Note 331 — The Drawing Room.

This is not the place to enter minutely into a bibliographical account of the above celebrated work; such account being with more propriety reserved for the history of our Typographical Antiquities. Yet a word or two may be here said upon it, in order that the bibliomaniac may not be wholly disappointed; and especially as Ames and Herbert have been squeamishly reserved in their comunications respecting the same. The above volume is, without doubt, one of the scarcest books in existence. It has been intimated by Dr. Drake, in the preface of his magnificent reprint of it, 1729, fol., that only 20 copies were struck off: but, according to Stype, Parker tells Cecil, in an emblazoned copy presented to him by the latter, that he had not given the book to four men in the whole realm: and peradventure, added he, "it shall never come to sight abroad, though some men, smelling of the printing of it, were very desirous cravers of the same." Life of Parker, p. 415. This certainly does not prove any thing respecting the number of copies printed; but it is probable that Dr. Drake's supposition is not far short of the truth. One thing is remarkable: of all the copies known, no two are found to accord with each other. The archbishop seems to have altered and corrected the sheets as they each came from the press. The omission of the Archbishop's own life in this volume, as it contained the biography of 69 archbishops, exclusively of himself, was endeavoured to be supplied by the publication of a sharp satirical tract, entitled, "The life off the 70 Archbishop of Canterbury, presenttye sittinge Englished, and to be added to the 69 lately sett forth in Latin," &c., 12mo., 1574. After this title page there is another. "Histriola, a little storye of the acts and life of Mathew, now Archbishoppe of Canterb." This latter comprehends 17 leaves, and was written either by the archbishop himself, or by his Chaplain Joscelyne; but whether it be at all like a distinct printed folio tract, of twelve leaves and a half, which was kept carefully undispersed in the archbishop's own possession, 'till his death—being also a biography of Parker—I am not able to ascertain. The following extracts from it (as it is a scarce little volume) may be acceptable,