about books, whether upon vellum or large paper. But had we not better speak of the book ravages, during the reformation, in their proper place?'

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:

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 Marshal, 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-bearer; the Viscount Lisle, panter; the Lord Bur

LOREN. As you please. Perhaps you will go on with the mention of some distinguished patrons 'till you arrive at that period?

LYSAND. Yes; we may now as well notice the efforts of that extraordinary bibliomaniacal triumvirate, Colet, More, and Erasmus.

PHIL. Pray treat copiously of them. They are my great favorites. But can you properly place

Erasmus in the list?

LYSAND. You forget that he made a long abode here, and was Greek professor at Cambridge. To begin, then, with the former. COLET, as you well know, was Dean of St. Paul's; and founder of the public school which goes by the latter

geiny, chief larder; the Lord Broy, almoner for him and his copartners; and the Mayor of Oxford kept the buttery bar; and Thomas Wyatt was chosen ewerer for Sir Henry Wyatt, his father.'

When all things were ready and ordered, THE QUEEN, under her canopy, came into the hall, and washed; and sate down in the middest of the table, under her cloth of estate. On the right side of her chair stood the Countess of Oxford, widow; and on her left hand stood the Countess of Worcester, all the dinner season; which, divers times in the dinner time, did hold a fine cloth before the Queen's face, when she list to spit, or do otherwise at her pleasure. And at the table's end sate the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the right hand of the Queen; and in the midst, between the Archbishop and the Countess of Oxford, stood the Earl of Oxford, with a white staff, all dinner time; and at the Queen's feet, under the table, sate two gentlewomen all dinner time. When all these things were thus ordered, came in the Duke of Suffolk and the Lord William Howard on horseback, and the serjeants of arms before them, and after them the sewer; and then the knights of the Bath, bringing in the first course, which was eight and twenty dishes, besides subtleties, and ships made of wax, marvellous gorgeous to behold: all which time of service, the trumpets standing in the window, at the nether end of the hall, played,' &c. &c. Chronicles; p. 566: edit. 1615, fol.

name.

*

He had an ardent and general love of literature; but his attention to the improvement of youth, in superintending appropriate publications, for their use, was unremitting. Few men did so much and so well, at this period: for while he was framing the statutes by which his little community was to be governed, he did not fail to keep the presses of Wynkyn De Worde and Pynson pretty constantly at work, by publishing the grammatical treatises of Grocyn, Linacre, Stan

* How anxiously does COLET seem to have watched the progress, and pushed the sale of his friend Erasmus's first edition of the Greek Testament! "Quod scribis de Novo Testamento intelligo. Et libri novæ editonis tuæ hic avide emuntur et passim leguntur !" The entire epistle (which may be seen in Dr. Knight's dry Life of Colet, p. 315) is devoted to an account of Erasmus's publications. "I am really astonished, my dear Erasmus [does he exclaim], at the fruitfulness of your talents; that, without any fixed residence, and with a precarious and limited income, you contrive to publish so many and such excellent works." Adverting to the distracted state of Germany at this period, and to the wish of his friend to live secluded and unmolested, he observes—“ As to the tranquil retirement which you sigh for, be assured that you have my sincere wishes for its rendering you as happy and composed as you can wish it. Your age and erudition entitle you to such a retreat. I fondly hope indeed, that you will choose this country for it, and come and live amongst us, whose disposition you know, and whose friendship you have proved."

There is hardly a more curious picture of the custom of the times relating to the education of boys, than the Dean's own Statutes for the regulation of St. Paul's School, which he had founded. These shew, too, the popular books then read by the learned. "The children shall come unto the school in the morning at seven of the clock, both winter and summer, and tarry there until eleven; and return again at one of the clock, and depart at five, &c. In the school, no time in the year, they shall use tallow candle in no wise, but only wax candle, at the costs of their friends. Also I will they bring no meat nor drink, nor bottle, nor use in the school no breakfasts, nor drinkings, in the time of learning in no wise, &c. I

bridge, Lilye, Holte, Whittington, and othersfor the benefit, as well of the public, as of his own particular circle. I take it, his library must have been both choice and copious; for books now began to be multiplied in an immense ratio, and scholars and men of rank thought a Study, or Library, of some importance to their mansions. What would we not give for an authenticated representation of Dean Colet, in his library, * sur

will they use no cockfighting, nor riding about of victory, nor disputing at Saint Bartholomew, which is but foolish babbling and loss of time.' The master is then restricted, under the penalty of 40 shillings, from granting the boys a holiday, or remedy' [play-day,] as it is here called except the king, an archbishop, or a bishop, present in his own person in the school, desire it.' The studies for the lads were, 'Erasmus's Copia et Institutum Christiani Hominis, (composed at the Dean's request) Lactantius, Prudentius, Juvencus, Proba and Sedulius, and Baptista Mantuanus, and such other as shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the true Latin speech: all barbary, all corruption, all Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world, and with the same hath distained and poisoned the old Latin speech, and the veray Roman tongue, which, in the time of Tully, and Sallust, and Virgil, and Terence, was used-I say that filthiness, and all such abusion, which the later blind world brought in, which more rather may be called BLO TERATURE than LITERATURE, I utterly banish and exclude out of THIS SCHOOL.' Knight's Life of Colet, 362, 4.

The sagacious reader will naturally enough conclude, that boys, thus educated, would, afterwards, of necessity, fall victims to the ravages of the BIBLIOMANIA!

• I wish it were in my power to come forward with any stronger degree of probability, than the exhibition of the subjoined cut, of what might have been the interior of Dean Colet's Study. The following print is taken from an old work, printed in the early part of the sixteenth century, and republished in a book of Alciatus's emblems, translated from the Latin into Italian, A. D. 1549, 8vo. There is an air of truth about it; but the frame work is entirely modern, and perhaps not in the purest taste.

It

U

rounded with books? You, Lisardo, would be in ecstacies with such a thing!

LIS. Pray don't make such tantalizing appeals to me! Proceed, proceed.

It may turn out that this interior view of a private library, is somewhat too perfect and finished for the times of Colet, in this country; especially if we may judge from the rules to be observed in completing a public one, just about the period of Colet's death: Md. couenawntyd and agreid wyth Comell Clerke, for the making off the dextis in the library, [of Christ Church College, Oxford] to the summe off xvi, after the maner and forme as they be in Magdalyn college, except the popie heedes off the seites, this to be workmanly wrought and clenly, and he to have all maner off stooff foond hym, and to have for the makyng off one dexte x'. the sum off the hole viii. li.

Item: borowyd att Magdaleyn college one c. off v. d nayle, a c. off vi. d. mayle, dim. c. x. d. nayle.'

Antiquities of Glastonbury; edit. Hearne, p. 307.