364 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 106. 



the things which had been dug up, and that they had 

 formed part of the Arundel collection, chose what he 

 pleased and carried them down to Chiswick House, 

 where he placed one piece of basso-relievo on the pe- 

 destal of an obelisk he erected there. S:)me years after 

 this, the Ilight Hon. Lord Petre, speaking to me 

 about those things of the Karl of Burlington's, told me 

 be had heard that on some parts of my ground there 

 were still many valuable fragments buried, and ob- 

 tained my leave to employ men to bore the ground. 

 After six days' searching of every part, just as they 

 were going to give over, tbey fell upon something 

 which gave them hopes, and upon opening the ground 

 they discovered six statues without heads or arms, lying 

 close to each other, some of a colossal size, the drapery 

 of which was thought to be exceedingly fine. These 

 ;n'ere soon afterwards sent down to Worksop, the seat 

 of his present Grace the Duke of Norfolk, in Not- 

 tinghamshire, where tliey remain. 



'• There were some few I)locks of a greyish veined 

 marble, out of which I endeavoured to cut some 

 cliimney-i)ieces and slabs to lay in my house, the Bel- 

 yedere in Lambeth parish, over against York Build- 

 ings, but the expense was more than their worth ; 

 however, as they were cut out, soitie of them were 

 used. The fragment of a column I cai-ried into Berk- 

 shire to my house, Walthara Place, and converted it 

 into a roller for my bowling-green, it being about six 

 feet long and eighteen inches diameter." 



Sic transit gloria mnndi ! 



Such are the p.irticulars recorded by Isiv. Tlieo- 

 bald. When I met with them lately, I determined 

 on asking a jihice for this Note in your valuable 

 publication, thinking thy,t its coijtents might be 

 new to some yf even your readers, and might form 

 an acceptable page of topographical illustration. 



William Sidney Gjbson. 



Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oct. 1851. 



PANSLAVIC LITEEATURE, AND THE LIBRARY or 

 THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



There existed, even in ancient times, some con- 

 necting links between the Punslavian and the 

 Anglo-Saxun races : tlie most important, the in- 

 troduction of Wickliff's Bible translation into 

 Czechia by Anne, sister of Wenceslaw IV., and 

 wife of llichard IL of England, — an event rich 

 in great and salutary consecjuences. In allusion 

 to the Library of the British Museum, it seems to 

 me that in former times the diplomatic agents of 

 this country must have taken care to collect the 

 rare and interesting works of the places where 

 they temporarily resided ; and that in this way the 

 libraries of this country became enriched by an 

 astounding stock of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, 

 and Panslavic works, which subsequently merged 

 some way or other in the national library. This, 

 albeit hypothetical genesis of that huge collection, 

 will, I think, best explain its incompleteness and 



even un-systematicity in former times ; as there 

 are some rare old works to be found, of which the 

 concluding volume is wanting. But I shall not, 

 on this occasion, revieio a whole library, but confine 

 myself to its late exponent for the world-exhibi- 

 tion, described in the"»!>Ao;'< Guide to that Portion 

 of the Library of Printed Books now open to the 

 Public, May 1851." 



In imitation of the National Library of Paris, a 

 number of books have Ijeen publicly exhibited in 

 the British Museum which, on account of their 

 early date, rarity, costliness and splendour of 

 printing, binding, or for certain interesting auto- 

 graphs, deserved general attention ; thus forming 

 an exemplified memorial and history of typographic 

 art and enterprise. The show was a grand and 

 instructive one, owing mostly to the specimens of 

 the unmatched collection of the Grenville Library, 

 the greatest gift ever bequeathed by an individual 

 to a people. None could look without deep emo- 

 tion on the set of Columbus' Letters, all printed 

 during his lifetime (1493 et srq.y — documents 

 much adverted to by A. Humboldt in his Examen 

 Critique on the discovery of America. Of similar 

 interest were the sets of first editions of Petrarca, 

 Cervantes, Camoens — leaves invaluable to the 

 thinker on human civilisation. Chinese, Indian, 

 and Japanese specimens were also not wanting. 



With all that, the gentleman who had arranged 

 en maestro this exhibition, did completely ignore 

 the existence of Panslavic literature, viz. that of 

 a race of sixty millions of people! It is the perusal 

 of the Short Guide which will satisfy any one of 

 the exactness of the assertion, that not one single 

 Russian, Polish, Czechian or Serbian book or fly- 

 leaf was in the whole collection : an anomaly, the 

 explaining of which is beyond my reach. 



Still, Panslavia occupies a conspicuous place 

 even in the history of typography and literature, 

 although our later periods have been dimmed by 

 the intrusion of foreign or despotic princes, it 

 was so early a.s the year 1512, that a Slavonic 

 translation of the Bible was begun. Ivan IV, 

 established the first printing-press in 156-4 at 

 JNIoscow; and in 1659 the learned Patriarch Nikon 

 published a revision of both the Old and New 

 Testaments. Without entering here into an in- 

 vestigation on the first Slavian typographers, both 

 Czechia and Poland were foremost in introducing 

 this important discovery ; and even our southern- 

 most city, the Republic of Ragusa, printed Slavian 

 works. Of all this the typographical exhibition of 

 the British Museum contained no trace. What 

 the Library may possess or not possess, is now 

 more difficult to ascertain than ever, as the dif- 

 ferent sets of Catalogues amount to a couple of 

 hundred volumes. In fact, I know that there 

 exist in the Library the Acta Fratrvm Polononim 

 (the discij)les of Socinus), a work unknown even 

 to Lellewel, but I am not aware how to find it 



