lthough the monasteries at this period, from
the evidence of Sir William Dugdale, in the first volume of
the Monasticon were "opulently endowed,"--inter alia, I
should hope, with magnificent MSS. on vellum, bound in
velvet, and embossed with gold and silver], or the
illustrious writers in the Norman period, and the fine books
which were in the abbey of Croyland--so little is known of
book-collectors, previously to the 14th century, that I
thought it the most prudent and safe way to begin with the
above excellent prelate.

RICHARD DE BURY was the friend and correspondent of
Petrarch; and is said by Mons. de Sade, in his Memoires pour
la vie de Petrarque, "to have done in England what Petrarch
did all his life in France, Italy, and Germany, towards the
discovery of MSS. of the best ancient writers, and making
copies of them under his own superintendence." His passion
for book-collecting was unbounded ["vir ardentis ingenii,"
says Petrarch of him]; and in order to excite the same
ardour in his countrymen, or rather to propagate the disease
of the BIBLIOMANIA with all his might, he composed a
bibliographical work under the title of _Philobiblion_;
concerning the first edition of which, printed at Spires in
1483, Clement (tom. v. 142) has a long gossiping account;
and Morhof tells us that it is "rarissima et in paucorum
manibus versatur." It was reprinted in Paris in 1500, 4to.,
by the elder Ascensius, and frequently in the subsequent
century, but the best editions of it are those by Goldastus
in 1674, 8vo., and Hummius in 1703. Morhof observes that,
"however De Bury's work savours of the rudeness of the age,
it is rather elegantly written, and many things are well
said in it relating to Bibliothecism." _Polyhist. Literar._
vol. i. 187, edit. 1747.

For further particulars concerning De Bury, read Bale,
Wharton, Cave, and Godwin's Episcopal Biography. He left
behind him a fine library of MSS. which he bequeathed to
Durham, now Trinity, College, Oxford.

It may be worth the antiquary's notice, that, in consequence
(I suppose) of this amiable prelate's exertions, "in every
convent was a noble library and a great: and every friar,
that had state in school, such as they be now, hath AN HUGH
LIBRARY." See the curious Sermon of