roper sequence of our
story. 'The Bishop of Ely has a very well-stored library, but the very
best is what Dr. Stillingfleet has at Twickenham, ten miles out of
town. . . . Our famous lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, purchased a very choice
library of Greek and other MSS., which were sold him by Dr. Meric
Casaubon, son of the learned Isaac; and these, together with his
delicious villa, Durdens, came into the possession of the present Earl
of Berkeley from his uncle, Sir Robert Cook. . . . I have heard that Sir
Henry Savill was master of many precious MSS., and he is frequently
celebrated for it by the learned Valesius, almost in every page of that
learned man's Annotations on Eusebius, and the Ecclesiastical
Historians published by him. The late Mr. Hales, of Eton, had likewise a
very good library; and so had Dr. Cosin, late Bishop of Duresme [and
afterwards of Durham], a considerable part of which I had agreed with
him for myself during his exile abroad, as I can show under his own
hand; but his late daughter, since my Lady Garret, thought I had not
offered enough, and made difficulty in delivering them to me till near
the time of his Majesty's restoration, and after that the Dean, her
father, becoming Bishop of that opulent See, bestowed them on the
library there. But the Lord Primate Usher was inferior to none I have
named among the clergy for rare MSS., a great part of which, being
brought out of Ireland, and left his son-in-law, Sir Timothy Tyrill, was
disposed of to give bread to that incomparable Prelate during the late
fanatic war. Such as remained yet at Dublin were preserved, and by a
public purse restored and placed in the college library of that
city. . . . I forbear to name the late Earl of Bristol's and his
kinsman's, Sir Kenelm Digby's, libraries, of more pompe than intrinsic
value, as chiefly consisting of modern poets, romances, chymical, and
astrological books. . . . As for those of Sir Kenelm, the catalogue was
printed and most of them sold in Paris, as many better have lately been
in London. The Duke of Lauderdale's[27:A] is yet entire, choicely
bound, and to be sold by a friend of mine, to whom they are pawned; but
it comes far short of his relation's, the Lord Maitland's, which was
certainly the noblest, most substantial and accomplished library that
ever passed under the speare, and heartily it grieved me to behold its
limbs, like those of the chaste Hippolytus, separated and torn from that
so well chosen a