ists we have of his MSS. date from before his foreign
tour; that which is in print was made on the eve of his departure, and
contains a little over 200 entries.

After the vicissitudes which his collection suffered it is remarkable
that one should still be able to identify as extant well over half of
it. I have been helped in my searches by certain marks--a little ladder,
or the astrological sign of Jupiter, or a [Greek: Delta]--which occur on
the first page of many. His handwriting, too, in notes, and certain
names of owners (particularly P. Saunders) are guides. Some of his MSS.
were bought by Ussher, and are at Trinity College, Dublin, and a few
were bought by Cotton. But the largest group of them is at Corpus
Christi College, Oxford. These were acquired by the great Oxford
antiquary, Brian Twyne, who hoped that his college would buy them from
him, but this they would not do. Happily Twyne was not too much hurt by
the refusal to leave them to the college at his death. I guess that one
reason for his buying them was that some (perhaps many) of them had once
belonged to his grandfather, John Twyne, a Canterbury man of some slight
eminence, who in his turn had secured a considerable "lot" of MSS. from
the library of St. Augustine's Abbey. In searching out the relics of
that great library I found the combination, or pedigree, St.
Augustine's--John Twyne--Dee--Brian Twyne--Corpus Christi, to be a
frequent one, and this set me upon a general investigation of Dee's MSS.
A little notebook of his at Corpus Christi showed that in early life he
had borrowed a number of MSS. from Peterhouse and from Queen's College,
Oxford. I did not find that these ever got back to their sources, but I
do not think that Dee was dishonest in the matter; I believe he was
allowed to keep them for some consideration received. Some of the
Peterhouse books are traceable in the Ashmole collection, the Pepys
Library, and the British Museum; of those of Queen's College I can say
nothing. Dee was specially interested in mathematics, alchemy, and, as
everyone knows, converse with spirits, but his library was not confined
to books on these subjects; he had some excellent historical, literary,
and theological MSS. One of them was the best copy of Alfred's
translation of Orosius.

Another library of the sixteenth century deserves to be singled out from
the many which offer themselves for notice. It is that of Lord Lumley
(d. 1609); he inherited the books fr