Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/297

 12 S. III. MAY, 1917.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

291

GRAY'S BOOKS AND MSS.

WHAT books did Thomas Gray possess and where are they now ? For several reasons the inquiry is worth answering. First, Gray was a careful reader, and constantly re- flected his reading in his works. Secondly, he was accustomed to annotate his books, sometimes rather fully. It will be worth while to ascertain the whereabouts of these marginalia ; some of them may be worth printing. Thirdly, a survey of the titles in Gray's library, a typical library of an eighteenth-century scholar, will bring home to us the distance between his time and ours. Only a few of the books owned and used by Gray are regarded as essential to a good library of to-day.

Gray's books and MSS. were all left to his executor Mason, who in turn bequeathed them to Gray's friend Stonhewer. From him they passed to his kinsman Mr. Bright, of Skeffington Hall, Leicestershire. After Mr. Bright's death they came into the market. There were sales in 1845 (Nov. 29, Dec. 1), 1847, 1851 (Aug. 28), and 1854. It is a pity that space does not permit the reproduction here, even in abbreviated form, of all the titles found in the catalogues prepared in connexion with these sales ; the catalogues themselves have now become very rare. We can mention here only a few volumes, which will suggest the range of their owner's interests. The classics are, of course, well represented. There are Butler's ' Thucydides ' ; Barnes's ' Euripi- des,' Cambridge, 1694, marked throughout ; Sylburgh's ' Aristotle,' elaborately anno- tated ; Quintilian, 4to, Paris,. 1541-2 ; Sue- tonius, Lugd. Batav., 1662 ; Virgil, Col. Allob., 1620 ; Horace, Paris, 1691 ; Xeno- phon, London, 1720, with notes ; Cicero, Amsterdam, 1691. Among the historical works are Clarendon's ' Rebellion ' and ' Life,' London, 1707-59, annotated ; Matthew of Paris ; Dudgale's ' Baronage,' 1675 ; Burnett's ' History of his Own Time,' Dublin, 1724 ; Fabretti's ' De Aquis et Aquaeductibus Romje,' Rome, 1680 ; Gualdo's ' Historia del Ministerio del Cardinale Ma- zarino,' 4to, Bologna, 1677 ; Orrery's ' State Papers,' London, 1742, with many notes ; ' Secret History of Persia,' London, 1745 ; Wheare's ' Method and Order of reading Civil and Ecclesiastical Histories,' London, 1694 ; Digges's ' Complete Ambassador,' 1665. In antiquarian literature there are Stowe's ' London,' 1720 ; Entick's ' London,' 1761 ; Broverius's ' Antiquitates et Annales Trevirenses,' fol., Leodii, 1670 ; ' Catalogue

of Karl. MSS.,' 1759 ; ' Reliquiae Wot- tonianae,' London, 1685 ; Perrier's ' Icones et Segmenta Xobilium Signorum et Sta- tuamm,' Rome, 1638, much annotated. Among travels, of which Gray was fond, we find Hegeniti ' Itinerarium Frisio- Hollandicum ' and Ortelii ' It in. Gallo- Brabanticum,' Elzevir, 1630 ; Alex, de Rhodes' s ' Divers Voiages en la Chine,' Paris, 1666 ; Beeckman's ' Voyage to and from Borneo,' 1718 ; John Bell's ' Travels to Asia,' Glasgow, 1763 ; Bergeron's ' Voy- ages ' ; Middleton's ' Letters from Rome,' 1741 ; Scheuchzeri ' Itinera Alpina,' Lugd. Bat., 1711; Grynsei ' Xovus Orb is Re- gionum et Insularum Veteribus Incogni- tarum a Variis Descriptus,' Basel, 1587. In modern literature we find Dante, fol., Venice, 1578; Theobald's 'Shakespeare'; Tonson's ' Milton,' interleaved and much annotated ; Boccaccio, London, 1725 ; Speght's ' Chaucer,' London, 1602 ; Mon- taigne, Paris, 1657 ; Petrarch, Modena, 1711 ; Locke's ' Human Understanding ' ; Ossian ; Waller ; Churchill ; and The Spectator.

In natural history there are, besides the famous interleaved Linnaeus, Albin's ' Xatural History' of English Insects,' Lon- don, 1720 ; Bancroft's ' Xatural History of Guiana,' London, 1769 ; Caius's ' De Canibus Britan.,' London, 1729 ; Gruner's ' Histoire Nat. des Glaciers de la Suisse,' Paris, 1770 ; Jovius's ' De Piscibus Romanis ' ; John Ray's ' Select Remains,' London, 1740, many notes ; Lister, ' Historiae Animalium Anglise Tres Tractatus,' London, 1678 ; The Naturalists' Journal, 1767-71 ; Pallas's ' Miscellanea Zoologica,' Hagae Com., 1766 ; Rochefort's ' Histoire Xaturelle et Morale des lies Antilles de 1'Amerique,' Rotterdam, 1681 ; Wepferus's ' Historiae Apoplecticorum Observationibus et Scholiis Anatom. et Med. Elaboratae,' Amsterdam, 1724. Finally we may mention Coke on Littleton, 1657 ; Grotius ' De Mari Libero,' Elzevir, 1633 ; Hickes's ' Thesaurus,' 1708 ; Verral's ' Sys- tem of Cookery,' London, 1759, annotated ; Kennedy's ' Account of the Pictures and Marbles at Wilton House ' ; and Vertue's ' Catalogue of Charles I.'s Pictures,' London, 1757-81, annotated.

At present Gray's Linnaeus is in the

Harvard Library ; his Plutarch is in the

i Cornell University Library ; his Algarotti's

i ' Vita di Orazio ' is in the Princeton Uni-

I versity Library (see The Nation, Xew York,

Aug. 22, 1912, xcv. 167-8) ; his Dugdale and

Verral are in the British Museum ; his

Locke is in the South Kensington Mueum ;

hi 5 Ossian and, I believe, some o her books