Richard Connock, auditor and solicitor to Prince Henry of Wales, gave a
MS. book of _Horæ_[67], which had formerly belonged to Mary I, and
afterwards to Prince Henry. The donor, in a note prefixed, records that
he gives the volume, 'not for the religion it contains, but for the
pictures and former royall owners' sake.' It is a volume of the early
part of the fifteenth century, in small quarto, containing 224 leaves,
and ornamented with very beautiful illuminated borders and exquisite
drawings in _camaieu gris_. Among these is one of the martyrdom of
Becket, which, doubtless in consequence of the book being in the
possession of the Princess Mary, has entirely escaped the defacement and
obliteration ordered by her father to be made in all Service-books where
the office for S. Thomas of Canterbury occurred. The following
inscription (nearly effaced at its close by over-much handling in former
years), addressed by Mary to one of her ladies, whose name does not
appear, to whom probably she presented the book, occurs in the blank
portion of one of the leaves:--
'Geate you such riches as when the shype is broken, may swyme away
wythe the Master. For dyverse chances take away the goods of
fortune; but the goods of the soule whyche bee only the trewe goods,
nother fyer nor water can take away. Yf you take labour and payne to
doo a vertuous thyng, the labour goeth away, and the vertue
remaynethe. Yf through pleasure you do any vicious thyng, the
pleasure goeth away and the vice remaynethe. Good Madame, for my
sake remembre thys.
'Your lovyng mystres,
'Marye Princesse.'
This inscription (which does so much credit to its writer) was first
printed by Hearne at the end of _Titi Livii Forojulien. Vita Hen. V._
(p. 228) and last, in Bliss' _Reliquiæ Hearn._ i. 105. Mr. Coxe has
noted (from _Alstedii Systema Mnemonicum_, 1610, i. 705) that the latter
part is taken directly and literally from Musonius, while indirectly it
comes from an oration by Cato[68]. Probably the first part may be traced
to some similar source.
Another autograph inscription by Mary while Princess is found in a small
book (Laud MS. Miscell. i.) of private prayers in Latin and English,
which belonged to Jane Wriothesley, wife of Thomas Earl of Southampton,
and which she seems to have employed as a kind of album. At f. 45^a are
these lines, which appear to form a triplet, although not written in
metrical form by the Princess:--
'Good Madame, I do desyer you most hartly to pray,
That in prosperyte and adversyte I may
Have grace to keep the trewe way.
'Your lovyng frend,
to my ... [power?]'
Unfortunately the conclusion, with the signature, has been cut off. A
couplet, signed by Queen Katherine Parr, has an equal, and most regal,
disregard of the restraints of metrical rhythm (f. 8^b.):--
'Madam, althowe I have differred writtyng in your booke,
I am no lesse your frend than you do looke.
'Kateryn the Quene KP.'
Other inscriptions are inserted by Margaret Queen of Scotland, Mary
Countess of Lennox and mother of Lord Darnley, and by the Countess of
Southampton's daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, and Anne.
James Button, Esq., of the county of Worcester, gave, on March 28, a
curious relic of the ancient language of Cornwall, being three
Miracle-Plays of the Creation, the Passion, and the Resurrection, in
Cornish, contained in a MS. on vellum, small folio, eighty-three leaves,
written in the fifteenth century; now numbered Bodl. 791. A copy on
paper of the Play of the Creation, written by John Jordan in 1611, is
also in the Library, numbered Bodl. 219, which appears to have come from
the library of King James I, having the royal crown stamped on the
parchment cover, with the initials I.K. A second modern copy has also
been recently presented (in 1849) by Edwin Ley, Esq., of Bosahan,
Cornwall, which is accompanied by a translation by John Keigwyn, made in
1695. The dramas were printed in two volumes at the University Press,
with a translation, notes, and glossary, by Mr. Edwin Norris, in 1859.
Some MSS. were given about this time by the three sons of Rich. Colf,
D.D., and in 1618 twenty Greek volumes by Cecil, Earl of Exeter.
[67] The gift is omitted in the Benefaction-Register, apparently because
it was a rule not to record donations of single volumes [_Reliquiæ
Bodl._ pp. 91, 283]; consequently several books of the greatest value
are omitted.
[68] George Herbert expresses the same idea at the end of his _Church
Porch_:--
'If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains;
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.'