Anno primo proximat vite sue fini,
De carnis ergastulo presul evocatur
Gleba sui corporis Westminstre humatur.">[
Verstegan.—Will any of the contributors to your valuable miscellany be kind enough to inform me if there are any engraved portraits of the quaint old antiquary Richard Verstegan, the author of a curious work, entitled A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence? The portraits may be common, but living in the country, and at distance from town, I have no friend from whom I can glean the required information. Can my informant at the same time acquaint me with the best edition of his work? There was one printed at Antwerp in 1605.
J. S. P. (a Subscriber.)
[Our correspondent will find a notice of Verstegan's work in page 85. of this volume. The first edition was printed at Antwerp in 1605, and was reprinted at London in 4to. in 1634, and in 8vo. in 1655 and 1673. The first edition is deservedly reckoned the best, as well on account of containing one or more engravings, afterwards omitted, as also for the superiority of the plates, those in the subsequent editions being very indifferent copies. No portrait of the author is noticed either by Granger or Bromley.]
Royal Library.—In the new edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson (published by the proprietors of the Illustrated London News), in the National Illustrated Library, the editor, in reference to the library of King George III. (which is generally understood to have been presented to the nation by George IV., and which is recorded to have been given, in an inscription placed in that magnificent hall), has appended the following note:—
"It has recently transpired that the government of the day bought the library of George IV., just as he was on the eve of concluding a sale of it to the Emperor of Russia."
Can any of your readers inform me if this is correct, and whether the nation have really paid for what has always been considered a most worthy and munificent present from a monarch to his subjects? I trust to hear that the editor has been misinformed.
J. S. L.