M. The presentation copy to
Henry, and perhaps another to Wolsey, might have been of
this nature. I should have preferred a similar copy of the
small book, printed a few years afterwards, in 12mo., of
Henry's Letters in answer to Luther's reply to the foregoing
work. This is not the place to talk further of these curious
pieces. I have seen some of Pynson's books printed upon
vellum; which are not remarkable for their beauty.]

[Footnote 293: Those readers who are not in possession of
Hearne's rare edition of _Robert de Avesbury_, 1720, 8vo.,
and who cannot, in consequence, read the passionate letters
of Henry VIII. to his beloved Boleyn, which form a leading
feature in the Appendix to the same, will find a few
extracts from them in the _British Bibliographer_; vol. ii.,
p. 78. Some of the monarch's signatures, of which Hearne has
given fac-similes, are as follow:

[Illustration]

When one thinks of the then imagined happiness of the fair
object of these epistles--and reads the splendid account of
her coronation dinner, by Stow--contrasting it with the
melancholy circumstances which attended her death--one is at
loss to think, or to speak, with sufficient force, of the
fickleness of all sublunary grandeur! The reader may,
perhaps, wish for this, "coronation dinner?" It is, in part,
strictly as follows: "While the queen was in her chamber,
every lord and other that ought to do service at the
coronation, did prepare them, according to their duty: as
the Duke of Suffolk, High-Steward of England, which was
richly apparelled--his doublet and jacket set with orient
pearl, his gown crimson velvet embroidered, his courser
trapped with a close trapper, head and all, to the ground,
of crimson velvet, set full of letters of gold, of
goldsmith's work; having a long white rod in his hand. On
his left-hand rode the Lord William, deputy for his brother,
as Earl Marshall, with ye marshal's rod, whose gown was
crimson velvet, and his horse's trapper purple velvet cut on
white satin, embroidered with white lions. The Earl of
Oxford was High Chamberlain; the Earl of Essex, carver; the
Earl of Sussex, sewer; the Earl of Arundel, chief butler; on
whom 12 citizens of London did give their attendance at the
cupboard; the Earl of Derby, cup-