that his Catalogue* professes to contain only the heads or titles of the several pieces examined, posterity is under no small obligation to him for his exertions t.

* His catalogue was published in the Latin language in 1777, 4to. with a copy, by Tyson, of Hogenberg's rare portrait of the Archbishop facing the title. It must not be supposed that the contents of this volume have an exclusive reference to theological subjects. Far from it: philology in every department will be found in it; and poetry and epistolography in English as well as in Latin. Inter alia, look at page 54, for a specimen of the "Romance of St. Grayl."

"Thanne passeth forth this storye with al

That is cleped of som men SEYNt Graal,
Also the SANK RYAL icleped it is

Of mochel peple with owten mys."

But, as a whole, this library is yet a sort of TERRA IN

COGNITA.

+ It had been a joyous day for me, some six years ago, to have been present at the commemoration of the close of the third centenary, or jubilee, celebrated at Corpus, of the election of their illustrious Archiepiscopal President to the Mastership of the College. On that emphatic occasion, all the plate left to the College by the Archbishop was exhibited upon the banqueting-table.

The OPPOSITE ENGRAVING of the Salt-cellar of the Archbishop is taken from a drawing by R. B. Harraden, Esq. of Cambridge, from the original plate of silver and gold: being precisely one half the dimensions of the original. The drawing is now in the possession of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth; he being the NINETEENTH successor of Matthew Parker. It is most faithfully executed by the burin of M. Audinet.

But although the "Flowers" of which I had contemplated the gathering, might not have been of such ancient growth or pungent fragrance as those in the library of Archbishop Parker, yet, I think, from the subjoined specimen, the reader would not have ob

* Of all men, living or dead, it strikes me that not ONE would have relished the ensuing "anecdote" more than the late Sir Walter Scott, Bart.:-and I feel abundantly persuaded that he would have contrived to have brought the venerable EARL OF SHREWSBURY, or some similar character-for the sake of his speech-into one of his historical novels. I selected this "sparkling bit" from a very grave but wholesome treatise-supposed to have been written by our Archbishop Himself, and printed in the black letter by Jugge, without date, in the reign of Elizabeth-having for title, "The Defence of Priestes Marriages,” 4to.

"It chanced that there came a French ambassador to the king's highness, King Henry the Eight (I trust God hath his soul) with letters, I trow, from the French king, not long before that sent to him from the holy father of Rome. This ambassador, sitting at the counsel table, began to set up a stout countenance, with a weak brain, and carped French exceedingly fast; which he thought should have been his only sufficient commendation of them all, that were at the table, that he could speak so readily. The matter of his talk was universal everywhere. But the substance was, partly, much noting the gluttony of Englishmen, which devoured so much victual in the land: partly, magnifying the great utility and necessity of the French tongue, which he noted to be almost throughout the world frequented. And in his conference, he marvelled of divers noblemen that were present, for that they could not keep

jected to a more general acquaintance with them.

him talk, or yet could not so much as understand him, to perceive his great wit.

"Among the number of the lords, there sat the old honourable Captain, the Lord Earl of Shrewsbury, looking at his meat, and gave neither ear nor countenance to this folie man, but gave others leave to talk, and sat, as he might, shaking head, and hands, in his palsy, which was testimony enough, whether he were not in his days a warrior, lying abroad in the field, to take air (qu?) of the ground. This French ambassador was offended with him; and said, What an honour were it for yonder Old Nobleman, if he could speak the French tongue. Surely, it is a great lack to his nobility?' One of the lords that kept him talk, asking first leave of this monsire to report part of the communication to the Lord Shrewsbury, made report thereof, yet in most courteous manner, with easy and favourable rehearsal, as might touch a truth.

6

"When he heard it, where before his head, by the great age, was almost grovelling on the table, he roused himself up in such wise, that he appeared, in length of body, as much as he was thought ever in all his life before. And knitting his brows, he laid his hand on his dagger, and set his countenance in such sort, that the French hardie ambassador turned colour wonderfully. Saith the French whoreson so?" saith he; marry, tell the French dog again, by sweet St. Cuthbert, if I knew that I had but one pestilent French word in all my body, I would take my dagger and dig it out—before I rose from the table. And tell that tawnie whoreson again, howsoever he have been hungerstarved himself at home in France, that if we should not eat our beasts, and make victual of them as fast as we do, they would so increase beyond measure, that they would make victual of us, and eat us up.'

"When these words were reported again to the French

The principal, and indeed besetting, difficulty against which I have had to struggle, has been the constant introduction, if not obtrusion, of Self. I have been inevitably compelled to put that "Self" in the foreground, as it were, of every picture delineated; but not, I trust, at the expense of injuring the effect of the middle or background of the composition. The reader will perhaps admit the impracticability of rendering the matter otherwise; but to console, or to reconcile him, he may be assured that in most instances the middle or background will be found to be the most picturesque or instructive portion of the picture, To keep up the metaphor. TIME, which is of so much use in mellowing the colours and blending the tints of the pencil, seems to be not less occasionally serviceable in harmonising the productions of the pen. Much that may appear raw or glaring, in the following pages, may, in the course of a few revolving years,

guest, he spoiled no more victual at the dinner after that, but drank wondrous oft; which, whether it was his convenance, because he had left talking, or whether for that he was inwardly dry, the reporter of this tale could tell me no further; but said, that his eyes were never off him [the Earl of Shrewsbury] all that dinner while after !"—P. 128.

assume a milder and a more mellow tone. The hand, which has recorded the events or characters described therein, will have ceased to act; and we may be then induced to tolerate, for the sake of the Dead, what with reluctance we should concede to the claims of the Living. Posterity will hold with an even hand the balance of literary merit and literary claims; and in that balance I hope to be found among those writers "who," in the language of Johnson, "have given ARDOUR TO VIRTUE and CONFIDENCE TO TRUTH."