Edinburgh.
_Parochial Libraries_ (Vol. vi., p. 432.; Vol. vii., pp. 193. 369. 438.).--
"In the year 1635, upon the request of the Rev. Anthony Tuckney, Vicar
of Boston, it was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Laud), then
on his metropolitical visitation at Boston, 'that the roome over the
porch of the saide churche shall be repaired and decently fitted up to
make a librarye, to the end that, in case any well and charitably
disposed person shall hereafter bestow any books to the use of the
parish, they may be there safely preserved and kept.'"
This library at present contains several hundred volumes of ancient
(patristic, scholastic, and post-Reformation) divinity.
I hope to be able ere long to make a correct catalogue of the books at
present remaining, and at the same time make an attempt to restore them to
that decent "keeping" in which the great and good archbishop desired they
might remain.
Query: In making preparations for the catalogue, I have been informed by a
gentleman that he remembers two or more _cart loads_ of books from this
library being sold by the churchwardens, and, as he believes, by the then
archdeacon's orders, at waste paper price; that the bulk of them was
purchased by a bookseller then resident in Boston, and re-sold by him to a
clergyman in the neighbourhood of Silsby.