The forms and manner of elec- of Cleves, authenticated under tion, and confecration of archbifhops and bishops; their jurifdictions, privilege, and courts. Surveys, terriers, and rentals of their poffeffions; taxations of their fpirituals and temporals, and inquifitions relative to the state of their refpective diocefes. Lives and canonizations of fundry British, Saxon, and English faints. Authentic papers and memorials relating to the diffolution of religious houses, and the establishment of the reformation; particularly draughts of acts of parliament for their diffolution, fome in the hand-writing of king Henry VIII. Inventories of plate, jewels, and other valuables belonging to them. Inquifitions, with the ftate of feveral epifcopal diocefes, and the returns made thereto by the bishops. Accounts of the erection and proceedings of the court of augmentation; with four original and very valuable volumes belonging to that court. Hiftorical accounts of the fucceffions, rights, forms, and inftruments of elections of abbots, priors, and other fuperiors and their officers. Chartularies, regifters, and ledger books of fundry monafteries. The most accurate and valuable register of Dunftable, begun by Richard de Morins, the prior of that house, and carried on from the foundation of the priory by king Henry I. to the reformation. Statutes of the two univerfities, and of their feveral colleges and halls, and a vaft mafs of other materials relating to their history and antiquities; with a tranfcript of the proceedings of the convocation upon the divorce of Anne the hands of public notaries. Papers relating to the laws, polity, and civil government of England; divers copies of the laws of feveral of the Anglo-Saxon, Danish, and Norman kings. Tranfcripts of divers of the Magnæ Chartæ of king Henry III. and an infpeximus and copy of his confirmation, both of the great charter, and of the fimilar one, fealed by prince Edward, at London, the 10th day of March, 1264. Tranfcripts of ancient ftatutes, never printed. Readings of them; and extracts of all the private acts of parliament remaining in the Rolls chapel. Hiftorical accounts of, and memorandums relating to, baronies, ferjeancies, knight-fees, and other tenures. Copies of efcheat, rolls, inquifitions poft mortem, pleas of the crown, &c. and abundance of other law books. Many treatises on the infitution, eftablishment, and jurifdiction of the Exchequer, King's-Bench, Common Bench, Courts of Wards and Liveries, Star Chamber, and Chancery; as also of the Courts Leet, Baron, Pye-Powder, and other inferior courts; the forms and methods of proceedings in them refpectively, and accounts of their feveral officers, regifters, and records. Difcourfes on the antiquities, jurifdiction, and authority of the ancient great officers of the kingdom; to wit, the marshal, fteward, conftable, and admiral. The forms, ceremonies, and proceedings used in their courts; and extraordinaty trials before them. Original charters of our ancient kings, as Edward the Elder, Ed. gar, Hardicanute, and Edward the Con Confeffor. The famous charter of king Edgar, wherein he is filed MARIUM BRIT. DOMINUS; which Dr. Hicks hath demonftrated to have been forged after the Norman conqueft. A curious book, covered with crimfon velvet, and adorned with boffes and hafps of filver gilt and enamelled; the cover and all the leaves indented at the top; containing four original Indentures of Covenant, illuminated and embellished with hiftorical miniatures, dated the 16th of July, in the 19th year of king Henry VII. and made between that king and the abbot and convent of St. Peter's, Westminster, for certain maffes to be for ever after faid in the chapel of the virgin Mary, then determined to be built at the east end of that church, as a place of reception of the bodies of the king, queen, and royal family; and for other purposes. To this indenture book, five broad feals of king Henry VII. preferved in filver boxes, and ornamented with his badges of the portcullis and rofe fprigs, are appendant by ftrings of filk, and gold and filver thread. X. Heraldical and armorial books, particularly forms of appointing and crowning kings at arms, and of the establishment of their fubordinate officers, tricks of arms, and enfigns armorial. Tracts on the order of the garter, pedigrees of most of the nobility and gentry of England, with notes, monumental and feneftral infcriptions illuftrating their family hiftories. XI. Register-books, chartularies, and other evidences of the eftates of our ancient nobility. XII. Ceremonials, pomps, and folemnities; as the coronations of most of our kings and queens from the time of the Anglo-Saxons, to that of king George II. Public entries, introductions, receptions, and feaftings of royal and princely vifitors, foreign ambaffadors, &c. with the forms of their departures, and accounts of the prefents made to them on thofe occafions. Tilts, journies, jufts, royal masques, and other public entertainments, public proceffions and cavalcades. Funerals of kings, queens, princes, and great perfonages allied to the royal family, and alfo of perfons of quality and distinction. XIII. In regard to Wales, here are topographies, descriptions, and general hiftories of the principality. Natural and civil hiftories of feveral of its counties, furveys of commotes, and extents of lands. Statutes touching the Lords Marchers, and orders for the obfervance of the council of Wales. Tranfcripts of the laws of Howel Dha; collections of particular laws and cuftoms prevailing in different parts of the principality; accounts of the revenue arifing from the principality; lifts of feefarm rents; and pleas of quo warranto upon liberties claimed. The hiftories of Welch heroes, by Threes, and many pedigrees and genealogies of families, with. three volumes of useful materials, extracted by Mr. Hugh Thomas from a multitude of public records, and private evidences, in order to his compiling a genealogical hiftory of the nobility and gentry of Wales, and the feverat families defcended from them, now living in England. XIV. Materials relative to the civil and ecclefiaftical history of Scotland. Defcrip L 4 Descriptions, hiftories, chronicles, and ftate of the kingdom. A remarkable transcript of John Fordun's Schotochronicon, and Bafton's verfes on the battle of Bannocks Bourne, written in the year 1484, for the ufe of William Schevez, archbishop of St. Andrew's, hy his domeftic chaplain Magnus Maculloch, a prieft of the diocefe of Rofs, fuppofed to be either the famous Black book of Schone, or the St. Andrew's Copy, or perhaps the original of both. The chronicle of Andrew Wintone in verfe. Ker's, Lindfey's, and other chronicles. A fine copy of the chronicle of Mailros. The life of king David I. written by Alred, abbot of Rievaulk. Tranfcripts of public inftruments concerning the vaffalage of Scotland, and the fovereignty of England over it, which are omited by Rymer and Harding. Atchievements, arms, pedigrees, &c. of the nobility and principal gentry of Scotland. The journal of the treaty of union; and a multitude of valuable and interefting papers of ftate, particularly, a tranfcript of public inftruments concerning the marriage of Mary queen of Scots to the dauphin of France, letters on fundry occafions from Mary queen of Scots, lord Burleigh, SirFrancis Walfingham, Sir Thomas Smith, the earl of Murray, queen Elizabeth, &c. and other pieces unnoticed by all writers, but extremely useful in fettling many controverfial points of the hiftory of that unfortunate princefs, and conducive to the difclofing and clearing up the myfterious intrigues carried on during her troubles in France, Scotland, and England. Hiftorical accounts of the state of the church of Scotland. XV. Materials for the hiftory and antiquities of Ireland. As, chorographies of the kingdom, and topographical descriptions of its provinces. Ancient and other hiftories, chronicles and annals, ecclefiaftical and civil, particularly. A copy of the history and pro- . phecies of that country, written in the tenth century, and in the old Irish language. Many curious pedigrees, with the arms and hiftories of the principal nobility. A very ancient tranfcript of two remarkable pieces of the old Municipal laws of Ireland, with commentaries and gloffes thereon. The text in this manufcript is fo very ancient, as to be coeval with the times the pieces relate to. The one being feemingly part of the Bretanime, or Judicia Cœleftia, with the trial of Euna, brother to Legarius, chief king of Ireland, fo the murder of Orane, chariot driver to St. Patrick, before Dubhthac, the chief Filadha, or King's Bard; who, on that folemn occafion, acted as fole Brehon, or judge, with the fentence paffed thereon in the year 430. The other, the great fanction or conftitution of Nine, made in favour of chriftianity in Ireland, anno 439, by three kings, three bishops, and three fages. XVI. Many ancient copies of the Greek and Latin claffics and hiftorians. XVII. Lexicons, gloffaries, and dictionaries of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Welch, Chinefe, Perfic, Arabic, German, Courlandic, Saxon, English, Spanish, and Turkish languages, particularly the Arabic dictionary of Abu Nafr Ifmael, filius Hamad al Farabi, Al-Turki, with the fupplement of Sherfo'ddin, Al-Hafan filius Mohamedis, furnamed Alfagani, written in the beginning of the 13th century. XVIII. Chorographies, antiquities, hiftories, chronicles, &c. of France, and other countries. Elaborate genealogies of their kings, princes, and illuftrious houses; and a multitude of tracts and authentic papers, explanatory of their laws, customs, revenues, polity, and government; amongst which are Gefta Francorum in Bello Sacro, written in the 11th century. A chronicle from Adam, of the 9th century, Liudbrandi Ticienfis Chronicon, written in the 10th century. Alfo a beautiful transcript of the 4th and laft volumes of Froiffart's chronicle, elegantly illuminated, and having the fubject of each chapter reprefented in an historical miniature painting, highly finished, and placed at the head of it. The other volumes of this curious work are preserved in the French king's library, and are esteemed among its principal ornaments. XIX. Hiftories of popes, and the tranfactions of the fee of Rome; particularly three remarkable volumes, the original registers of the Roman chancery, fecretly brought from Rome upon the death of pope Innocent XII. by Monf. Aymone, who was apoftolic prothonotary of that court. They contain the rules to be obferved by the clerks, and obedientiaries of the Roman chan cery, in expediting papal bulls, briefs, mandates, difpenfations, and grants; a lift of fines payable by ecclefiaftics to the Roman fee, in all countries under its fubjection, on their being admitted to patriarchal, metropolitan, cathedral, or conventual churches; fees and fines payable for indulgences, licences, and plenary abfolutions, as well in criminal as civil cafes; and a variety of other interesting matters, demonftrating the impofitions practifed to fill the pope's coffers. XX. A great number of poems, effays, ditties, ancient ballads, plays, and other poetical pieces in almost every modern language; many of them unpublished, and others extremely useful to fuch as fhall undertake to give new and correct editions of the works of fuch poets, particularly thofe of our own country as have been already printed. Amongst them are, A very ancient and fair tranfcript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and a copy of his hiftory of Troilus and Crefida, the Knight's Tale, the Man of Laws Prologue and Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale, and the Clerk of Oxenforde's Tale, neither of which MSS. feem to have been used by the editors of Chaucer; the text in both differing in many places from all other MSS of that author, as well as from the printed copies of his poems. A large volume, being a collection of ancient and valuable poems on curious fubjects, by Chaucer, Lydgate, and other Eng lifh poets; amongst thefe is a poem of Chaucer's addreffed to his empty purfe, and confifting of twenty ftanzas, though no more than than the three first have been pubJifhed. This poem is the more curious, as it informs us of fome circumstances of Chaucer's life little known. A fair transcript or tranflation of Lydgate's paraphrafe into English verfe, of Boccace's treatife De Occafu principum, illuminated and embellished with hiftorical miniature paintings; being the author's prefent-book to Humphrey duke of Gloucefter, by whofe command he undertook the work. Lydgate's lives of St. Edmund and St. Fræmund, with divers of his other poems, illuftrated with 120 very elegant historical pictures of different fizes; befides other embellishments of illuminated letters, &c. fo as to render it the finest manufcript of the English language, written in the time of king Henry VI. whose book this was, being prefented to him by its author. A large and beautifully illuminated copy of the Confeffio Amantis of John Gower, containing a collection of the principal pieces of Chaucer and Gower, finely written and ornamented. An historical, political, and moral poem, confifting of 320 ftanzas; the fubject is the unfortunate reign of king Edward II. whofe ghoft is introduced as relating his tranfactions and difafters. The author, who is fuppofed to be Mr. Edmund Spenfer, addreffes this poem to queen Elizabeth. Alfo the fame poem revifed and corrected by many alterations, and fitted up for the perufal of king James I. A very fair and beautiful tranfcript of the celebrated poem entitled Le Roman de la Rofe, begun ! in French verfe, by William de Lorris, continued and finished by John Clopinel, alias John Moone, of Mewen upon the river Loyer, This manufcript is richly ornamented with a multitude of miniature paintings, executed in the moft masterly manner. It is probably the copy which was prefented to Henry IV. the blazon of his arms being introduced in the illuminations, with which the first page of this work is embellished. Many original poems by John Lydgate, Gower, Trevifa, &c. XXI. A large collection both of ancient and modern mufical compofitions, with curious anecdotes relating to their authors, written for the most part by Mr. Wanley, by whom they were amaffed, he being not only a great judge of mufic, but a very able compofer. XXII. Books of architecture, geometry, gunnery, fortification, fhip-building, and military affairs; particularly a large volume written in High Dutch, foon after the invention of fire arms, being a treatife on military affairs, illuftrated with a great number of fine drawings in water colours, reprefentiug the proper forms of marches, encampments, and difpofitions of armies; orders of battle, attacks, fieges, and ftorms of forts, towns, and caftles; draughts of fhips of war, firefhips, and fleets, bridges of timber and ftone, hydraulic engines, tools, inftruments, and warlike machines of every kind; the form of the ancient British chariot. XXIII. Natural history, agriculture, voyages, travels, &c. particularly, an Herbarium, written in Saxon, and in the tenth century. And, A very |