Mr. Heber had written in his Copy, "Mr. Malone has a copy bought at Dr. Farmer's Sale, (now in the Bodleian Library,) but I know of no other." We may add, those two copies, and the present, are the only perfect copies known.
| 1086 | Sidney's (Sir Phillip) Apologie for Poetrie, first edition, excessively rare. Printed for Henry Olney, 1595 | 15 | 5 | 0 |
"Foure Sonnets written by Henrie Constable to Sir Philip Sidneys Soule" are prefixed. These have not been reprinted in the subsequent editions. Only three other copies of the first edition of this elegant and valuable Treatise are known. One of which is in the British Museum, and one in the Bridgewater Library.
The Third Part of Mr. Chalmers's library—abundantly rich in Scotch literature, and containing much valuable illustration of the History of Printing in Scotland, will probably quickly succeed the publication of this Work. Mr. Chalmers had frequently expressed to me his intention as well as inclination to give a complete History of the Scotish Press; and if the materials collected by him find their way into his native country, it is to be hoped that some enterprising spirit, like that which animates the present Librarian of the Signet Library, will find sufficient encouragement to bring them before the public. I bargain for a Quarto.
Menalcas (whose fame expands more largely in the Bibliographical Decameron and Reminiscences) was my old and "very singular good friend" the Rev. Henry Joseph Thomas Drury, Rector of Fingest, and Second Master of Harrow School; second, because he declined to become the first. His library, so rich and rare in classical lore—manuscript as well as printed—was sold by Mr. Evans in 1827. The catalogue contained not fewer than 4729 articles. The bindings, chiefly in Lewisian calf and morocco, were "de toute beauté;" and the "oblong cabinet" sparkled as the setting sun shot its slanting rays down the backs of the tomes. Of this catalogue there were 35 copies only printed upon writing paper, for presents.
This library was strikingly illustrative of the character of its late owner; for it is little more than a twelvemonth since he has been called away from that numerous and endearing circle, in the midst of which I saw him sitting, about a twelvemonth before his departure—the happiest of the happy—on the day of the nuptials of his youngest daughter but one, with Captain Beavan. His books were in fine condition throughout—gaily attired in appropriate bindings of calf or morocco, as the character and condition might be. His love of old classical Manuscripts was properly and greatly beyond that of printed books: but each class was so marked and identified by his calligraphical MS. notes, that you were in a moment convinced his books were not purchased for the mere sake of gorgeous furniture. So entirely were his classical feelings mixed up with his Library, that he prefixed, over the entrance door of his oblong cabinet, in printed letters of gold, the following lines—of which the version is supplied from the "Arundines Cami," edited by his eldest son, the Rev. Henry Drury.
IN MUSEI MEI ADITU.
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Pontificum videas penetralibus eruta lapsis Antiquas Monachum vellera passa manus, Et veteres puncto sine divisore Papyros, Quæque fremit monstris litera picta suis: Ætatis decimæ spectes Industria Quintæ: Quam pulcra Archetypos imprimat arte Duces Aldinas ædes ineuns et limina Juntæ Quosque suos Stephanus vellet habere Lares. H.I.T.D. |
OVER THE THRESHOLD OF MY LIBRARY.