I must not occupy more of your space this week by extending these
extracts. If likely to supply useful "notes" to your readers, they shall
have, in some future number, the remainder of the bridegroom's wardrobe.
In whatever niggardly array the bride came to her lord's arms, he, at
{131} least, was pranked and decked in all the apparel of a young
gallant, an exquisite of the first water, for this was only one of
several rich suits which he provided for his marriage outfit; and then
follows a list of costly gloves and presents, and all the lavish outlay
of this his "desperate quarter."
In some future number, too, if acceptable to your readers, you shall be
furnished with a list of other and better objects of expenditure from
this household book; for Sir Edward, albeit, as Clarendon depicts him,
the victim of his own vanity, was worthy of better fame than is yet been
his lot to acquire.
He was a most accomplished scholar and a learned antiquary. He had his
foibles, it is true, but they were redeemed by qualities of high and
enduring excellence. The eloquence of his parliamentary speeches has
elicited the admiration of Southey; to praise them therefore now were
superfluous. The noble library which he formed at Surrenden, and the
invaluable collection of charters which he amassed there, during his
unhappily brief career, testify to his ardour in literary pursuits. The
library and a large part of the MSS. are unhappily dispersed. Of the
former, all that remains to tell of what it once was, are a few
scattered notices among the family records, and the titles of books,
with their cost, as they are entered in the weekly accounts of our
"household book." Of the latter there yet remain a few thousand charters
and rolls, some of them of great interest, with exquisite seals
attached. I shall be able occasionally to send you a few "notes" on
these heads, from the "household book," and, in contemplating the
remains of this unrivalled collection of its day, I can well bespeak the
sympathy of every true-hearted "Chartist" and Bibliographer, in the
lament which has often been mine--"Quanta fuisti cum tantæ sint
reliquiæ!"