“Geo. Thomason.”
The volume bears the “honours” of its mischance. There are a great number of stains on the edges of the leaves—some more than an inch in depth. The accident must have happened on the road in the king’s flight, from the marks of the mud.
[2] In 1676, Dr. Barlow, one of the trustees, writes to the Rev. George Thomason, who was a Fellow of Queen’s College and the eldest son of the collector, respecting the collection and its value. The letter is printed in Beloe’s “Anecdotes of Literature,” vol. ii.
[3] A letter from Dr. Jenkin, who was chaplain to Lord Weymouth, to Mr. Baker, Dec. 3, 1709:—“There is another rarity then to be sold, which is proffered to my lord—a Collection of Pamphlets, in number 30,000, bound in 2000 volumes. The collection was begun by Charles 1st in 1640, and continued to 1660. In a printed paper, where I saw this account, it is said the collectors refused 4000l. for them.”—Masters’ Life of Rev. Thomas Baker, p. 28.
[4] “Phœnix Britannicus,”—“Oldys’ Dissertation upon Pamphlets,” p. 556. Oldys drew up an account of these pamphlets from “The Memoirs of the Curious,” published in 1701. He says, that the Collection was made by Tomlinson, the bookseller, and the Catalogue by Marmaduke Foster, the auctioneer; and relates a traditional story, that it is reported that Charles the First gave ten pounds for reading one of these pamphlets, at the owner’s house in St. Paul’s Churchyard. This collection was not commenced until Nov. 1640, and the king left London in Jan. 1642; during this time the collection could not be very numerous, nor would there be that difficulty in seeing a pamphlet as at the subsequent more distracted period. It is curious to trace the origin of traditionary tales; they often stand on a rickety foundation. We find that the king did borrow a pamphlet, but at a time when he could not hasten to St. Paul’s Churchyard to read it; we may presume that the bookseller did not charge his majesty so disloyal a price as ten pounds for the perusal of a single pamphlet; he probably received only the king’s approbation of his design, which doubtless was no slight stimulus to its completion.
[5] A Mr. Sisson, a druggist in Ludgate-street, who died in 1749; they then became the property of his relative; Miss Sisson, who seems gladly to have disburdened herself of this domestic grievance in 1761.—Hollis’ Memoirs, p. 121.
THE OCEANA OF HARRINGTON.
The hardy paradoxes, not wholly without foundation, and the humiliating truths so mortifying to human nature, of the mighty “Leviathan,” whose author was little disposed to flatter or to elevate his brothers,[1] were opposed by an ideal government, more generous in its sympathies, and less obtrusive of brute force, or “the public sword,” in the Oceana of James Harrington.