Note 45 — Library of London.

Of this valuable and highly interesting volume, the first-fruits of an attempt to print the Scriptures in the English tongue, and the chief cause of the persecution and subsequent death of the translator, a single copy only was supposed to exist. Of the manner in which this found its way into the Harleian Library, and of the value set upon it by Lord Oxford and Mr. Ames, a short but interesting account is given in the following extract from a letter preserved in the Bodleian Library. It is in the handwriting of Ames, is addressed to Mr. George Ballard, and dated Wapping, June 30, 1743. “I cannot forbear telling you of my good success in buying at Lord Oxford’s sale the Phœnix of the whole library; I mean the first English Testament that ever was printed in the year 1526. It has been thought no perfect one was left from the flames. My lord was so well pleased in being the possessor of it, that he gave the person (Mr. John Murrey) he had it of, ten guineas, and settled an annuity of twenty pounds a year during the person’s life, which is yet paid him. The particulars are too many to commit to a letter; the old historians, and Fox, give a good account of it.”

Herbert’s account, given in a note at p. 1535, may form a sequel to this: “This first edition was in the possession of Mr. Ames, who bought it for fifteen shillings out of the Harleian Library, No. 420, sold by T. Osborne, 1743. Mr. John White purchased it for 15l. 4s. 6d. at the auction of Mr. Ames’s books, No. 1252, sold by Langford, 1760, and sold it for 21l. to Dr. Gifford, who at his decease bequeathed it, with many others, to the Baptist Museum, Bristol.” Unfortunately this otherwise perfect copy wants the title page.

“But it has been my fortune, in examining the Library of St. Paul’s Cathedral, to discover a second copy. Unluckily it is imperfect, both at the beginning and end; and its former owner, as if afraid of a second Bishop Tonstall, has contrived most ingeniously to disguise and disfigure it, by intermixing the leaves of the Gospels and Epistles with each other in the strangest manner. The volume is in half-binding, lettered (for what reason I know not) ‘Lant’s Testament.’ Surely it well deserves to be carefully taken to pieces and examined: the deficient parts should be supplied by a transcript from the Bristol copy, and inserted in their proper places, lest an unhappy accident should deprive us of either of them; the volume should then be rebound, and placed under lock and key, and under the special superintendence of the librarian.”—Cotton’s List of Editions of the Bible, &c. Oxford, 1821, pp. 1, 2.

The present state of this precious little tome will show that some of these recommendations have already been adopted, and the following collation may be acceptable to the inquiring bibliographer:—Title wanting. Text fol. i.-cccliii. Address to the Reader, 3 pages. Errata, 3 pages. St. Matthew begins on folio i. St. Mark on folio xliii. b. St. Luke on fol. lxxi. b. St. John on fol. __. Acts on fol. cliii. b. Romans, on fol. cxcix. Ephesians on fol. ccliii. b. St. James, on cccxv. and the Revelations on cccxxi. b. A full page contains 33 lines. The signatures run in eights, and the folios are consecutively numbered. There are no marginal notes, and no wood-cuts, except the initial letters. The following words are thus spelt: “Corrinthyans, Romayns, Galathyans, Collossyans, Tessalonyans, Hebrues.”