Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/31

 adopted for the library of the Sorbonne, which he saw on his visit to Paris.

Bale, following Leland, speaks of a collection of Richard de Bury's ‘Epistolæ Familiares.’ This, however, seems to be a mistake. A manuscript ‘Liber Epistolaris quondam Ricardi de Bury,’ is in the possession of Mr. Ormsby-Gore, but it is a formal ‘letter writer,’ made for one engaged in business of various kinds: to this are appended a number of official letters, some of Ricard's own and many royal letters of importance (Historical MSS. Commission, 4th Rep. 85, 5th Rep. 379, &c.) Richard's great work is the ‘Philobiblion,’ which was written as a sort of hand-book to his library at Durham College. It is an admirable treatise in praise of learning, at times rhetorical, but full of genuine fervour. ‘No one can serve books and Mammon,’ he exclaims, and he urges the refining influence of study. He gives an interesting description of the means by which he collected his library; he examines the state of learning in England and France. He speaks of books as one who loved them, and gives directions for their careful use. Finally, he explains his rules for the management of the library which he founded. The work is an admirable exhibition of the temper of a book-lover and librarian. The ‘Philobiblion’ was first printed at Cologne (1473); then by Hust, at Spires (1483); at Paris by Badius, Ascensius, and also by Jean Petit (1500); at Oxford, edited by Thomas James (1599); at Leipzig (1574), at the end of ‘Philologicarum Epistolarum Centuria una;’ and, edited by Cocheris, again at Paris (Aubry), 1856. It was translated by J. Bellingham Inglis, London, 1832, and there is also an American edition of this translation (Albany, 1861). Professor Henry Morley gives an epitome of the book in his 'English Writers,' ii. 43,&c. It was edited and translated again by Mr. E. C. Thomas in 1885.

Richard de Bury's library at Oxford was dispersed at the dissolution of the monasteries, when Durham College shared the fate of the monastic foundation to which it was annexed. Some of the books went to the Bodleian, some to Balliol College, and some to Dr. George Owen of Godstow, who purchased Durham College from Edward VI ( Brit. 1772, p. 310).

 BURY, SAMUEL (1663–1730), presbyterian minister, son of Edward Bury (1616–1700) [q. v.], was born at Great Bolas, Shropshire, where he was baptised on 21 April 1663. He was educated at Thomas Doolittle's academy, then at Islington. Here he was contemporary with Matthew Henry, who entered in 1680, and remained long enough to contract a strong friendship with Bury. Edmund Calamy (1671–1732) [q. v.], who entered in 1682, speaks of Bury as a student of philosophy, not divinity. Bury's first settlement was at Bury St. Edmunds, prior to the date of the Toleration Act, 1689. In 1690 a house in Churchgate Street was bought, and converted into a place of worship. The congregation was considerable, and Bury became a recognised leader of Suffolk dissent. In Tymms's ‘Handbook of Bury St. Edmunds’ it is stated that Daniel Defoe was an attendant on his ministry.

In 1696 we find Bury engaged in collecting a list of the nonconforming ministers; Oliver Heywood supplied him (14 Aug.) with the names in Yorkshire and Lancashire, through Samuel Angier. On 11 Aug. 1700, John Fairfax, ejected from Barking-cum-Needham, Suffolk, died (aged seventy-six) at his house in that parish; Bury preached two funeral sermons for him, and Palmer rightly infers, from expressions in the one at the actual funeral at Barking, that, by an unusual concession, it was delivered in the parish church.

The still existing chapel in Churchgate Street was built in 1711, and opened 30 Dec. Bury preached the opening sermon. Bury, who was tortured with stone, went with his wife to Bath in the autumn of 1719, on a journey of health. Just before he set out on his return home, he received overtures from Lewin's Mead, Bristol. This was the larger of the two presbyterian congregations in Bristol, and it had been vacant since the death of Michael Pope in 1718. It counted 1,600 adherents. Some of its members had been sheriffs of the city; others were ‘persons of condition; divers very rich, many more very substantial, few poor. The whole congregation computed worth near 400,000l.’ Bury agreed to go to Bristol for six months ‘to make a tryal of the waters there.’ He arrived there on 8 April 1720. In little more than a month he lost his wife. His stay at Bristol was permanent; he got as assistant (probably in 1721) John Diaper, who succeeded him as pastor, and resigned in 1751. Under Bury's ministry the congregation