"Since I can now speak in no other manner, I may in this way utter one word to the young, to whom I have heretofore spoken from a more solemn place; I would remind them how almost prophetically, sixteen years ago, in the volume which was the unknown dawn and harbinger of the re-awakening of deeper truth, this was given as the watchword to those who should love the truth, 'In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' There have been manifold tokens that patience is the one great grace which God is now calling forth in our church," &c.
I will not here inquire which of the two great religious revolutions I have mentioned has been more truly characterised by the spirit of this beautiful and striking text, but perhaps some of your readers will agree with me in thinking that the coincidence is at least a note-worthy one; and not the less so, because it was probably undesigned.
Joshua G. Fitch.
BINDERS OF THE VOLUMES IN THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY.
In Dr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, 1817, vol. ii. p. 503., he thus introduces the subject:
"The commencement of the eighteenth century saw the rise and progress of the rival libraries of Harley and Sunderland. What a field, therefore, was here for the display of the bibliopegistic art! Harley usually preferred red morocco, with a broad border of gold, and the fore-edges of the leaves without colour or gilt. Generally speaking, the Harleian volumes are most respectably bound; but they have little variety, and the style of art which they generally exhibit rather belongs to works of devotion."
In a note on the above passage, Dibdin adds:
"I have often consulted my bibliomaniacal friends respecting the name of the binder or binders of the Harleian Library. Had Bagford or Wanley the chief direction? I suspect the latter."
If Dr. Dibdin and his "bibliomaniacal friends" had not preferred the easy labour of looking at printed title-pages to the rather more laborious task of examining manuscripts, they might readily have solved the Query thus raised by referring to Wanley's Autograph Diary, preserved in the Lansdowne Collection, Nos. 771, 772, which proves that the binders employed by Lord Oxford were Christopher Chapman of Duck Lane, and Thomas Elliot. Very many entries occur between January 1719-20 and May 1726, relative to the binding both of manuscripts and books in morocco and calf; and it appears, in regard to the former material, that it was supplied by Lord Oxford himself. Some of these entries will show the jealous care exercised by honest Humphrey Wanley over the charge committed to him.