en' to whom the first folio of
Shakespeare is dedicated. There had been for several generations a
library at Wilton House, Salisbury, which Dibdin considered to be one of
the oldest of private collections existing; but Thomas, the eighth Earl,
added to it so large a number of rare books that it 'entitled him to
dispute the palm even with the Lords Sunderland and Oxford.' Maittaire,
in his _Annales Typographici_, calls the library a 'Bibliotheca
exquisitissima,' and styles its owner 'Humanitatis politioris cultor et
patronus.' Dibdin also states that Lord Pembroke spared no expense for
books, and that he was 'a collector of everything the most precious and
rare in the book-way.' The library was still further augmented by his
successor Henry.

Dr. Dampier, Bishop of Ely, compiled a list in 1776 of the earlier
printed works in the library, which Dibdin has reproduced in his
_Decameron_. The books are one hundred and ninety-nine in number, of
which one hundred and eighty-eight are of the fifteenth century. The
list contains eight Caxtons, eighteen volumes printed by Jenson, and
ten by the Spiras. Among the most notable of the incunabula are the
_Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus, on vellum, printed by Fust
and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; the _Catholicon_ of Balbus, printed at
Mentz in 1460; _Cicero de Oratore_, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at
the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465; Cicero's _Epistolae ad Familiares_,
printed by Joannes de Spira at Venice in 1469; and the _Bokys of Hawkyng
and Huntyng_, printed at St. Albans in 1486. The Caxtons are _The
Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_; the first and second editions of
_The Game of the Chesse_; the first edition of _The Dictes or Sayings of
the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, _Chronicles of England_, the
_Polychronicon_, and the _Liber Festivalis_.

NARCISSUS LUTTRELL, 1657-1732

Narcissus Luttrell, who was born in 1657, was the son of Francis
Luttrell of London, a descendant of the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, in
the county of Somerset. He received his early education under Mr.
Aldrich at Sheen in Surrey, and in 1674 was admitted a fellow-commoner
of St. John's College, Cambridge. In the succeeding year he was created
M.A. by royal mandate.[54] While at the University he presented a
silver tankard to his college, which was lost, together with a quantity
of other plate, on the 9th of October 1693, for the recovery of which a
reward of ten pounds was