Thomas Smith, in his _Vitae Illustrium_, gives extracts from a so-called
Ephemeris of Sir Peter Young, but which Sir Peter compiled during the
latter years of his life. Thomas Hearne says, in a note to the Appendix to
Leland's _Collectanea_, that he had had the use of some of Smith's MSS.
This Ephemeris of Sir Peter Young may be worth the publishing if it can be
found: can any of your readers say whether it is among Smith's or Hearne's
MSS., or if it be preserved elsewhere? Peter Young, and his brother
Alexander, were pupils of Theodore Beza, having been educated chiefly at
the expense of their maternal uncle Henry Scrymgeour, to whose valuable
library Peter succeeded. It was brought to Scotland by Alexander about the
year 1573 or 1574, and was landed at Dundee. It was especially rich in
Greek MSS.; and Dr. Irvine, in his "Dissertation on the Literary History of
Scotland," prefixed to his _Lives of the Scottish Poets_, says of these
MSS. and library, "and the man who is so fortunate as to redeem them from
obscurity, shall assuredly be thought to have merited well from the
republic of letters." It is much to be feared, however, that as to the MSS.
this good fortune awaits no man; for Sir Peter Young seems to have given
them to his fifth son, Patrick Young, the eminent Greek scholar, who was
librarian to Prince Henry, and, after his death, to the king, and to
Charles I. Patrick Young's house was unfortunately burned, and in it
perished many MSS. belonging to himself and to others. If Scrymgeour's MSS.
escaped the fire, they are to be sought for in the remnant of Patrick
Young's collection, wherever that went, or in the King's Library, of which
a considerable part was preserved. Young's house was burned in 1636, and he
is supposed to have carried off a large number of MSS. from the royal
library, after the king's death in 1649. If therefore Scrymgeour's MSS.
were among these, it is possible that they may yet be traced, for they
would be sold with Young's own, after his death in 1652. This occurred on
the 7th of September, rather suddenly, and he left no will, and probably
gave no directions about his MSS. and library, which were sold _sub hasta_,
probably within a few months after his death, and with them any of the MSS.
which he may have taken from the King's Library, or may have had in his
possession belonging to others. Smith says that he had seen a large
catalogue of MSS. written in Young's own hand. Is this catalogue extant?
Patrick Young left two daughters, co-heiresses: the elder married to John
Atwood, Esq.; the younger, to Sir Samuel Bowes, Kt. A daughter of the
former gave to a church in Essex a Bible which had belonged to Charles I.;
but she knew so little of her grandfather's history that she described him
as Patrick Young, Esq., library keeper to the king, quite unconscious that
he had been rector of two livings, and a canon and treasurer of St. Paul's.
Perhaps, after all, the designation was not so incorrect, for though he
held so many preferments, he never was in priest's orders, and sometimes
was not altogether free from suspicion of not being a member of the Church
of England at all, except as a recipient of its dues, and of course, a
deacon in its orders.
But it may be worthy of note, as affording another clue by which,
perchance, to trace some of Scrymgeour's MSS., that Sir Thomas Bowes, Kt.,
who was Sir Symonds D'Ewes's literary executor, employed Patrick Young to
value a collection of coins, &c., among which he recognised a number that
had belonged to the king's cabinet, and which Sir Symonds had purchased
from Hugh Peters, by whom they had been purloined. Young taxed Peters with
having taken books, and MSS. also, which the other denied, with the
exception of two or three, but was not believed. I do not know what
relation Sir Thomas Bowes was to Sir Samuel, who married Young's second
daughter, nor to Paul Bowes, who edited D'Ewes's _Journals_ in 1682. It is
quite possible that some of Scrymgeour's MSS. may have fallen into D'Ewes's
hands, may have come down, and be recognisable by some mark.
As to Scrymgeour's books, it is probable that they were deposited in Peter
Young's house of Easter Seatoun, near to Arbroath, of which he obtained
possession about 1580, and which remained with his descendants for about
ninety years, when his great-grandson sold it, and purchased the castle and
part of the lands of Aldbar. That any very fine library was removed thither
is not probable, especially any bearing Henry {548} Scrymgeour's name; and
for this reason, that Thomas Ruddiman was tutor to David Young, and was
resident at Aldbar, and would hardly have failed to notice, or to record,
the existence of any so remarkable a library as Scrymgeour's, or even of
Sir Peter Young's, who was himself an ardent collector of books, as appears
from some of his letters to Sir Patrick Vans (_recte_ Vaux) which I have
seen, and as might be inferred from his literary tastes and pursuits. There
is perhaps reason to believe that Sir Peter's library did not descend in
his family beyond his eldest son, Sir James Young, who made an attempt to
deprive the sons of his first marriage (the elder of whom died in infancy)
of their right of succession to their grandfather's estates, secured to
them under their father's marriage contract, and which attempt was defeated
by their uncle, Dr. John Young, Dean of Winchester (sixth son of Sir
Peter), who acquired from Lord Ramsay, eldest son of the Earl of Dalhousie,
part of the barony of Baledmouth in Fife. Dean Young founded a school at
St. Andrew's, on the site of which is now built Dr. Bell's Madras College.
Sir Peter Young the elder, knighted in 1605, has been sometimes confounded
with his third son, Peter, who received his knighthood at the hands of
Gustavus Adolphus, on the occasion of that king being invested with the
Order of the Garter.
Another fine library (Andrew Melville's) was brought into Scotland about
the same time as Scrymgeour's; and it is creditable to the statesmen of
James's reign that there was an order in the Scotch exchequer, that books
imported into Scotland should be free from custom. A note of this order is
preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum; but my reference
to the number is not at hand.