Note 102 — CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS: (continued 4)

That all these works should not be wanting to posterity, Prynne deposited the complete collection in the library of Lincoln’s-Inn, about forty volumes in folio and quarto. Noy, the Attorney-General, Prynne’s great adversary, was provoked at the society’s acceptance of these ponderous volumes, and promised to send them the voluminous labours of Taylor the water-poet, to place by their side; he judged, as Wood says, that “Prynne’s books were worth little or nothing; that his proofs were no arguments, and his affirmations no testimonies.” But honest Anthony, in spite of his prejudices against Prynne, confesses, that though “by the generality of scholars they are looked upon to be rather rhapsodical and confused than polite or concise, yet, for antiquaries, critics, and sometimes for divines, they are useful.” Such erudition as Prynne’s always retains its value—the author who could quote a hundred authors on “the unloveliness of love-locks,” will always make a good literary chest of drawers, well filled, for those who can make better use of their contents than himself.