Chapter XIII: Part II: I. the Runic Crosses of Northumbria (4)

"A farre longer time than good manners would well permitt, for which fault yett I hope to make some kinde of expiation by sending you shortlye, together with your own my ancient copye of the Samaritan Pentateuch, which I have long since destinated unto that librarye of yours, to which I have been beholden for so many good things no where else to be found. I shall [God willing] ere long finish my collation of it with the Hebrew text, and then hang it up ut votivam Tabulam at that Sacrarium of yours."

A correspondent, signing his letter Jo Scudamore, gave him a whole edition of Chaucer "in a fair ancient written hand." This manuscript has unfortunately disappeared from the collection.

Nicholas Saunder sent a history by Helinandus, a Cistercian monk, written in the time of William the Conqueror,* and many other donations are recorded.

* Claudius, B 9. The donor of this MS. was not the Nicholas Saunders so well-known in Elizabeth's reign.

Of the constant activity going on in the formation of this wonderful library, and of the great generosity with which the books were lent the following letters are eloquent. Archbishop Ussher writes thus:

"Worthy Sir,--I have received from you the history of the Bishops of Durham, together with your ancient copies of the Psalmes, whereof that which hath the Saxon interlineary translation inserted is the old Romanum Psalterium, the other three are the same with that which is called Gallicum Psalterium. But I have not yet received that which I stand most in need of, to wit the Psalter in 8vo which is distinguished with obeliskes and asteriskes. I pray you, therefore, send it unto me by my servant, this bearer, as also the life of Wilfrid, written in prose by a nameless author that lived about the time of Bede; the other written in verse by Fredegodus I received from Mr. Burnett; together, with William Malmsburiensis de vitis Pontificum Anglia et S. Aldhelmus. Before you leave London I pray you do your best to get master Crashaw's MS. Psalter conveyed unto me. I doubt not but before this time you have dealt with Sir Peter Vanlore for obtaining Erpenius his Hebrew, Syriach, Arabick, and Persian books, and the matrices of the letters of the Oriental languages. If he interpose himself seriously herein, it is not to be doubted, but he will prevayle before any other. But what he doth he must do very speedilye, because the Jesuites of Antwerp are already dealing for the Oriental presse, and others for the Arabick, Syriac, Hebrew, and Persian bookes. It were good you took some order before you went, how Sir Peter may signify unto you, when you are in the countrye, what is done in this businesse. If he send to Mr. Burnett at any time [who dwellith at the signe of the three swannes in Lombard Streets he will finde some means or other to communicate what he pleaseth unto me. I thank you very hartilye for the care which you have taken in causing my Samaritan Bible to be so faire bound. I have given order to Mr. Burnett to content the workman for his paynes, and so with remembrance of my best affections unto yourself and the kinde ladye your wife,* I committ both of you to God's blessed protection, and rest your own most assured,

"Ja Armachanus."

* Sir Robert Cotton had married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of William Brocas of Thedingworth, Leicestershire, by whom he had several sons, the eldest Thomas, alone surviving him.

Sir Edward Dering writes in 1630:

"Sir; I received your very welcome letter, whereby I find you abundant in courtesies of all natures. I am a great debtor to you, and those obligations likely still to be multiplied. As I confess so much to you, so I hope to witnesse it to posterity. I have sent up two of your bookes which have much pleasured me. I have here the charter of King John, dated at Running Meade.* By the first safe and sure messenger it is yours, so are the Saxon charters, as fast as I can copy them, but in the meantime I will enclose King John in a boxe and send him. I shall much long to see you at this place, where you shall command the heart of your affectionate friend and servant,

"E. Dering." Dover Castle, May 10, 1630.

* There are two original drafts of Magna Charta in the Cottonian Library.

It would be extremely interesting were Cotton's own letters extant, to have some account from his pen of the manner in which he came by many manuscripts, the history of which is a blank to us from the time of the dissolution of the monasteries till they found a safe haven in his library. But his letters are very rare; two only have been preserved in the Record Office. They are addressed to his brother, Thomas, in the years 1623 and 1624, and they begin "Loving David," and end "Thy Jonathon." One is much stained, and difficult to read; both treat of political matters.

In 1629 the origin of a seditious pamphlet, entitled, "How to bridle the impertinency of Parliaments," which was handed about in London, causing some commotion, was traced to the Cottonian library. In spite of all that Cotton could put forward to exculpate himself, an order was issued by the Privy Council for the sequestration of his books, on the ground that they were not of a nature to be exposed for public inspection. And this was not all. Once before he had been deprived of access to them for a time, and now again he was himself debarred from entering his own library, a privation which affected him so seriously, that from the moment of sequestration his health visibly declined, and he declared to his friends that they had broken his heart, who had locked up his books from him.

Disraeli, in his Amenities of Literature, says that, "Tormented by the fate of a collection which had consumed forty years, at every personal sacrifice to form it for 'the use and services of posterity,' he sank at the sudden stroke. In the course of a few weeks he was so worn by injured feelings that, from a ruddy-complexioned man, his face was wholly changed into a grim blackish paleness, near to the resemblance and hue of a dead visage."

Cotton made two separate petitions to have his rights over his own property restored. In the first he signified to the Privy Council that their detaining his books without rendering any reason for the same had been the cause of the mortal malady from which he suffered. In the second, in which his son joined, he merely complained that the documents were perishing for lack of airing, and that no one was allowed to consult them. The Lord Privy Seal was at last sent to him with a tardy message from the king, but too late to avail him anything. Within half an hour of his death the Earl of Dorset came to condole with his son, now Sir Thomas Cotton, bearing the somewhat ambiguous assurance that, "as his Majesty loved his father, so he would continue his love to him." Sir Robert Cotton died on the 6th May 1631, and was buried at Connington. Long afterwards it was discovered that the author of the fatal pamphlet, that had done so much to kill him, was Sir Robert Dudley, who had written it when in exile at Florence.

Before tracing the subsequent history of the Cottonian library we will pause and consider some of the most important manuscripts which it contained at the death of its famous originator.

It has been said that he turned his attention largely towards collecting materials for every period of English history. Those materials are particularly rich as regards the Anglo-Saxon period.

Beginning chronologically we find here (in Vitellius, A 15) the story of Beowulf, the oldest monument of AngloSaxon literature, reaching back into the ages of heathendom. It is a pagan war-song which, in being handed down from minstrel to minstrel, has lost nothing of its wild, exultant beauty, while it has received many Christian inflexions from the bards of a better religion than that in which it was originally conceived, through whose minds it passed before being committed to parchment. When the Saxons had embraced Christianity they carefully weeded out from their national poetry all allusion to personages of pagan mythology, so that, in an antiquarian sense, their literature suffered. But the forcible and picturesque imagery of half-barbaric tribes still remained. The coarseness of the beer-hall is, however, subdued by the gold and silken embroideries with which it is adorned. In a vivid description of a battle, in the midst of lurid flames, of blood and carnage, the enemy is "put to sleep with the sword." When a hero dies in peace, "he goes on his way."

The poem of Beowulf has been variously edited. It was first noticed by Wanley, in his catalogue of Saxon MSS. in 1705. It was printed with a Latin translation by Thorkelin, at Copenhagen, in 1815. Conybeare, in his Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, points out several errors into which the Dane, Thorkelin, and the Englishman, Turner fell; and Thorpe, in his Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, differs from all preceding editors, who considered the heroes as mythical beings of a divine order, he suggesting that they were kings and chieftains of the North, within the pale of authentic history.* This opinion had been shared by Kemble, but under the influence of Grimmperhaps the greatest authority on these matters--he ended by regarding the poem as mythic. Later critics have, however, considered that it deals with historical persons.

* Preface, p. xvii.

Only secondary to the romance of Beowulf must once have been the fragment of a poem on the death of Beorhtnoth.* It was printed by Hearne in the appendix to his edition of Johannis Glastoniensis Chronicon, but without a translation.

* Formerly Otho A 12, in the Cottonian Library; the original perished in the fire of 1731.

"It constitutes," says Conybeare, "a battle-piece of spirited execution, mixed with short speeches from the principal warriors, conceived with much force, variety, and character; the death of the hero is also very graphically described. The whole approximates much more nearly than could have been expected to the war-scenes of Homer."

Of the poem of Judith, one of the finest specimens of Anglo-Saxon songs, a fragment is preserved in the same volume which contains the story of Beowulf.

The type of the Anglo-Saxon poets in Christian times is Caedmon, whom Professor George Stephens called "the Milton of North England in the seventh century," and who, according to the legend told by Bede, being singularly unblessed with the power of song, received the gift miraculously in sleep. He is represented in the Cottonian library only by a few prayers in Anglo-Saxon (Julius, A 2) which Junius printed from this MS. at the end of his edition of Caedmon's paraphrase. The interesting collection, which goes by Caedmon's name in the Bodleian library, is a series of pieces on Scriptural subjects, with beautifully painted illustrations.

A manuscript of the tenth century (Cleopatra, B 13) contains a short hymn on the conversion of the AngloSaxons; and in the same volume is a life of St. Dunstan.

Two important volumes (Tiberius, B 5, and Titus, D 27), one of which appears to have been written for the use of nuns, formed part of the material for a history of mathematics in England, during the Middle Ages.*

* Rara Mathematica from inedited MSS., by J. O. Halliwell.

Alcuin and Aldhelm were the chief Anglo-Latin poets. Some of Alcuin's letters are to be found in this collection. St. Aldhelm, Abbot, afterwards Bishop of Malmesbury, was regarded by King Alfred as the prince of Anglo-Latin poets. His chief work, The Praises of Virginity, is at Cambridge, but his metrical treatise on the monastic life and one of his letters are here preserved.

Alfred is well represented in his Laws, and in his Saxon versions of Augustine's soliloquies.

Of the works of the venerable Bede we have the Ecclesiastical History, the Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, and nine other manuscripts.

It was probably between 1615 and 1621 that Sir Robert Cotton became possessed of the celebrated manuscript known as the Utrecht Psalter. Its early history is obscure, and experts have differed widely as to its probable date and origin. Sir Thomas Hardy, who summarised its contents, and drew up a report upon the intrinsic arguments in favour of its remote antiquity, called attention to the fact that it could not have been written in England, because it contains certain liturgical pieces which were not in use in this country, at the time assigned for its age by other internal evidence. He suggested that it was brought into England by the Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert the Frankish king, who became the queen of Ethelbert. He based this supposition on the costliness of the manuscript which would point to its having belonged to a royal personage. He next considered the probability that this Psalter was presented by Queen Bertha to the monastery of Reculver, in Kent, where the king had built a new palace, and where Bertha attended the services of her religion, Hardy drew this inference from the coincidence that at the time when the volume came into Cotton's hands there was bound up with it a charter, recording the gift of certain lands by Lothair, King of Kent, to Bercwald, Abbot of Reculver, and to his monastery. The charter is dated Reculver, May 7, 679, and it seems to have been the custom in smaller monasteries to place royal and other charters inside valuable books for preservation, in default of any more suitable depository. This charter, which Cotton took to be an original document, he separated from the Utrecht Psalter, preserving it in another part of his library. It is still to be found where he placed it (in Augustus, B 2).

Mr. Birch, however, disposed summarily of Sir Thomas Hardy's ingenious theory, and pronounced Cotton's opinion that the charter was an original document, as not worth much. After giving all the evidence for and against the probability of Queen Bertha, having presented the Psalter to Reculver Abbey, he showed reasons for the charter being a copy of the original, and for its having been made at Christ Church, Canterbury, a religious house very closely allied to Reculver, which was secularised centuries before the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.

But the most recent authority on illuminated manuscripts, Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, considers that the actual date of the Utrecht Psalter may be placed about the year 800, and he maintains with Sir Thomas Hardy, judging by internal palaeographical evidence, that without doubt, the manuscript is of Frankish workmanship, and he assigns its origin to the north, or north-east of France.* This carries us back to Queen Bertha and Cotton's suggestion that she brought the book over with her.

* See a Paper on English Illuminated Manuscripts, A.D. 700-1066, by Mr., now Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, Bibliographica, part ii., London Kegan & Co.

Shortly after the suppression of Christ Church, which, in all probability, inherited the treasures of Reculver, the Utrecht Psalter, together with its incorporated charter, fell into the hands of the Talbot family; and in Mr. Bond's report on the manuscript he said that the name Mary Talbot could, with some difficulty, be deciphered on the lower margin of folio 60b, in a sixteenth century hand. Various suggestions have been made in regard to this name, but in Mr. Birch's opinion--and here there is good reason for following him--it belonged to the wife or daughter of "Master Talbot of Norwich, a most ingenious and industrious antiquary." He made a collection of rare manuscripts, most of which are now in Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, and it was from this collection that the Utrecht Psalter passed into Sir Robert Cotton's possession, but whether by gift or purchase is not recorded.

The manuscript is entered in the catalogue of the library written by Cotton himself in 1621, under the press-mark Claudius C 7, but it is not to be found in any subsequent catalogue. An entry occurs among the Notes of such books as haze been lent out by Sir Robert Cotton to divers persons, and are abroad in their hands att this daye, the 15th of January 1630, which entry is to the effect that the Psalter was lent "to my lord the Earle of Arundel." Birch gave it up as lost to the Cotton library from the time that it passed into Lord Arundel's hands; but he must have been unaware of the existence of Smith's own copy of his printed catalogue, which contains his manuscript notes of books borrowed from the Cotton collection, and in which these words are written "Borrowed by Mr. Ashmole, on the 17th February 1673, Claudius, C. 7." Smith's folio catalogue, published in 1696, has the word Deest, marking its absence from the library. Nothing further can be discovered till 1718, when the book appears to have become the property of Monsieur de Ridder, a Dutchman, who presented it to the University of Utrecht where it still remains.* Sir Robert Cotton's signature is on the first page.

*The History, Art, and Paleography of the Utrecht Psalter, by W. de Gray Birch, F.R.S.L., Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum.

The great charm of this manuscript, a facsimile of which is to be seen in the Cottonian library, lies in its pen-and-ink illustrations, as forcible and appealing as are the scenes of the Last judgment on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa. Among the Harleian MSS., moreover (No. 603), there is an illuminated Psalter so like it, that it seems impossible that the artist should not have had the Utrecht Psalter before him as he drew; unless, as Sir Edward Thompson supposes, the older manuscript is itself a copy of a still more ancient one, which leads him to infer that other versions of this Psalter were in existence in England at an early date. This would account also for the Eadwine Psalter at Cambridge, a twelfth-century imitation of the Harleian manuscript. Neither of these Psalters can be described as an absolute copy of the Utrecht Psalter.

We are here led to deplore the loss of another valuable manuscript of a totally different kind, which, although not in the collection at the time of Sir Robert's death, once belonged to this library, and was lost in the same way. We refer to to the "Enconium Emmae" an eleventh century MS. which Cotton sent to Duchesne, and which the latter used in writing his Historiae Normanorum, but never returned. It has entirely disappeared.

We now come to what is perhaps the noblest monument of Anglo-Saxon times in the Cottonian library--namely, the famous Lindisfarne Gospels also known as the Durham Book, a marvel of palaeographic art. It is indisputably the finest production of the school of Lindisfarne. The Latin text, written in double columns, was transcribed by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, while still a simple monk, in honour, some say for the use, of St. Cuthbert. It was finished after the saint's death, at the end of the seventh, or beginning of the eighth century. This we learn from intrinsic evidence, in the form of a brief note in Anglo-Saxon at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and a longer one at the end of the volume. These notes have thus been translated by Mr. Waring:--*

* Prolegomena, Lindisfarne, and Rushworth Gospels, part iv.

"Thou, O living God, bear in mind Eadfrith and Aethelwald, and Billfrith and Aldred, the sinner. These four with God's help were employed upon (or busied about) this book."

And--

"Eadfrith, Bishop over the Church of Lindisfarne, first wrote this book in (honour of) God and St. Cuthbert, and all the company of saints in the Island; and Aethelwald, Bishop of Lindisfarne, made an outer cover, and adorned it as he was well able; and Billfrith, the anchorite, he wrought the metal-work of the ornaments on the outside thereof, and decked it with gold, and with gems, overlaid also with silver and unalloyed metal; and Aldred, an unworthy and most miserable priest, by the help of God and St. Cuthbert, over-glossed the same in English, and domiciled himself with the three parts. Matthew, this part for God and St. Cuthbert; Mark, this part for the bishop; and Luke, this part for the brotherhood; with eight ora of silver (as an offering) on entrance; and St. John's part for himself--i.e., for his soul; and (depositing) four silver ora with God and St. Cuthbert, that he may find acceptance in heaven through the mercy of God; good fortune and peace on earth, promotion and dignity, wisdom and prudence through the merits of St. Cuthbert.

"Eadfrith, Ethelwald, Billfrith, and Aldred have wrought and adorned this Book of the Gospels for (love of) God and St. Cuthbert."

Old as it is, neither vellum nor illumination shows the least sign of decay. The writing is exquisitely beautiful, and points to a degree of refinement and cultivation which we do not usually associate with a rough life, such as was led by the monks of sea-girt Lindisfarne. There are to be seen wonderful initial letters, geometrical and tesselated designs, like the most delicate and intricate mosaics, and above all, beautifully devout representations of the four evangelists, all evidently drawn by the same loving and reverent hand, and the whole colouring as fresh now as if it had been painted yesterday.

The evangelists, each accompanied by the symbolic animal, usually assigned to him, occupy nearly the whole of their respective pages. They are taken from Byzantine models, of which, as Westwood points out, nothing remains but the attitudes, the fashion of the dress and the form of the seats. There can be little doubt that these illuminations were copied from a MS. brought into England by the missionaries sent from Rome by St. Gregory in the seventh century.

* Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts. P. 35.

Sir Edward Thompson, following Dom Germain Morin,* shows that the Capitula, or tables of sections which accompany each gospel are according to the Neapolitan use, and that Adrian, the companion of the Greek, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury in his mission to Britain in 668, was abbot of a monastery in the Island of Nisita, near Naples.

* See his articles in the Revue Benedictine line, Nov. and Dec. 1891, pp. 481 and 529.

Bede tells us that these missionaries were both at Lindisfarne, and Sir Edward Thompson gives it as his opinion that the Neapolitan MS. from which the Durham Book or Lindisfarne Gospel derived its text, had been brought a few years previously from Naples by the Abbot Adrian.*

* English Illuminated Manuscripts," Bibliographica," part ii.

The interlineary Saxon gloss was a later addition by the monk, Aldred, and Billfrith, as we have seen, made the sumptuous metal cover. This binding, needless to say, has long since disappeared, and for many years a shabby morocco covering replaced the gorgeous shrine in which the monks of Holy Island had deposited their treasure. About sixty years ago, Bishop Maltby of Durham, at the suggestion of Mr. John Holmes, provided a worthy substitute, the design for which was copied from one of the ornamented pages in the book itself.

This magnificent manuscript has been published by the Surtees Society, together with the very inferior Rushworth Gospels, but only one illumination has been reproduced.*

* The Lindisfarne Gospels or Durham Book is described in Planta's Catalogue (Nero, D 4), as "Liber praeclarissimus, elegantissimis characteribus et curiosissimus pro istius seculi arte picturis et delineationibus ornatus." See also Wanley's Catalogue, Codd. MS. (Anglo-Sax.) p. 250.

Of absolutely authentic history there is little to relate concerning this celebrated manuscript, but Simeon of Durham, or rather Turgot, whose account he copied (and both men lived in the neighbourhood), is responsible for a story which says that it remained at Holy Island till the ravages of the Danes forced the monks to fly, carrying with them their two greatest treasures, the body of St. Cuthbert, and this volume. But in their flight across the narrow strip of sea which divides the Island from the coast of Northumbria, their boat was thrown so much on one side that the book fell overboard. They arrived safely on the opposite shore, but could not make up their minds to continue their journey till they had done what they could to recover the precious relic. So they waited at the peril of their lives till the tide went out, leaving, as it does to this day, a stretch of bare sand between the Island and the mainland. To the inexpressible joy of the monks, they then found the book lying unharmed on the sand.

Archbishop Eyre, in his Life of St. Cuthbert, following the story as it is contained in the Rites of Durham,* places this incident in the sixth or seventh year of their wanderings.

* Surtees Society.

"And so, the bishop, the abbot, and the rest, being weary of travelling, thought to have stolen away, and carried St. Cuthbert's body into Ireland, for his better safety. And being upon the sea in a ship, by a marvellous miracle three waves of water were turned into blood. The ship that they were in was driven back by the tempest and by the mighty power of God as it would seem, upon the shore or land. And also the said ship that they were in, by the great storm and strong raging walls of the sea as is aforesaid, was turned on the one side, and the Book of the Holy Evangelists fell out of the ship into the bottom of the sea."

This account says that the monks found the volume about three miles from the shore, and that their landing-place was Whithorn in Galloway, opposite Belfast.

When Lindisfarne became a priory cell to Durham, this famous manuscript still remained in the city of St. Cuthbert, and in the History of North Durham by Raine, it is mentioned in the year 1637, as "the Book of St. Cuthbert which had fallen into the sea." We, indeed, notice a brown stain on several of its leaves, which might be accounted for by their having been saturated with salt water, did we but know what would be the effect of a sea-water mark after so long a period. At the time of the dissolution it was still at Durham, and no record of what then befel it has been preserved.*

* Brayley's Graphic and Historical Illustrator, 1834; article "The Durham Book," by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson.

Sir Robert Cotton discovered it in the possession of Robert Bowyer, clerk of Parliament under James I.

The resemblance between the artistic and palaeographic peculiarities of the Book of Kells and the Durham Book is accounted for by the fact that Lindisfarne was founded from Iona, which had been given to St. Columba and his Irish companions in the sixth century. The monks, who settled at Holy Island, continued the Scoto-Irish traditions which they had brought with them, and perpetuated them in their manuscripts.

A brief notice of one other remarkable MS. may be made. It is to be found in the press Claudius, B 4, and a careful description of it is given by Westwood in his Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria, and in his Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS. An early tradition declares it to be one of the volumes sent to St. Augustine by Pope Gregory. However that may be, it is known as the Augustine Psalter, and the style of its ornamentation is of Roman origin. This ornamentation consists of initial letters in the Celtic manner; but gold, which was hardly ever used in the Lindisfarne school, and never in Irish MSS., is here seen in profusion, and this detail betrays a foreign influence. It belonged to the Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury, and may be a copy executed in that house of one of the books sent from Rome.

The Paraphrase of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, by Elfric, the grammarian, in this collection, is the finest known copy of the work. It is ornamented with 397 drawings, illustrating the text of the early books of the Bible. The largest miniature represents the building of the Tower of Babel.

The Psychomachia of Prudentius is very beautifully written in red and black ink. There are 83 drawings. A replica of this manuscript, which belonged to the monks of Malmesbury, is now at Cambridge.

Scarcely less interesting historically, than the Lindisfarne Gospels is the Book of the Benefactors of Durham Cathedral. Their names are written in alternate lines of bold and silver, the binding being also originally of gold and silver, to which fact a Latin couplet in verse testifies. As time went on it was carelessly kept by the monks of Durham, but entries were made up to the eve of the dissolution of the monastery. The book has been published by the Surtees Society under its name of Liber Vitae, and edited by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson who also wrote a preface. The meaning of Liber Vitae was that the fact of the benefactor's name being inscribed in this book was coupled with the hope and the prayer that the same name might at last find a place in the Book of Life, in which those are enrolled, who shall be faithful unto death.* Later on it became a sort of memorandum-book, in which together with the names of benefactors, was entered a brief account of the nature of their donations. Copies of charters were also inserted, and other matters of an historical character.

* Preface to the published volume, p. 8.

As far as folio 42, it is written in a beautiful ninth century hand, but from this point onwards, the gold and silver lines are omitted, and it is continued in varied and less elegant writing. This manuscript remained at Durham till the dissolution, and it is not known what then became of it, nor in what manner it passed finally into the Cottonian library. It is thus quaintly described:

"There did lie on the High Altar an excellent fine book, very richly covered with gold and silver, containing the names of all the benefactors towards St. Cuthbert's Church, from the very original foundation thereof, the very letters of the book being for the most part all gilt, as is apparent in the said book till this day. The laying that book on the High Altar did show how highly they esteemed their founders and benefactors; and the quotidian remembrance they had of them in the time of Mass and divine service. And this did argue not only their gratitude, but also a most divine and charitable affection to the souls of their benefactors as well dead as living, which book is yet extant, declaring the said use in the inscription thereof." *

* The Ancient Rites and Monuments of the Monastical and Cathedral Church of Durham, collected out of ancient manuscripts about the time of the Suppression.

These examples may suffice as a glimpse into the nature of this treasure-house, but where so much is rare and costly, it is not easy to make a selection that shall be fairly representative.

With regard to the peculiar designation of the places occupied by the books, Sir Robert Cotton arranged them in fourteen presses, each press being surmounted by a bust of one of the twelve Roman emperors, the two last supporting those of Cleopatra and Faustina. The contents of each press were placed in boxes or portfolios, or were bound up in volumes, each box, portfolio, or volume being designated by a letter of the alphabet, each document having a special number.

After the death of its founder the library remained for some time in sequestration, to the great annoyance of the new baronet, Sir Thomas Cotton, who complained bitterly that he was shut out from his study, the best room in his house. A schedule was at length drawn up, consisting of a large vellum roll still extant in the collection, showing that it contained nothing that did not belong to him, and ultimately he gained admission.

Sir Symond D'Ewes made no secret of his opinion that Sir Thomas was "wholly addicted to the tenacious increasing of his worldly wealth, and altogether unworthy to be master of so inestimable a library." We cannot altogether agree with this verdict, since Sir Thomas avenged himself by lending D'Ewes his father's collection of coins; and it is but fair to add that he appears in general to have been no less liberal, one might almost say careless, in lending than his father. Rancour may, however, have set in later on, for Dugdale, writing to D'Ewes in 1639 says, "I am in despair to obtain the books of Sir Thomas Cotton which you desire." Richard James, librarian, fell under the same condemnation as his master, for D'Ewes describes him as "a wretched mercenary fellow."

Sir Thomas Cotton died in 1662, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John, who was somewhat of a scholar. Some respectable Latin verses written by him occur among Smith's MSS. at Oxford. He married Dorothy, daughter and coheiress of Edmund Anderson, of Stratton in Bedfordshire, and it appears that during the civil war the library was removed to that place for greater safety. This was the beginning of its wanderings and vicissitudes, which lasted nearly a hundred years.

The first regular catalogue of the Cottonian library was made and printed at Oxford by Dr. Thomas Smith in 1696. This catalogue is defective in many ways, especially as regards State Papers and detached tracts, of which there are no fewer than 170 volumes, which are here severally entered under one head only, although they each contain on an average as many as a hundred separate documents on different subjects. Dugdale, who was allowed to make what use he liked of the library, discovered 80 of these volumes in loose bundles, and had them bound. But they were still practically useless for want of proper descriptions and indices, till Planta, keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, published his descriptive catalogue in 1802. Although not without faults, it has never been superseded.

It is to the third baronet that we are mainly indebted for the magnificent project of bequeathing the Cottonian library to the nation. He died in 1702, before the final steps had been taken in this direction; but his grandson and immediate successor carried out his wishes which had also been those of his father and grandfather.

The statute, drawn up in the year 1700 (12 and 13 William III.) is entitled, "An Act for the better settling and preserving the library kept in the house at Westminster, called Cotton House, in the name and family of the Cottons for the benefit of the public."

The next step was to have the books carefully inspected, and compared with Smith's catalogue, now found to be inadequate. Many of the manuscripts were reported to be in a state of decay, the place where they were kept not being suitable. In 1706, Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to fit up the study for public use, but he declared that Cotton House was in a ruinous condition; and in consequence of his report, in the following year, another Act of Parliament decreed that to increase the public utility of the library, Cotton House should be purchased of Sir John Cotton for 4500 pounds, and a new building erected for the collection of books. Still, nothing was done, till the house, actually threatening to tumble down, the books were removed to Essex House, in the Strand, where they remained for twenty-eight years. In 1730, Ashburnham House, Westminster, was purchased by the nation for the reception of the Cottonian, together with the Royal library. It was here, in 1731, that the terrible fire broke out in which so many valuable manuscripts were destroyed.

At about 2 o'clock in the morning of the 23rd October, Dr. Bentley, the librarian, and his family, who lived at Ashburnham House, were roused from sleep by a suffocating smoke which soon afterwards burst into flames. The outbreak was caused by a wooden mantelpiece taking fire, in the room immediately under the two libraries. It was at first hoped that the flames might be extinguished by throwing water upon the woodwork of the room actually on fire, so that they did not begin to remove the books as soon as they should have done. But seeing that this was useless, Mr. Casley, deputy librarian, hastened to rescue the famous Alexandrian MS. in the Royal library, and the books in the Cottonian press named Augustus, as being considered the most valuable. These are principally charts, maps, grants, and papal bulls, all relating to early English history. Several of the presses were then removed bodily, but as the fire spread with alarming rapidity, and there was a delay in the arrival of the engines, it was discovered none too soon, that the backs of some of the presses were on fire. Then the books were seized and thrown out of windows, after which they were carried into Westminster School and the Little Cloisters. By permission of the Dean and Chapter they subsequently found a temporary home in a new building that had been erected as a dormitory for the school.

A committee was at once appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the amount of injury sustained. It was found that a great number of manuscripts had suffered from the engine-water, as well as from fire, and the report of the commissioners stated, that out of 958 volumes of MSS. 746 were unharmed, and 98 partially injured.

The press named Otho had suffered the most. In the table drawn up by Casley in his appendix to the Royal library, not one volume in Otho is seen to be intact; 16 are marked defective, 55 as lost, burnt, or defaced so as not to be distinguishable. Vitellius was the next greatest sufferer, 46 volumes being preserved, 28 defective, and 34 seriously damaged. Vespasian, with its fine collection of historical materials for the history of England and Scotland, its dramas in Old English verse, and the famous Coventry Mystery Plays and others happily escaped altogether.* Casley's figures differ slightly from those of the commissioners: out of a total of 958 volumes, he notes 748 as uninjured, 99 as defective, and 111 as lost, burnt, or defaced.

* Narrative of the Fire which happened at Ashburnham House, 23rd October 1731. Report of the committee appointed by the House of Commons.

On the 1st November the work of restoration began, and was carried out by Bentley, Casley, three clerks from the Record Office, a bookbinder, and others. The Speaker of the House of Commons was frequently present. Some of the MSS. inclined to mildew were dried before a fire. Some would have rotted if they had not been taken out of their bindings, so thoroughly had the water permeated. The paper books which had received stains were taken to pieces and plunged into the softest cold water that could be procured, and when the stains disappeared they were put into alum and water, and then hung upon lines to dry.

The best means of stretching vellum to its original dimensions, after it has been shrivelled and contracted, had not at that time been discovered, but the restorers did what they could. It was first softened in cold water, then those leaves, which had become glued together by the heat melting all kinds of extraneous matter, were separated by means of an ivory cutter, and the glutinous substances carefully removed with the fingers, the parchments smoothed with the palm of the hand, and their backs pressed with a clean flannel. Fragments were also carefully cleaned and preserved, and upon many of these with which the original restorers could do nothing, Sir Frederick Madden afterwards worked wonders. By his method, 100 volumes were repaired on vellum, and 97 on paper.

Among these mutilated fragments was the priceless fourth century manuscript of Genesis, Otho, B 6, which was thought to have been taken abroad as it could not be found after the fire. For a while it was given up as irrevocably lost, but Sir Frederick Madden discovered the much burnt remains and pieced them together. This Book of Genesis was at one time thought to be the oldest Greek MS. in England. It is now known that the four leaves of the gospel in Greek, Titus, C 15, are as old or even older. The Oxford librarian, Thomas James, wrote in the beginning of the volume that it was brought into this country by two Greek bishops as a present to Henry VIII. They told him that according to an old tradition it had belonged to Origen, and there was nothing in the text to make the supposition incredible. This, if true, would carry the manuscript back 1500 years at least, with a possibility of its being much more ancient. It had been the subject of a dispute in the time of the first Sir John Cotton, when it was supposed to have been lost. All at once it was discovered in the possession of Lady Stafford, who stoutly maintained that it had belonged to the late earl, her husband, who had lent it to Sir Thomas Cotton; and that while it was in his hands he caused it to be newly bound, and his coat of arms fixed upon it. She said, however, that Sir John might have it for 40 pounds, but that she would not take a farthing less, adding that he had already offered her 30 pounds in her own house, but that she had refused the sum. Mr. Gilbert Crouch, who was negotiating for Sir John, in explaining the matter to Dugdale, said that if Sir John Cotton had "so great a mind to the book, he were better give this other 10 pounds than run the charge and hazard of a suit."*

* Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale.

All that now remains of this uniquely beautiful MS., painted on every page, are eighteen melancholy scraps of no use but as a monument of the ingenuity with which they have been pieced together, mended, and preserved.

The Chronicle of Wendover, which was also believed to have perished, was found and repaired in the time of Sir Frederick Madden.

A fragment of another MS., marked as missing in Planta's catalogue, has found its way to the Bodleian library. It consists of ten folios of the Life of St. Basil, and a note by Hearne says that it came from a Cottonian MS.

Grand and imposing as the Cottonian library still is, it is painful to consider how incomparably finer it must have been during the life of its founder, before it suffered from the ravages of the fire, and from the carelessness or dishonesty of so many borrowers. Sir John Cotton avowed that many books lent to Selden were never returned; the Duke of Buckingham was also guilty in the same respect. A manuscript now in the Bodleian library (Barlow 49) was borrowed from the Cottonian by Dr. Prideaux, and never returned. It was afterwards exposed for sale at Worcester, and bought by Dr. Barlow, who presented it to the Bodleian. Parliamentary rolls often suffered a like fate, and instances of similar losses could be largely multiplied. The loss of the Utrecht Psalter is, however, perhaps the most grievous that the library has sustained from borrowers.

Some of the manuscripts, injured by the fire at Ashburnham House, were further mutilated by another fire which occurred on the premises of a bookbinder on the 10th July 1865.

In 1753 the government purchased the large Natural History and Art Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, together with a library of 50,000 volumes, which were deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, on the site of the present British Museum Buildings. Hither the Cottonian and Royal libraries were brought, forming, together with the Sloane manuscripts, the nucleus of the great national collections of which we are justly proud, and which, under their present efficient and courteous management, are rendered so useful to students.

The British Museum was formally opened to the public at Montague House in 1759. But it grew so rapidly that soon more space was needed, and in 1823 the eastern wing of the present building was erected to receive the library of George III. presented to the museum by George IV. The whole building was completed in 1847.

V. THE ROYAL LIBRARY

The Royal library is in many ways the most splendid of our national manuscript collections. Had it been fortunate enough, like the Harleian library, to number a Wanley among its custodians and biographers, the history of its formation would read like a fairy-tale. But, unhappily, we have to depend for our chief data on what Casley, the "dry as dust" pay excellence of librarians could tell us, and though his knowledge of the age of MSS. was admirable, he was remarkably uncommunicative regarding their pedigree, meagre in his descriptions, and apparently insensible to paleographic beauty. There is scarcely, in the whole British Museum, a less satisfactory book than his catalogue of the Royal library. Thus, the student is hampered by the want of a guide, and must hew paths for himself through the luxuriant growth and accumulations of many centuries. In point of mere size, the Royal library ranks third among the four great collections acquired by the British Museum at the time of its foundation--the Harleian numbering 7639 MSS.; the Sloane, 4001; the Royal, 1950; the Cottonian, 900.

Of the three others we have ample details; their hoards have been thoroughly ransacked, and there are scarcely any surprises for the student. We can, without much trouble lay our hands on any fact, beauty, or excellence to be found in them, for there are hardly any hidden gems. But with the Royal library it is different. Each student is his own pioneer, and must make voyages of discovery if he would know something of the riches which it contains.

Its history is scarcely more complete than its catalogue; although the nucleus of the collection must be almost coeval with the monarchy. Before the reign of James I., however, there were no records except the strangely anomalous ones contained in the Privy Purse Expenses, and in the Wardrobe and Household Accounts of the various English kings who have added to the library. It is curious to light, among the sums disbursed for such items as feather-beds and four-post bedsteads, on the price paid for a rare manuscript, or for the binding of a choice codex. Queen Elizabeth's "Keeper of the Books" was also "Court Distiller of Odoriferous Herbs," and received a better salary as perfumer than as librarian. But in times when books were more costly, the office of custodian was considered an honourable one, and a Close Roll of the year 1252 makes mention of the Custos librorum Regis.

Impossible though it be to fix the exact date or even reign when the English kings began to collect books, we shall not be wrong if we infer that the Royal library had already a very real existence in the reign of Henry II., when a great literary revival took place. Although the movement originated in the cloister, the court followed in its wake, and William of Malmesbury had his secular counterpart in Alfred of Beverley. A favourite of the king's, Walter de Map, who had been a student in Paris, and Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis) divided the honours between courtly and popular themes, while a number of poets and romanticists sprang up and wove fantastic myths and legends out of such material as the Crusades, the Arthurian traditions, and the feats of Charlemagne. King John, with scarcely a quality which men cared to praise, was, strangely enough, fond of books and of scholars. A taste for learning was gradually leavening the barbarous Normanic lump, spreading downwards from monarch to people. Two years before John's death Roger Bacon was born, whose opus Majus embraced every branch of science, and whose life is the whole intellectual life of the thirteenth century. Matthew Paris, the last of the great monastic historians, was the intimate friend of Henry III., who delighted in his scholarship, and loved to visit him in the scriptorium at St. Alban's where he himself contributed to the famous chronicle, which would alone have sufficed to make the reputation of the learned Benedictine. Thus, indirectly, we are led to the Royal library.

In 1250, a French book is mentioned in a State Paper as belonging to the king, but being actually in the keeping of the Knights Templars, who are commanded to hand it over to an officer of the Wardrobe, with the apparent object that the king's painters might copy from it when painting a room called the Antioch Chamber.

In the reign of Edward I. a part of the Royal library was kept in the Treasury of the Exchequer, and a few of the books are mentioned in the Wardrobe Accounts of the year 1302. These included Latin service books, treatises on devotional subjects, and romances. One book is described as "Textus, in a case of leather on which magnates are wont to be sworn."

All through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there are occasional allusions to the king's books in the Wardrobe Accounts, and the Exchequer Inventory of Edward II. enumerates "a book bound in red leather, De regimine Regum; a small book on the rule of the Knights Templars, De regula Templariorum; a stitched book, De Vita sancti Patricii; and a stitched book in a tongue unknown to the English which begins thus: Edmygaw dorit doyrmyd dinas," and other books and rolls "very foreign to the English tongue," the scribe, not knowing Welsh even by sight, whereas, although he might not be able to read them, he would probably know the look of Greek or Hebrew manuscripts. The list closes with the Chronicle of Roderick de Ximenez, Archbishop of Toledo, "bound in green leather."*

* Stapleton's exchequer Inventory, Edward II.

A document, belonging to the year 1419, and printed by Sir Francis Palgrave, relates to the delivery into the King's Treasury of five volumes, consisting of a Bible, a copy of the Book of Chronicles, a treatise, De conceptione Beatae Mariae, a compendium of theology, and a volume entitled Libellus de emendatione vitae. But in the following year these manuscripts were given to the monastery at Sheen. In 1426 a book described as Egesippus, another as Liber de observantia Papa, were borrowed from the library in the Treasury by Cardinal Beaufort, and there are subsequent notices of the return and re-loan of the same volumes to the same borrower. It is interesting to note that a manuscript called Hegesippus De Bello Judaico, etc., still in the Royal library, is ascribed by Casley to the eleventh century, and may be identified with the former of these two books.

In the following years entries occur of works on Civil Law, and of some others being lent to the Master of King's College, Cambridge, and of their subsequent presentation to that house, with the assent of the Lords of the Council.

In the Wardrobe accounts of Edward IV. (Royal MS. 14, C 8), there are entries relating to "the coveryng and garnyshing of the bookes of oure saide Souverain Lorde the Kinge," which mark his possession in 1480 of certain choice MSS., and the same document shows that these were bound by Piers Bauduyn for the king. Among them were a Froissart, the binding, gilding, and dressing of which cost 20S., and a Biblia Historians (now marked 19 D 2 in the Royal library), bound and ornamented for the same sum. On a fly-leaf is an inscription recording its purchase for 100 marks by William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, after the battle of Poitiers. It had been taken as loot among the baggage of the French king. On his death in 1397, the Earl of Salisbury bequeathed it to his wife, who, in her will, ordered that it should be sold for forty livres.

When the king went from London to Eltham his books went with him, and some were put into "divers cofyns of fyrre," and others into his carriage. They were bound in "figured cramoisie velvet, with rich laces and tassels, with buttons of silk and gold, and with clasps bearing the king's arms." The only reference to books in the will of Edward IV. is in regard to such as appertained "to oure chapell," which he bequeathed to his queen, such only being excepted "as we shall hereafter dispose to goo to oure saide Collage of Wyndesore."*

* Add. MS., Transcript by Rymer, No. 4615.