This is probably the earliest notice of the celebrated pupil of John of Bologna after his settlement in England. Dallaway, in his Anecdotes of the Arts in England (p. 395.), after stating that Hubert le Sœur arrived here about the year 1630, says,—
"If he was associated with Pierre Tacca, who finished the horse in the equestrian statue of Henry IV. in 1610, left incomplete on the death of his master, John of Bologna, two years preceding, he must have been far advanced in life. Three only of his works in bronze are now known with certainty to exist: the equestrian statue of Charles I. [at Charing Cross], a bust of the same monarch with a casque in the Roman style [now at Stourhead], and a statue in armour of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, Lord High Chamberlain and Chancellor of Oxford. The last was given to the University by T., Earl of Pembroke, about the time of the restoration."
The "several famous statues in brasse" alluded to by the writer of the Diary above quoted, were probably those which afterwards ornamented the gardens of St. James's Palace. Peacham, in his Complete Gentleman (2nd edit., 4to. 1634), having spoken of the collection of statues at Arundell House, says:—
"King Charles also, ever since his coming to the Crown, hath amply testified a royal liking of ancient Statues, by causing a whole army of foreign Emperors, Captains, and Senators, all at once to land on his coasts, to come and do him homage and attend him in his Palaces of Saint James and Somerset House. A great part of these belonged to the great Duke of Mantua; and some of the old Greek marble bases, columns, and altars were brought from the ruins of Apollo's temple at Delos, by that noble and absolutely complete gentleman, Sir Kenelm Digby, Knt. In the garden of St. James, there are also half a dozen brass statues, rare ones, cast by Hubert le Sueur, his Majesty's servant, now dwelling in St. Bartholomew's, London; the most industrious and excellent statuary, in all materials, that ever this country enjoyed. The best of them is the Gladiator, moulded from that in Cardinal Borghesi's Villa, by the procurement and industry of ingenious Master Gage. And at this present, the said Master Sueur hath divers other admirable moulds to cast in brass for his Majesty, and among the rest, that famous Diana of Ephesus. But the great Horse with his Majesty upon it, twice as great as the life, and now well nigh finished, will compare with that of the New Bridge at Paris, or those others at Florence and Madrid, though made by Sueur, his master John de Bologna, that rare workman, who not long since lived at Florence."
The bronze statue of the Gladiator originally stood (according to Ned Ward's London Spy) in the Parade facing the Horse Guards. Dodsley (Environs, iii. 741.) says it was removed by Queen Anne to Hampton Court, and from thence, by George the Fourth, to the private grounds of Windsor Castle, where it now is. Query, What has become of the other five "famous statues in brass?"
Edward F. Rimbault.
BISHOP JEWELL'S LIBRARY.
What became of Bishop Jewell's library? Cassan mentions (Lives of Bishops of Salisbury, vol. ii. p. 55.) that
"He had collected an excellent library of books of all sorts, not excepting the most impertinent of the Popish authors, and here it was that he spent the greatest and the best part of his time," &c.