The old king, we observe, grew rather nervous about the future just at the last, and he at all events admitted that there was room for contrition.
A companion volume and monument was the copy of the Sarum Horæ of 1520, printed on vellum, in the second portion of the Ashburnham sale. This precious book belonged to the Parr family, including the mother of Queen Katherine Parr, and at any rate contained an inscription in the hand of the Queen's brother, and of those of members of the Carew, Vaux, Tailboys, Nevill, and other families, besides being in beautiful condition; and the same library yielded a second copy of Hours, 1512, which had passed through the hands of Henry VIII. himself, as attested in one place by his autograph memorandum: "Pray yow pray for me your loving cousin Henry Rex." Such relics appear to bring back before us the dead players on the human stage, divested of all but their more redeeming characteristics.
In the British Museum we have the Great Bible of 1540 on vellum, which enters into the present category by reason of its association with the same prince, though in a different way. On the reverse of the fly-leaf occurs: "This Booke is presented vnto your most excellent highnesse by youre loving, faithfull, and obedient subiect and daylye Oratour, Anthonye Marler, of London, Haberdassher." Truly a gift worthy of a king; and there it remains, a precious link with the past and a splendid memorial of the citizen of London who laid it at his sovereign's feet.
Propriety and sympathy of costume go very far indeed to establish and augment the estimation of printed volumes with manuscript tokens of former proprietorship. The collector who chooses this field of activity has to weigh the correlation and harmony between the volume itself and the individual or individuals to whom it once appertained. We have usually to content ourselves with the interest resident in an autograph, with or without further particulars; it is a book, perhaps, which formed part of the library of a distinguished Elizabethan or Jacobean writer or public character; but, if it were not, its worth might be nominal. Again, the book is possibly one of great value, and exhibits an early autograph and MSS. notes; it would be better without them. Find the copy of Venus and Adonis, 1593, given by Shakespeare to Lord Southampton, the poet's copy of the Faëry Queen, 1590-96, Sir Fulke Greville's copy of Sydney's Arcadia, 1590, or a book of Voyages belonging to Drake or Raleigh, and it is worth a library, and a good one too. The nearest approach we have yet made to this kind of combination is the first folio Montaigne and the original edition of Lord Brooke's works, 1633, with the signature of Jonson, and the Spenser of 1679 with the notes of Dryden, unless the Paradise Lost, 1667, with Milton's presentation to a bookbinder at Worcester be authentic.
We must not omit in the present connection the copy of the prose story-book of Howleglas, given in 1578 with others by Edmund Spenser to Gabriel Harvey. But an almost equally covetable possession was the copy just referred to of Milton's Paradise Lost, 1667, which occurred only the other day at a sale, where it was, as too often happens, mis-described, and brought £70. It bore on a small slip inlaid in a fly-leaf: "For my loving ffreind, Mr. Francis Rea, Booke binder in Worcester these," and on another piece of paper: "Presented me by the Author to whom I gave two doubl sovereigns" = £4, nearly as much as the poet had for the copyright. The story of the book is unknown to us; it seems eminently likely that the first memorandum was written by Milton; but whether it belonged to a wrapper forwarding the gift, or to a letter accompanying it, is problematical.
Rea of Worcester must be the same individual who is described as having re-bound in June 1660 the Jolley and Ashburnham copy of Higden's Polychronicon, printed by Caxton, 1482; but there an earlier owner, Richard Furney, calls him "one Rede of Worcester."
At Trinity, Cambridge, there is the edition of Spenser, 1679, with a memorandum on the fly-leaf by Jacob Tonson, testifying to the MSS. notes in the book being by Dryden, and at Wootton formerly was the Faëry Queen, 1596, John Evelyn's cypher in gold down the back of the cover and seventeen lines in his autograph on the fly-leaf.
Among our dramatists, Ben Jonson is conspicuous by the number of copies of his own performances which he presented to royal and noble personages or to private friends. Of three gift-copies of his Volpone, 1607, one has an inscription to John Florio, the other to Henry Lambton of Lambton. The almost unique large-paper one of Sejanus, 1605, in the Huth Collection, was given to the poet's "perfect friend," Francis Crane. In the Museum are the Masque of Queens and the Masque of Blackness and Beauty offered to the queen of James I. But of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and many others, we have not a single memorial of this kind. Of Massinger there is one: the copy of his Duke of Milan, 1623, received from him by Sir F. Foljambe. In the case of Taylor the water-poet, the nearest approach to anything of the sort is the MS. note of the recipient of a copy of his Works, 1630.
Of two equally prominent poets of the same epoch, Daniel and Drayton, the latter seems to have had a partiality for inscribing his autograph in presentation copies of his books, while of Daniel in this way we do not recollect to have met with a single example.
Very engaging, on account of its manly and cordial tone, is the autograph epistle by Sir Richard Fanshawe accompanying an extant copy of his translation of Guarini's Faithful Shepherd, 1648. The whole production may be seen in the Huth Catalogue (p. 633), where we inserted it as a favourable sample of this kind of poetry or verse. The lines are headed: "To my deare friend Mr. Tho. Brooke with Pastor Fido before an entended voyage," and commence:—
