Would all the great such patterns buy,
How swiftly would the shuttles fly,
Cambray should cease, and Hamburgh too,
To boast their art! since Lurgan! you
May, like Arachne, dare to vie,
With any spinning deity;
Nay, tho’ Asbestos she should weave,
Thou, Lurgan, should’st the prize receive.
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 38·20.
December 15.
A Literary Disaster.
On a certain day, the date of which is uncertain, in the month of December, 1730, the books and MSS. of Dr. Tanner, bishop of St. Asaph, being on their removal from Norwich to Christchurch college in Oxford, fell into and lay under water twenty hours, and received great damage. Among them were near 300 volumes of MSS. purchased of Mr. Bateman, a bookseller, who bought them of archbishop Sancroft’s nephew. There were in all seven cart loads.[534]
It may be recollected that bishop Tanner was the friend of Mr. Browne Willis, respecting whom an [account] has been inserted, with an original letter from that distinguished antiquary to the prelate when chancellor of Norwich.