sciences':
thousands of fragments, some a thousand years old: vellum books, of which
some had been scraped and used again as 'palimpsests': 'a great
collection of Bibles, 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 pamphlets and English heads of any other person:
abundance of ledgers, chartularies, etc., and original letters of eminent
persons as many as would fill two hundred 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.'

A few of these collections ought to be separately mentioned. Stow had
died in great poverty, and indeed had been for many years a licensed
beggar or bedesman; but in his youth he had been enabled by Parker's
protection to make a good collection out of the spoils of the Abbeys;
during the Elizabethan persecution he was nearly convicted of treason for
being in possession of remnants of Popery, and found it very hard to
convince the stern inquisitor that he was only a harmless antiquary. Sir
Symonds D'Ewes had endeavoured by his will, which he modelled upon that
of De Thou, to preserve undispersed through the ages to come the
'precious library' bequeathed in a touching phrase 'to Adrian D'Ewes, my
young son, yet lying in the cradle.' Notwithstanding all his bonds and
penalties the event which he dreaded came to pass. Harley had advised
Queen Anne to buy a collection that included so many precious documents
and records: the Queen, wishing perhaps to rebuff her minister, said that
it was indeed no merit in her to prefer 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 honourable peace, bestow
their money upon dead letters'; and so, we are told, 'the Earl stretched
his own purse, and gave L6000 for the library.' Peter Le Neve spent his
life in gathering important papers about coat-armour and pedigrees. He
had intended them for the use of his fellow Kings-at-Arms; but it was
said that he had some pique against the Heralds' College, and so 'cut
them off with a volume.' The rest went to the auction-room: 'The Earl of
Oxford,' said Oldys, 'will have a sweep at it'; and we know that the cast
was successful. As fo