tho' secret history, that the prize is not to be valued[232], and will, I hope, be a standing monument of great events, and preserved in Bodley's repository, with the papers of Bp. Turner and other great men at and since the year 1688[233].'
There are also some papers in this class and in Class C which belonged to Archbp. Wake, about which Rawlinson writes, on June 24, 1741[234]:—
'My agent last week met with some papers of Archbp. Wake at a chandler's shop; this is unpardonable in his executors, as all his MSS. were left to Christ Church. But quære whether these did not fall into some servant's hands who was ordered to burn them, and Mr. Martin Folkes ought to have seen that done. They fell into the curate's hands of St. George, Bloomsbury.'
2. Class B numbers 520 volumes nominally, but really, including double numbers, 534. They comprise heraldry and genealogy (including MSS. of Sir Richard and Sir Thos. St. George, W. Wyrley, Guillim, Ryley, Glover, Le Neve, and other heralds) English and Irish history, and topography, including several monastic chartularies. Among the genealogical MSS. is a remarkable collection of pedigrees, in twelve volumes, which the present writer ascertained to have been compiled by Thomas Wilkinson, Vicar of Laurence Waltham, Berks, between about 1647 and 1681. They are arranged alphabetically, as far as the letter P in tolerable order and regularity, but thenceforward only in a rough and incomplete state. Unfortunately the handwriting is far from clear, and the ink has often made it worse. Among the volumes relating to Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, &c., are twelve or thirteen which belonged to William Holman, a voluminous collector for the first-mentioned county, who incorporated the gatherings of Rev. John Ousley and Thos. Jekyll. Morant, the historian of Essex, obtained the
larger portion of Holman's books; some are in the British Museum; and the remainder ('the refuse,' says Morant) were bought by Rawlinson in 1752 for £10[235]. Besides the above-mentioned volumes, there are a large number of Holman's MSS. which are kept distinct, and which have been recently bound in fourteen folio volumes, eleven quarto, and five octavo. Under London are some nineteen or twenty volumes of Diocesan papers which belonged to Bp. John Robinson. They formed (with one volume in Class A and several in Class C) a mass which are described by Rawlinson, as follows[236]:—
'I lately rescued from the grocers, chandlers, &c. a parcel of papers once the property of Compton and Robinson, successively Bps. of London. Amongst those of the first were original subscription and visitation books, letters and conferences during the apprehensions of Popery amongst the clergy of this diocese, remarkable intelligences relating to Burnet and the Orange Court in Holland in those extraordinary times before 1688[237], minutes of the proceedings of the Commissioners for the Propagation of the Gospel, and a great variety of other papers. Amongst those of Bp. Robinson, numbers of originals relating to the transactions at the treaty of Utrecht, copies of his own letters to Lord Bolingbroke, and originals from Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Oxford, Electress and Elector of Hanover, Ormonde, Strafford, Prior, &c.; letters from the Scots deprived Bishops to Compton, and variety of State papers. They belonged to one Mr. [Anth.] Gibbon, lately dead, who was private secretary to both the afore-mentioned prelates.'
Under Bucks are Rawlinson's own collections for a history of Eton College, and under Middlesex and Oxon. his parochial collections for those counties. The Irish MSS. include many of great antiquity and value which formerly belonged to Sir James Ware, e.g. Tigernach's Annals, Annals of Ulster, Lives of Saints,
Dublin Chartularies, Arms of Irish families, Irish poems, &c. Among them is the often noticed Life of St. Columba by Magnus O'Donnell, written in 1532, which was bought by Rawlinson at the Chandos sale for twenty-three shillings.
Of these two classes a Catalogue, in one volume quarto, was printed in 1862, which was compiled by the writer of this volume[238]. A full index to the contents of all the MSS. has been made, which remains at present unprinted, but may possibly at some time appear in conjunction with a volume describing the contents of the succeeding class.
3. Class C comprehends 989 MSS. of very miscellaneous character, but chiefly consisting of law, history and theology, with a few medical works. Among the theological portion are papers of John Dury, the zealous labourer for union amongst Protestants in the time of Charles I, papers of Bedell and Usher, some volumes of John Lewis of Margate[239], and some interesting Service-books of English use, including a Pontifical given to Salisbury Cathedral by Bp. Roger de Martivale between 1315-1329, and an early Oseney book. Several volumes consist of papers of Dr. Chamberlaine (author of Notitia Angliæ) and Mr. Henry Newman, secretaries of the Societies for the Propagation of the Gospel, and Promoting Christian Knowledge, which, Rawlinson mentions in a letter, dated April 28, 1744, (Ballard MS. ii.) that he had then recently purchased. Some seventeen or eighteen volumes came from the library of Bp. Turner of Ely (together with others in the classes called Miscellaneous and Letters), containing papers of himself and his brother, Dr. Thomas Turner, Dean of Canterbury. These were obtained by Rawlinson in 1742, who in them became master, as he says, of a considerable treasure