pon the boxes at
home." In the 11th chapter, he anticipates the dreadful lot
of being brought "to the stepping out of doors (his house
being sold). He, and his, with bottles and wallets
furnished, to become wanderers as homish vagabonds; or, as
banished men, to forsake the kingdom!" Again: "with bloody
tears of heart, he, and his wife, their seven children, and
their servant (seventeen of them in all), did that day make
their petition unto their honours," &c. Can human misery be
sharper than this--and to be the lot of a philosopher and
bibliomaniac?! But "VENIET FELICIUS AEVUM."]

Of a wholly different cast of character and of reading was the
renowned CAPTAIN COX of Coventry. How many of Dee's magical books he
had exchanged for the pleasanter magic of _Old Ballads_ and
_Romances_, I will not take upon me to say; but that this said
bibliomaniacal Captain had a library, which, even from Master
Laneham's imperfect description of it,[333] I should have preferred
to the four thousand volumes of Dr. John Dee, is most nuquestionable
[Transcriber's Note: unquestionable].

[Footnote 333: Let us be introduced to the sprightly figure
and expression of character of this renowned Coventry
captain, before we speak particularly of his library.
"CAPTAIN COX (says the above-mentioned Master Laneham) came
marching on valiantly before, clean trust and gartered above
the knee, all fresh in a velvet cap (Master Golding a lent
it him), flourishing with his _ton_ sword; and another fence
master with him:" p. 39. A little before, he is thus
described as connected with his library: "And first, Captain
Cox; an odd man, I promise you: by profession a mason, and
that right skilful: very cunning in fens (fencing); and
hardy as Gawin; for his _ton_ sword hangs at his table's
end. Great oversight hath he in matters of story: for as for
_King Arthur's_ Book, _Huon of Bourdeaux_, the _Four Sons of
Aymon_, _Bevys of Hampton_, _The Squyre of Low Degree_, _The
Knight of Curtsy_, and the _Lady Fagnel_, _Frederick of
Gene_, _Syr Eglamour_, _Syr Tryamour_, _Syr Lamurell_, _Syr
Isenbras_, _Syr Gawyn_, _Olyver of the Castl_, _Lucres and
Eurialus_, _Virgil's Life_, _the Castl of Ladies_, _the
Widow Edyth_, _the King and the Tanner_, _Frier Rous_,
_Howleglas_, _Gargantua_, _Robin Hood_, _Adam Bel_, _Clim o