The Gentleman's Magazine

130. Lydgate's Siege and Destruction of Troy: small folio, of the latter part of the XVth century; imperfect. 31. 158. Thorpe.

131. An Historical Description of the Isle of Man, of the XVIIth century: with an autograph letter of Ric. Parr, Bishop of Sodor and Man, to the Earl of Derby, 1643. Folio. 201. 10s. Payne.

133. Historical Collections, by Peter Manwood, temp. James I. A large folio. 177. Payne.

143. Original Correspondence between John and Paul Methuen, and Sir Wm. Simpson, Baron of the Exchequer, from 1702 to 1708 containing the letters of both parties, altogether about 150. 591. Payne.

145. A folio volume, of vellum, containing several pieces respecting Charlemagne, and a copy of William of Malmsbury: formerly belonging to the monastery of St. Martin of Tournay. 537. 11s. Payne.

150. Another folio, from the same library, containing, 1. a history of the church of Tournay, (printed from this identical MS. in D'Achery's Spicilegium, vol. III.); 2. Historia Judaica; 3. Historia Britannica of Geoffrey of Monmouth; 4. Prophetia Merlini. 551. 138. Payne.

152. A miscellaneous volume on vellum, in 4to. of the XIIIth century, containing some pieces of Peter of Blois, and several others. 81. 158. Sir F. Madden. (B. M.)

153. A folio volume of the XIIIth century, containing, 1. Liber Magistri Petri Cantoris Parisiensis qui dicitur Verbum Abbreviatum; 2. Vita sancti Thome Cantuariensis, in Latin verse; 3. De Magnete lapide, in Latin verse. 301. 108. Payne.

154. A quarto volume from St. Martin's at Tournay, containing, 1. De locis sanctis ; 2. Beda de locis sanctis; 3. Glose super Bibliam; 4. Explicatio quorundam nominum distinctorum per alphabetum. On vellum, of the XIIIth century, with a very spirited outline drawing of Saint Martin on horseback. 147. 148. Sir F. Madden. (B. M.) 164. Questio Consolatoria, addressed to Mary Queen of France on the death of Louis XII. in 1515, by Joannes Benedictus Moncetto, de Castellione Aretino. 21. 10s. Rodd. (B. M.)

168. A Pocket Diary of public and private occurrences, by Sir Edward Nicholas, Clerk of the Privy Council; two small volumes, 1667-8, and 1674. 21. 178. Payne. 172. Ordinale Ecclesiæ Romanæ ; an octavo volume of the tenth century, in vellum, which formerly belonged to the church at Besançon. 107. 108. Rodd. (B. M.)

185. Poesies Françoises du XVme Siecle on vellum, folio. 71. 78. Sir F. Madden. 197. An extensive collection of ballads and fugitive pieces of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, pasted in two folio volumes. 101. 158, Payne.

of David, four on a page, with a leaf of description in French, written in white upon a coloured ground, the lines being red and blue alternately. The Psalter then commences with a capital letter occupying half the page, and containing two illuminations. Other illuminated histories occur in various parts of the book, each being preceded by a page of description in French, and having to some of the Psalms an initial letter, with histories, occupying the entire page. The first letter of each Psalm is ornamented, and the initial letter of every verse is in gold; and, wherever the verse does not extend to the end of the line, the space is filled up with minute illuminations. These small illuminations are of a very singular and fanciful kind. They represent knights encountering, mock.combats, quintaines, monsters, grotesques, jugglers and posture- masters, and coats of arms; the bearings of the latter being quite well defined, although the shield is not more than the sixth of an inch in size.

202. Psalterium, cum Precibus; a quarto manuscript on vellum, of the XIVth century. 2251. Rodd (for Mr. Holford). "This manuscript is illuminated, apparently by a French artist, in a very minute and laboured style. It commences with the calendar in a tabular form, the dominical letter, &c. being in burnished gold upon a coloured ground, whilst the saints' days and holidays are in colours upon a silver ground, remarkable for the preservation of its brightness. Each page of this calendar is ornamented with two small miniatures, one representing the zodiacal sign of the month; the other its peculiar occupation. After the calendar follow three pages of tables of the moveable feasts, &c. richly ornamented in chequered work of gold and colours; then a series of illuminations on sixteen pages, four on a page, in compartments, representing the events of sacred history, from the Creation to the Assumption of the Virgin. Following these is a leaf containing on the recto the stem of Jesse, on the reverse the portrait of the person for whom the manuscript was executed, and those of his wife and children, in the attitude of prayer to the Virgin. The two succeeding leaves present events in the life

"Two of these shields are evidently those of the families allied in marriage in

the persons for whom the manuscript was executed, as is proved by the large shields on the top of the page, in which they are represented kneeling. They are over the knight Vert, a fess argent, impaling, Argent, three bends vert, within a bordure gules over the lady, Argent, fretté gules, a canton of the second. These arms may lead to the discovery of the persons represented. They occur in several parts of the volume on the shields of two knights encountering; and it is not

unworthy of remark, that in some instances one of the combatants is represented as a female. A fac-simile of one of these tournaments is subjoined, by favour of Mr. Leigh Sotheby.

"The large miniatures are much more varied in character than is usually found in manuscripts of this nature, and are remarkable for the spirit with which they are executed. A fac-simile in outline of one of the illuminated pages was given as a frontispiece to the Sale Catalogue.

215. Le Roman du Renart; of the XIVth century, upon vellum, with miniatures. (Imperfect.) 251. Sir F. Madden. (B. M.)

224. Les Histoires et Croniques des Belges. Written by Hector Sandoyer, alias de Harchers, at Douay in 1534. 271. 10s. Payne.

226. The journey of John-Ernest Duke of Saxony, in England in 1613, described by J. W. Neumayr von Ramszla: an English translation. 21. 128. 6d. Payne.

239. A Poetical Miscellany of the age of Elizabeth, in 4to. 121. Thorpe. 240. Astrophel and Stella, sonnets, by Sir P. Sidney. A manuscript supposed to be corrected by the author and his sister the Countess of Pembroke; with an autograph letter of the Countess. 4l. 14s. 6d. Sir F. Madden. (B. M.)

241. Psalms translated by Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke: a MS. transcribed by John Davies, of Hereford, the Poet; from the collections of Boswell and Heber. 41. 16s. Thorpe.

242. The same version of the Psalms, a 4to. MS. formerly belonging to the poet Hayley. 31. 18s. Wilson.

243. A series of sixty-seven Autograph Letters, addressed by various foreigners to Sir P. Sidney during his travels, and eleven letters of Dr. Robert Dorsett, from Oxford, to the same. 501. Payne.

244. Miscellaneous papers of Sir William Simpson, Baron of the Exchequer, temp. Anne and George I. chiefly relating to the affairs of the Temple. 41. 14s. 6d. Payne. 245. A volume of Music and Poetry by John Redford and others, temp. Henry VIII. in oblong quarto. 157. Thorpe. (B. M.)

247. Three hundred Meditations of the Love of God, by Robert Southwell the Jesuit and Poet, dedicated to the Lady Beauchamp. 47. 28. Dolman.

248. Antiquitie, &c. of the Isle of Man, by Samuel Stanley, temp. Eliz.: from the Thoresby and Roxburghe collections. 221. 10s. Payne.

251. Memoires Manuscrits du Compte du Lucano,--son of James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick. 171. 6s. 6d. Payne.

252. Virgill's Gnomologie, contayning his principall sentences and best appliable speeches, selected for his Highnes' use [Henry Prince of Wales] by Simon Sturtevant. 2. 58. Rodd. (B. M.)

253. De Synedriis Britannicis: an English treatise of the early part of the XVIIIth century, ascribed to Petyt. 21. 11s. Thorpe.

255. County Observations, &c. 1638-1660, by Henry Townshend, of Elmley Lovett, in Worcestershire. 187. 78. 6d. Payne.

260. Register of Privy Seals, 13 Oct. 1611 to 12 Oct. 1614. 307. 10s. Sir F. Madden. This was the second volume of Lot 182 of Sir Julius Cæsar's MSS. in the Catalogue of 1757, and which then sold both together for either 15s. or 16s. 6d. to Lowndes. At its present price, however, it is a valuable addition (together with lot 39) to those purchased for the British Museum at Strawberry Hill. (See our vol. XVIII. p. 606.)

263. State Letters and Papers of Sir Henry Unton during his Embassy in France, 1591-2. folio. 461. Payne. [It is remarkable that these Papers appear to exist in triplicate; there are similar volumes in the British Museum (MS. Cotton. Calig. E. vII.) and Bodleian Library (No. 3498 of Bernard's Catalogue). See Mr. J. G. Nichols's Memoirs of the Unton Family, printed for the Berkshire Ashmolean Society, p. liii.] 265. Herbarium, Medical Receipts, &c. small volume on vellum of the XIVth century. 71. 78. Sir F. Madden. (B. M.)

269. Autograph Life and Journal of Archbishop Wake. 237. 10s. Payne. 272. Registrum Monasterii de Wardon, [co. Bedford,] 4to. on vellum, of the XIIIth century; described in the new edition of the Monasticon. 951. Payne.

273. Legend of Mary Queen of Scots, and other Poems: by Thomas Wenman, Fellow of Balliol College, and Public Orator of the University of Oxford. 1594. MS. of the time. 10s. 6d. Rodd.

274. The Proceedings in the Starr-chamber against Henry Sherfeild, esq. for breakinge a glass window in the church of St. Edmund's in the cittie of Salisburie, 1632. 4to. 51. Payne. [See Hargrave's State Trials, vol. i. p. 399; and Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Hist. of Salisbury, p. 372.]

275. Antiquities of Malvern, 1722. 8vo. 31. 38. Payne.

276. Journal kept by Sir Henry Wotton in 1591 when attending on the Earl of Essex, in the army of Henri IV. 10. Payne.

277. The York Miracle Plays: in folio, on vellum. Formerly Thoresby's; purchased at his sale by the Hon. Horace Walpole; and sold at the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842 for 2351. 3051. Thorpe.

289. Tractatus Historicus de Virtutibus Philippi Burgundie Ducis. By J. Germain, Bishop of Cabillon, 1452. 4to. 17. 178. Payne.

290. Abridgment of the Law Books, from Henry VI. to Henry VIII. a very large folio volume by Judge Walmesley. 107. Thorpe.

The whole day's sale produced 1995l. 38. 6d. Mr. Bright's library is in preparation for a second sale; and his collection of works in natural history, geography, mining, &c. will, separately, form a third.

MR. URBAN,

June 24.

ALTHOUGH possibly you may think that I have sufficiently occupied the pages of your Magazine "On the Locality of Herne's Oak," my papers on this question having been alluded to by Mr. Jesse in his lately published "Scenes and Tales of Country Life," I beg to say a few words in reply. But as the style and tenor of his arguments are very similar to those with which he has already favoured usand since, moreover, he is evidently "a man convinced against his will," I shall confine myself to an examination of his "Facts."

To begin then with the first, viz. "that the avenue in which Mr. Jesse's oak is now to be seen was planted by King William III., who delighted in straight lines"-were this at all relevant to the question, I would demand

proof of it from some of the Issuerolls or books of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. And, as to the so-called "distortion" of this row of trees (for it is not, correctly speaking, an avenue), Mr. Knight and many others well recollect it to have been a mere belt or boundary-one of those, probably, mentioned in an account of Windsor, A.D. 1592-between the Little Park and a common field once belonging to the inhabitants of that town, and was, no doubt, so "distorted" because of the angular form of the boundary, and not to "introduce into it this oak "-the situation of which depended simply on its happening to have been near the fence.

The evidence of Collier's plan published in 1742, (and which, to my great surprise, Mr. Jesse says he "cannot but think in favour of his supposition,")

chiefly consists in a hand pointing to an oak, underwritten "Sir John Falstaffe's oak ;" and I still maintain that this fact is an irrefragable proof that Mr. Jesse's tree is not the Herne's oak so pointed out, however he may im. pugn the accuracy of this plan, because, forsooth, it is "a very old one." And Collier's tree not being in an avenue, it does not require any "ingenuity to show that the tree now standing in the avenue is not" Collier's oak, although Mr. Jesse would infer as much from its "inclination outwards," an opinion to which I would humbly bow (since in his capacity of Itinerant-Deputy-Surveyor of Woods and Works, he must be better acquainted with such trees than I am), did not its unusually spiry form demonstrate that it was a flourishing tree long after it had become one of the row wherein it is now situated.*

"The evidence, thirdly, of some old inhabitants of Windsor (many of whom I examined with Mr. Jesse, and, as I then told him,) is objectionable, since many of them are interested in supporting his opinion on account of his official influence: and the evidence of one, now in her ninety-fourth year, is, from the very circumstance of her anility, especially dubitable. Nor does "the present appearance of this tree prove that it might (may) have remained in nearly the state in which we now see it through a long succession of ages," for many persons know that within the last sixty years it has borne acorns, and Mr. Jesse, for his seventh fact, himself asserts that it is still sound as to the external wood, though it had evidently been blasted"-meaning, I presume, that it had been so injured before our great dramatist visited it (as I feel assured he did), with the other localities mentioned in his Merry Wives of Windsor-the pits, the ways, and stile yet traceable there-and all of which were probably well known to his royal

auditor.

Our author's fourth fact is-"that King George III. frequently asserted that he had cut down an oak tree at

The relative positions of Collier's tree and Mr. Jesse's tree may be seen in the smaller plan prefixed to our number for April, 1841.

the edge of the pit close to the present tree, because many persons confounded it with the tree growing in the avenue, and called it Herne's oak, which he said it was not." Now, Sir, "this anecdote," although corroborative of my opinion, I cannot but deem a libel on the character of George III., albeit Mr. Jesse says that he had it from the royal huntsman. A brother, however, of this gentleman,-who, equally with him, when young, was in the habit of attendance upon George III."-has often told me that Herne's oak was removed because it had been represented to his Majesty by the bailiff of the park (one Mr. John Frost) as an old and unsightly incumbrance - Mr. Jesse admitting, moreover, that the tree then cut down was by many persons considered to be Herne's oak." But how this fact disproves a statement of Lady Ely, that George III. expressed to her "his sorrow for having destroyed the remains of Herne's oak," and why Mr. Jesse doubts the veracity of her ladyship's "representation of what the king had told her," or the misapprehension of Mr. Crofton Croker as to the matter,—I must leave to the animadversion of Mr. Croker himself, on whose authority, Mr. Jesse says, this statement was made.*

As I do not see by what alchemy of ratiocination the following opinions can be converted to Mr. Jesse's purpose, I will give them complete in his own words: viz.

"Fifthly. The fact that the King placed the present tree under the especial charge of Mr. Engall, who is still the manager of the Home Park, forty years ago, telling him at the time that it was Herne's oak.

It may be added on the same authority that some chairs were made from the sup. posititious Herne's oak, and presented to the King as interesting relics of that tree, but which he refused to accept, stating that Herne's oak was still standing. Many things also were made from the tree, and sold to various persons in the neighbourhood, which left the impression that Herne's oak had been felled.

* Mr. Crofton Croker informs us that there can be no "misunderstanding" on his part, as he received the statement in writing from his father-in-law, the late Mr. Nicholson.-ED.

26 Sixthly. A statement, which I know was made by his late majesty George the Fourth, that Herne's oak had not been cut down by his father, and which has been confirmed to me by one of the surviving members of his family."

With regard to the opinion of Sir Herbert Taylor and Sir David Dundas, these gentlemen were not likely to express one dissimilar from that of their royal master; and as to Mr. Jesse attempting to identify his tree from the admeasurement of its girth by however "respectable a carpenter,' we might as well try to ascertain whether any individual in Aldermanbury or elsewhere be an alderman by getting a "respectable" tailor to take the circumference of such individual's corporation.

"even

some

Our author then apologises for his obstinacy, and asks whiningly, if he could be proved to be wrong, what object would be gained by the endeavours to destroy the interest which would otherwise be attached to this last (?) relic of our immortal bard." To this 1 simply reply-Truth. Had Mr. Jesse, instead of " discovering the unexpected fact that superstition holds the same sway in Windsor that it did when our poet wrote," because “ females," it is said, "have been alarmed with the fear of meeting Herne the Hunter;" had he, I say, discovered any documental evidence illustrative of Shakspeare, that would truly have been "acceptable;" but never with such arguments". -non tali auxilio-as those he has hitherto made use of, let him again trouble us. And so, leaving him to his conscience, should the board affixed by him to this tree have been instrumental in causing such men as the King of Prussia and the celebrated Humboldt to have "gazed at it in silence "" as the Herne's oak of our immortal Shakspeare,

I am, yours, &c. PLANTAGENET.

MR. URBAN,

AS I hold that in matters of topographical import accuracy of infor. mation is a great desideratum, I trust that the following remarks may be deemed sufficiently important for insertion in your pages.

The Saxon Chronicle, under the date A.D. 742, says,

GENT, MAG. VOL. XXII.

"There was a large synod assembled at Cloueshou (Cliffs Hoo), and there was Ethelbald, King of Mercia, with Archbishop Cuthbert, and many other wise men."+

Rapin the historian is more particular in his information, but has the synod under a rather different date, and says,

"In 747 was held at Cloveshoo, a cliff in the kingdom of Kent, a national synod, at which Ethelbald, King of Mercia, was present, with 12 bishops and a great number of lords. That Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury, who was president, read Pope Zachary's letter, wherein the pope admonished the English to reform their lives, and threatened those with excommunication that continued in their wicked courses. They made 28 canons, most of them relating to ecclesiastical discipline, the government of monasteries, the duties of bishops and other clergymen, the public service, singing psalms, keeping the Sabbath and other holidays."

Another synod, the Saxon Chronicle says, was holden in 822 at Cliffs Hoo; but Rapin has it in 800, and is more circumstantial, and says it was held under Adelard, Archbishop of Canterbury, and convened for the recovery of certain church lands usurped by the Kings of Mercia.

Rapin further says, three years after (viz. 803) another council was held at the same place, wherein, according to Pope Leo's constitution, and with the consent of Cenulph, King of Mercia, the archbishopric of Lichfield was reduced to a bishopric as formerly.

In the Notes upon Rapin by Tindal and Smollett, as to these synods being held at Cliffs Hoo, in the kingdom. of Kent, it is observed,

"Cliff or Hoo is a town on a rock near Rochester. But the presence of the King of Mercia at this and some other councils held at Cloveshoo makes it supposed that it is the same with Abingdon, in Berkshire, about the middle of the nation, antiently written Shovesham, by mistake for Clovesham or Cloveshoo."

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