A few weeks since some manuscripts were placed in my hands belonging to
the Hon. E. M. L. Mostyn, M. P. (removed from the library at Mostyn
Hall in Flintshire), in order that I might ascertain the contents; and
on looking at them, I discovered a play in the autograph of Anthony
Mundy, with his signature at the end, and the date (supplied by another
hand) of December, 1595. This play, entitled "_A Booke of John a Kent
and John a Cumber_," seems to have been hitherto unknown to all the
writers on the history of the stage; and its plot and dialogue appearing
to me sufficiently curious to deserve publication, I lost no time in
communicating my discovery to Mr. J. Payne Collier, under whose able
editorship I am happy to learn that the work (by permission of Mr.
Mostyn) will shortly be printed by the Shakspeare Club. The object I now
have in view in making these remarks, is to point out an error relative
to MUNDY (as he spells his own name) which, if not corrected, may
acquire greater circulation than it possesses even at present. In
Warton's _History of English Poetry_, 4to. vol. iii. p. 292. _n._
(printed in 1781), at the close of his biographical account of Mundy, he
makes the following statement: "He [Mundy] collected the arms of the
county of Middlesex, _lately_ transferred from Sir Simeon Stuart's
library to the British Museum;" and this paragraph is copied word for
word by Chalmers (writing in 1812), and inserted in his _Biographical
Dictionary_ under the article MUNDAY (ANTONY). As no record exists in my
department of any such transfer, I was desirous to trace the truth of
this assertion, which the date of Chalmers could hardly have enabled me
to do, had I not fortunately consulted Nichols's _Literary Anecdotes_,
vol. viii. p. 645., where I found a letter from the Rev. Michael Tyson
to Gough, dated June 10, 1777, in which he mentions the manuscripts then
recently sold at the seat of Sir Simeon Stuart, in Hampshire, and adds--
"A bookseller opposite the Exchange bought an heraldical lot of
eighteen volumes, big and little, for which he asks twenty
guineas: among them is Hawes's [_read_ Harvey's] original _Suffolk
Church Notes_, and a beautiful _Visitation of Cambridge_."
With this clue I had little difficulty in ascertaining that the eighteen
volumes alluded to were preserved among the _Additional Manuscripts_ in
the British Museum, Nos. 4960-4977., and were probably purchased of the
bookseller named above. I can trace no copy of the sale catalogue of Sir
Simeon Stuart's library; but this library must have belonged to the
third baronet of that name, of Hartley-Maudit, co. Hants, who succeeded
to the title in 1761. The manuscripts in question all belonged in the
reign of Charles II. to Samuel Waker, painter-stainer, in whose
handwriting many of them are, among which is No. 4964, thus entitled:
"_Collections of Descents and Armes of the Gentry of Middlesex, whereof
was noe visitation generall of the same County, before that made by Sir
Henry St. George, Richmond Herald [in 1634], except 7 descents of these
are entered in the old visitation of Hertfordshire made in a'o 1572; all
the rest are the collections of mee_, RICH. MUNDY." It is evident that
this is the volume referred to by Warton and Chalmers; and no less
certain, that, by a careless blunder, the playwright _Anthony Mundy_ has
been confounded with his namesake _Richard Mundy_, the painter-stainer,
whose voluminous heraldic labours are recorded in the _Catalogue of the
Harleian MSS._, Nos. 1529-1534., 1536-1566., 1570. 1571. and 1577. The
Add. MS. 4964. is, in reality, only an incomplete copy by Waker of
Mundy's original manuscript, preserved in MS. Harl. 1551.