Bock L LIFE OF SIR ROBERT full vigour of life when Corrox had given proof of his worthiness to be a fellow-labourer in the field of English antiquities. In 1599 they went, in company, over the northern counties; explored together many an old abbey and many a famous battle-field. When that tour was made, the evidences of the ruthless barbarism with which the mandates of HENRY THE EIGHTH had been carried out by his agents lay still thick upon the ground, and may well have had their influence in modifying some of the religious views and feelings of such tourists. Not a few chapters of the Britannia embody the researches of Corrox as well as those of CAMDEN; and the elder author was ever ready to acknowledge his deep sense of obligation to his younger colleague. For both of them, at this time, and in subsequent years, the storied past was more full of interest than the politics, howsoever momentous or exciting, of the day. But, occasionally, they corresponded on questions of policy as well as of history. There is evidence that on one stirring subject, about which men's views were much wont to run to extremes, they agreed in advocating moderate courses. In the closing years of the Queen, COTTON, as well as CAMDEN, recognised the necessity that the Government should hold a firm hand over the emissaries of the Church and Court of Rome, whilst refusing to admit that a due repression of hostile intrigues was inconsistent with the honourable treatment of conscientious and peaceful Romanists. It was, in all probability, almost immediately after COTTON's return from the Archæological tour to the North which he had made with his early friend, that he received a message from the Queen. ELIZABETH had been told of his growing fame for possessing an acquaintance with the mustiest of records, and an ability to vouch precedents' had Book I, Chap. II. LIFE OF COTTON. such as few students, even of much riper years, attained to. He was now to be acquainted with a dispute about national precedency which had arisen at Calais SIR ROBERT between Sir Henry NEVILLE and the Ambassador of Spain. It was Her Majesty's wish that he should search THE TRACthe records which bore upon the question, and send her ENGLISH such a report as might strengthen NEVILLE's hands in his contest for the honour of England. TATE ON PRECEDENCY OVER SPAIN. Such a task could not fail to be a welcome one; and COTTON found no lack of pertinent evidence. The bent and habit of his mind were always methodical. He begins his abstract of the records by tabulating his argument. Precedency, he says, must have respect either to the nation or to the ruler of the nation. A kingdom must rank either (1) according to its antiquity, or (2) according to the eminency of the throne royal,' by which phrase he means the complete unity of the dominion under one supreme ruler. On the first title to precedency he observes that it may be based either upon the date of national independence, or upon that of the national recognition of Christianity. He claims for England that it was a monarchy at least four hundred and sixty years before Castile became one; that Christianity had then been established in it, without break or interruption, for a thousand years; whereas in Spain cottoni Christianity was 'defaced with Moorish Mahumetisme,' Posthuma, until the expulsion of the Moors by FERDINAND, little more than a century before the time at which he was writing. His assertion of the greater eminency of the throne royal' in England than in Spain is mainly founded on the union in the English sovereignty alone of supreme ecclesiastical with supreme civil power; and on the lineal descent of the then sovereign from Christian princes for 800 years,' whereas the descent of the Kings of Spain ‘is pp. 76, 77. Воок 1, TION. collectors and collections of Printed Books, of Engravings, INTRODUC of Drawings, and of Manuscripts. Thus, to give but a few examples,-important collections, now forming part of the British Museum, and gathered originally by Thomas Rymer (1713); Thomas Madox (1733); Brownlow Cecil, Earl of Exeter (1739); David Garrick (1779); Peter Lewis Ginguene (1816); the Abate Canonici (circa, 1818); John Fowler Hull (1825); Frederick North, sixth Earl of Guildford (1826); Count Joseph de Puisaye (1827); the Marquess Wellesley (1842); D. E. Davy (circa 1850),—are all noticed in an Appendix headed Historical Notices of Collectors' to the volume entitled 'Free Town Libraries' published in 1869. Of that Appendix the notices above referred to form, respectively, Nos. 848' (Rymer); '570' (Madox); '186' (Cecil); '351' (Garrick); ‘372' (Ginguené); '165' (Canonici); 462' (Hull); '683' (North); 781' (Puisaye); 1049' (Wellesley); and 249' (Davy). ८ The existing constitution of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum has been on many occasions, and by several writers, somewhat freely impugned. More than once it has been the subject of criticism in the House of Commons. With little alteration that Board remains, in 1869, what Parliament made it in 1753. Obviously, it might be quite possible to frame a new governing Corporation, in a fashion more accordant with what are sometimes called the 'progressive tendencies' of the period. But I venture to think that the bare enumeration of the facts which have now been briefly tabulated, in this introductory chapter, gives a proof of faithful and zealous administration of a great trust, such as cannot be gainsaid INTRODUC by any the most ardent lover of innovation. Both the BOOK I, Collections given, and the Collections purchased, afford conclusive and splendid proofs that the Trustees and the TION. Officers have alike won the confidence and merited the gratitude of those whose acquirements and pursuits in life have best qualified them to give a verdict on the implied issue. If, of late years, the public purse has been opened with somewhat more of an approach to harmony with the openhandedness of private Englishmen, that result is wholly due to unremitting effort on the part both of the Trustees who govern, and of the Officers who administer, or have administered, the British Museum. And, to attain their end, both Trustees and Officers have, very often, had to fight hard, as the later chapters of this volume will more than sufficiently show. CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY. • aarde minis Eques, bomo pereradītus rerum mus issue, sive prisce, sive recentis, sa mentis publicis et epistolis sad to Ds Dor London, 5 Kal. Mart., 1611). [ and Public Life of Sir Robert COTTON.-Tis Patton Trilings and Political Persecutions.— Sarees and growth of the Cattonian Library.—The Novaes of Sir Robert Corros-History of the body, unol its union with the Manuscript bondy of Chay, and with the Museum and Miscel @vvax ("evile48 of SLOANE—Review of some recent devrasima sẻ The Character of the Founder. Mine Nominace Corox was the eldest son of Thomas COTTON at Cromgion and of Elizabeth SureLEY, daughter of Francis apook of Maunton Harold in Leicestershire. He was Ava uus the Wond of January, 1370, at Denton, in the Huntingdon Douton was a sort of jointuresono priached to that ancient family seat of Conington, shot comme mso the possession of the Cottons, about the puppeding century, by the marriage of |