracts freely translated may be here transcribed. The first
is--"Honour to me is better than life"; the second, "Though the
shattered universe o'erwhelm him, the ruins should find him
untrembling"; and the third, under a pen-and-ink sketch of a mountain
and a rose, "Roses grow not without thorns." Of psalm-books there are
several very interesting examples. The oldest of these is an edition
of Marot and Beza's Psalms, dated 1567, and having music set to many of
the Psalms in staff and sol-fa notation. This copy is believed to be
unique. It contains a great number of prayers. The volume of
translations and paraphrases of the Psalms, which was published in 1630
as the work of James VI., is to be found in this collection. It is
entitled "The Psalms of King David, translated by King James." It has
portraits of King David on one side of the title-page and that of King
James on the other--one of the portraits being, of course, apocryphal.
Of prayer-books there is a copy of the "Booke of Common Prayer,"
printed by Barker in 1604; and also a copy of the book known as John
Knox's "Confession and Declaration of Prayers," which was printed in
1554, and which lately gave rise to considerable discussion as to
whether the early Reformed Church in Scotland used a liturgy. The
oldest printed book in the Library is a copy of Barclay's "Ship of
Fools," the date being 1508. Next in point of value as a specimen of
typography is the famous Paris edition of Hector Boece's "Chronicles,"
printed in 1527; and of as much interest is the edition of Bellenden's
translation of this work, printed by Thomas Davidson, of Edinburg