t be preserved elsewhere? Peter Young, and his brother
Alexander, were pupils of Theodore Beza, having been educated chiefly at
the expense of their maternal uncle Henry Scrymgeour, to whose valuable
library Peter succeeded. It was brought to Scotland by Alexander about the
year 1573 or 1574, and was landed at Dundee. It was especially rich in
Greek MSS.; and Dr. Irvine, in his "Dissertation on the Literary History of
Scotland," prefixed to his _Lives of the Scottish Poets_, says of these
MSS. and library, "and the man who is so fortunate as to redeem them from
obscurity, shall assuredly be thought to have merited well from the
republic of letters." It is much to be feared, however, that as to the MSS.
this good fortune awaits no man; for Sir Peter Young seems to have given
them to his fifth son, Patrick Young, the eminent Greek scholar, who was
librarian to Prince Henry, and, after his death, to the king, and to
Charles I. Patrick Young's house was unfortunately burned, and in it
perished many MSS. belonging to himself and to others. If Scrymgeour's MSS.
escaped the fire, they are to be sought for in the remnant of Patrick
Young's collection, wherever that went, or in the King's Library, of which
a considerable part was preserved. Young's house was burned in 1636, and he
is supposed to have carried off a large number of MSS. from the royal
library, after the king's death in 1649. If therefore Scrymgeour's MSS.
were among these, it is possible that they may yet be traced, for they
would be sold with Young's own, after his death in 1652. This occurred on
the 7th of September, rather suddenly, and he left no will, and probably
gave no directions about his MSS. and library, which were sold _sub hasta_,
probably within a few months after his death, and with them any of the MSS.
which he may have taken from the King's Library, or may have had in his
possession belonging to others. Smith says that he had seen a large
catalogue of MSS. written in Young's own hand. Is this catalogue extant?
Patrick Young left two daughters, co-heiresses: the elder married to John
Atwood, Esq.; the younger, to Sir Samuel Bowes, Kt. A daughter of the
former gave to a church in Essex a Bible which had belonged to Charles I.;
but she knew so little of her grandfather's history that she described him
as Patrick Young, Esq., library keeper to the king, quite unconscious that
he had been rector of two livings, and a canon and treasurer of St. Paul's.
Per