Bread and Aleiid.
Item, Oistersid.
Item, Butteriid.
Item, Eggsiid.
Item, Lyngviiid.
Item, A piece of fresh Salmonxd.
Wineiiid.
Cheese and pearsiid.

Charges for burning Ridley and Latimer.

s.d.
For three loads of wood fagots120
Item, One load of furs fagots34
For the carriage of the same20
Item, A Post14
Item, Two chains34
Item, Two staples06
Item, Four Labourers28

Charges for burning Cranmer.

s.d.
For an 100 of wood fagots,060
For an 100 and half of furs fagots034
For the carriage of them08
To two labourers14

I will draw the curtain upon this dismal picture, by a short extract from one of Cranmer's letters, in which this great and good man thus ingeniously urges the necessity of the Scriptures being translated into the English language; a point, by the bye, upon which neither he, nor Cromwell, nor Latimer, I believe, were at first decided; "God's will and commandment is, (says Cranmer) that when the people be gathered together, the minister should use such language as the people may understand, and take profit thereby; or else hold their peace. For as an harp or lute, if it give no certain sound that men may know what is stricken, who can dance after it—for all the sound is vain; so is it vain and profiteth nothing, sayeth Almighty God, by the mouth of St. Paul, if the priest speak to the people in a language which they know not." Certain most godly, fruitful, and comfortable letters of Saintes and holy Martyrs, &c., 1564; 4to., fol. 8.

All hail to the sovereign who, bred up in severe habits of reading and meditation, loved books and scholars to the very bottom of her heart! I consider Elizabeth as a royal bibliomaniac of transcendent fame!—I see her, in imagination, wearing her favourite little Volume of Prayers,[325] the composition of Queen Catherine Parr, and Lady Tirwit, "bound in solid gold, and hanging by a gold chain at her side," at her morning and evening devotions—afterwards, as she became firmly seated upon her throne, taking an interest in the embellishments of the Prayer Book,[326] which goes under her own name; and then indulging her strong bibliomaniacal appetites in fostering the institution "for the erecting of a Library and an Academy for the study of Antiquities and History."[327] Notwithstanding her earnestness to root out all relics of the Roman Catholic religion (to which, as the best excuse, we must, perhaps, attribute the sad cruelty of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots), I cannot in my heart forbear to think but that she secured, for her own book-boudoir, one or two of the curious articles which the commissioners often-times found in the libraries that they inspected: and, amongst other volumes, how she could forbear pouncing upon "A great Pricksong Book of parchment"—discovered in the library of All Soul's College[328]—is absolutely beyond my wit to divine!

[325] Of this curious little devotional volume the reader has already had some account ([p. 119], ante); but if he wishes to enlarge his knowledge of the same, let him refer to vol. lx. pt. ii. and vol. lxi. pt. i. of the Gentleman's Magazine. By the kindness of Mr. John Nichols, I am enabled to present the bibliomaniacal virtuoso with a fac-simile of the copper-plate inserted in the latter volume (p. 321) of the authority last mentioned. It represents the golden cover, or binding, of this precious manuscript. Of the Queen's attachment to works of this kind, the following is a pretty strong proof: "In the Bodl. library, among the MSS. in mus. num. 235, are the Epistles of St. Paul, &c., printed in an old black letter in 12o. which was Queen Elizabeth's own book, and her own hand writing appears at the beginning, viz.: "August. I walke many times into the pleasant fieldes of the Holy Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so having tasted their sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the bitterness of this miserable life." The covering is done in needle work by the Queen [then princess] herself, and thereon are these sentences, viz. on one side, on the borders; celvm patria: scopvs vitæ xpvs. christvs via. christo vive. In the middle a heart, and round about it, eleva cor svrsvm ibi vbi e.c. [est Christus]. On the other side, about the borders, beatvs qvi divitias scriptvræ legens verba vertit in opera. In the middle a star, and round it, vicit omnia pertinax virtvs with e.c., i.e. as I take it, elisabetha captiva, or [provided it refer to Virtus] elisabethæ captivæ, she being, then, when she worked this covering, a prisoner, if I mistake not, at Woodstock." Tit. Liv. For. Jul. vit. Henrici v., p. 228-229.

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