2'«» S. No 55., Jan. 17. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



43 



whom they liked ; but for his part he supposed he should 



be forced to marry some ugly German b , I forget the 



other letters of the word ; and then turning to the Irish 

 Master of the Rolls, asked what he would advise him to 

 do. ' Faith, Sir,' said the Master, ' I am not yet drunk 

 enough to give advice to a Prince of about marry- 

 ing.' I think it one of the best answers I ever heard. 

 How many fools will think themselves sober enough to 

 advise his altesse on whatever he consults them ! " — 

 " Letters addressed to the Countess of Ossorj'," vol. ii. 

 p. 164., London, 1848. 



The " electoral prince," the " foreign altesse" 

 alluded to in this anecdote, is evidently no other 

 person than the Prince of Wales, to whom, as 

 being the son of the Elector of Hanover, Horace 

 Walpole jocosely applies this designation. He 

 envies the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland, 

 on account of the beauty of their celebrated 

 duchesses, and anticipates his own unhappy lot, 

 in being compelled to marry a German princess, 

 devoid of all personal ch^rm. The Prince of 

 Wales was born on the 12th of August, 1762, and 

 was therefore at this time just twenty-one years 

 old. Lord Lewisham was the eldest son of the 

 second Earl of Dartmouth ; he was born in 1755, 

 and died in 1810 : his father had been a member 

 of Lord North's cabinet. The Irish Master of the 

 Rolls at this time was the Right Hon. Richard 

 Rigby, who held the office, then a* sinecure, from 

 1759 to 1788, nearly thirty years. Lord Stanhope 

 {Hist, of Eng.^ c. 34.) describes Rigby as " a gay, 

 jovial, not over-scrupulous placeman." He was a 

 member of the Irish, not of the English, Privy 

 CounciL L. 



remarks on the seven foiilo editions op 

 cranmer's bible. 



As there are occasional notices in the columns 

 of " N. & Q." respecting editions of the Bible, I 

 think it may be interesting to some of the readers 

 of it for me to communicate a few facts respecting 

 the editions of Cranmer's Bible, which have come 

 under ray notice in my examination of the seven 

 folio editions printed in 1539, 1540, and 1541. 

 I commenced a collection of the various editions 

 of the Bible in "English. Some years since, these 

 pursuits led me to investigate the differences be- 

 tween these seven editions, for the purpose of 

 obtaining a copy of each edition correct. For the 

 information of some of your readers who may not 

 have paid much attention to these folio Bibles, I 

 may state that five of the seven editions read to- 

 gether ; therefore, any portions of either may be 

 bound up without any regard to the different edi- 

 tions, the first and last word of every leaf being 

 the same (with a few accidental exceptions) : the 

 other two read together in the same way. Every 

 leaf of the seven differs, and there is no doubt 

 but that the type for each was composed for it. 

 It is found that very few copies exist free from 



some leaves of other editions. Thus, the Decem- 

 ber and July copies are often mixed ; the two 

 Novembers are so also ; and the 1539, and the 

 April 1540. 



Anderson, in his Annals of the English Bible 

 (vol. ii. p. 128.), says that no correct copy existed 

 before Lea Wilson arranged his set, all copies 

 being " made up." By this I suppose he wishes 

 us to understand, that imperfect copies of dif- 

 ferent editions have been used to make up a per- 

 fect copy. I have arrived at a different conclu- 

 sion ; for I find those leaves which are exchanged 

 or mixed are, in most instances, the same leaves 

 as in the one alluded to between the July and 

 April. If these "made up copies" were the re- 

 sult of completing defective copies, no two would 

 agree. I have no doubt that many of these 

 volumes were first issued as we find them. It is 

 not probable that they set up every leaf to read 

 together, in order that the various portions should 

 be useful to make copies for sale. I may just 

 remark, that the set made up by the late Lea 

 Wilson, which Anderson alludes to as the only 

 correct copies in existence, are not free from 

 error : the December and July copies have many 

 leaves the same, which must be wrong ; and the 

 May copy has a few leaves in it which I think can 

 be shown to belong to another edition. To decide 

 to which edition some leaves belong that are 

 found occurring in different editions is difficult, 

 and can only be done by collating and comparing 

 as many copies as possible. I looked at the 

 splendid copy on vellum which was presented to 

 Henry VIII. by Anthony Morler, expecting to 

 find this a standard for the April, 1540; but, on 

 comparing it with the copy on paper, I found they 

 differed in many places. I discovered fifteen leaves 

 in which they differed : which copy, then, is Incor- 

 rect? It will be expected that the copy on vellum 

 must be correct, but what are the facts ? I have 

 lately carefully examined all the April and July 

 copies that I can hear of in the public libraries in 

 the kingdom and in private hands, as well as in 

 my own. I have spared no pains ; and have ex- 

 amined thirteen copies of the April edition, and 

 there is not one of them that contains those 

 particular leaves that are In the vellum copy, ex- 

 cept in one. There are four of them. I have com- 

 pared seven July copies, and they all contain all 

 those leaves in which the vellum copy differs from 

 the April. Besides this, In one place where July 

 leaves, as I call them, are inserted, there the copy 

 on vellum does not read. The July leaf has two 

 more lines at the commencement of it than the 

 April edition, thus making a repetition of two 

 lines. This repetition does not occur in any one 

 of the Aprils I have examined. In one place in 

 the vellum copy, before the insertion of July 

 leaves, there is a leaf differing from any of the 

 April or July leaves ; it appears differently set up. 



