QUERIES CONCERNING OLD MSS.
I am very desirous of gaining some knowledge respecting the following MSS., especially as regards their locality at the present time. Perhaps some of your numerous readers can help me to the information which I seek.
1. "Whitelocke's Labours remembered in the Annales of his Life, written for the use of his Children." This valuable MS. contains a most minute and curious account of the performance of Shirley's masque, entitled The Triumphs of Peace. In 1789, when Dr. Burney published the third volume of his History of Music, it was in the possession of Dr. Morton of the British Museum.—Query, Was Dr. Morton's library disposed of by auction, or what was its destiny?
2. "A MS. Treatise on the Art of Illumination, written in the year 1525." This MS. is said by Edward Rowe Mores, in his Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders, to have been in the possession of Humphrey Wanley, who by its help "refreshed the injured or decayed illuminations in the library of the Earl of Oxford." The MS. was transcribed by Miss Elstob in 1710, and a copy of her transcript was in the possession of Mr. George Ballard. Where now is the original?
3. "A Memorandum-book in the handwriting of Paul Bowes, Esq., son of Sir Thomas Bowes, of London, and of Bromley Hall, Essex, Knight, and dated 1673." In 1783 this MS., which contains some highly interesting and important information, was in the possession of a gentleman named Broke, of Nacton in Suffolk, a descendant from the Bowes family; but I have not been able to trace it further.
4. "The Negotiations of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall." This valuable MS. was in the collection of Dr. Farmer, who wrote on the fly-leaf,—
"I believe several of the Letters and State Papers in this volume have not been published; three or four are printed in the collections at the end of Dr. Fiddes' Life of Wolsey, from a MS. in the Yelverton Library."
If I remember rightly, the late Richard Heber afterwards came into the possession of this curious and important volume. It is lamentable to think of the dispersion of poor Heber's manuscripts.
Edward F. Rimbault.