1. Whether any copies of Prynne's Breviate are extant, having, in the last line of the ninth page cited above, the misprint city for cup?[1]
2. Whether any information can be given which may lead to the discovery of the copy containing the original notes of the Archbishop, of which the Warrington copy is a transcript?
3. Whether any allusion to the fact of the Archbishop having made such notes is made by any cotemporary writer? Antony Wood, Wharton, and Heylin do not mention it.
In respect to the second Query, I presume to ask every one who has access to a copy of Prynne's Breviate to look into it, and see whether it contains MS. marginal notes. I do so, because in so many cases copies of works stand in their places in libraries unopened, and with contents unknown; the knowledge of their special value having perhaps been possessed by some curious collector or librarian, but not being noted down, having died with him: and the owner of the volume, should it be found, will receive his reward in the consciousness of possessing a treasure, such as it is, which before he knew not of—some of the last writing of a great man, imprisoned and anticipating death, who was engaged in vindicating himself from misrepresentation and calumnies, part of which had adhered to his memory till these notes came to light.
For the identification of that volume, should it be found, and for the information of your readers, I will transcribe the first paragraph of the Breviate, with the Archbishop's marginalia:
"Hee was borne at Redding in Barkshire, October 7, 1573, of poore (a) and obscure (b) parents, in a cottage (c), just over against the (d) Cage: which Cage since his comming to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, upon complaint of Master Elveston (that it was a dishonour the Cage should be suffered to stand so neare the house, where so great a royall Favourite and Prelate had his birth) was removed to some other place; and the cottage (e) pulled downe, and new-built by the Bishop."
(a) "All this, if true, is no fault of mine."
(b) "My father had born all offices in ye town save ye mayoralty."
(c) "The howsing whch my father dwelt in is rented at this day at thirty-three pounds a year."
(d) "The Cage stood two streets off from my father's house all his life time, and divers years after, as many yet living know. By whom it was remov'd into yt street, and why out again, I know not."