Note 102 — The Cabinet.
Reading edition
The first edition of this work, under the title of "Illustrium maioris Britanniæ Scriptorum, hoc est, Anglæ, Cambriæ, ac Scotiæ summarium, in quasnam centurias divisum, &c.," was printed at Ipswich, in 1548, 4to., containing three supposed portraits of Bale, and a spurious one of Wicliffe. Of the half length portrait of Bale, upon a single leaf, as noticed by Herbert, vol. iii. 1457, I have doubts about its appearance in all the copies. The above work was again published at Basil, by Opornius, in 1559, fol., greatly enlarged and corrected, with a magnificent half length portrait of Bale, from which the one in a subsequent part of this work was either copied on a reduced scale, or of which it was the prototype. His majesty has perhaps the finest copy of this last edition of Bale's Scriptores Britanniæ, in existence.