LIFE OF WALTON. 



reading Voyages, Travels, and Descriptions of coun* 

 tries. Histories, and the Book of Martyrs. Moreover, 

 they had attained to great proficiency in the art of 

 Binding and Gilding Books ; and with singular in- 

 genuity and industry, compiled a kind of Harmony 

 of sundry parts of the holy scriptures, by cutting out 

 from different copies the parallel passages, pasting 

 them in their order on blank paper, and afterwards 

 binding them with suitable cuts in a volume*. And 

 that their benevolence might be as diffusive as possible, 

 ~ a School was kept, in the house, for Grammar, 

 Arithmetick, and Musick ; to which all the neighbouring 

 parents had permission to send their children. 



It is true, that this society excited a notion in some, 

 that it was little better than a Popish seminary ; and 

 there are extant, in the Preface to Peter Langtoft's 

 Chronicle, edit. Hearne, two tracts, in which it is 

 termed a reputed nunnery : but upon a visit made 



* They [made three such books : one they presented to king Charle 

 the First, another to Charles the Second, one of which is now in the 

 library of St, John's college, Oxford; a third was in the custody of the 

 family in 1740. 



This is the account which the Authors of the Supplement to the Bio- 

 frapbia JBritannita, wherever they got it, give of these books [Art. 

 MAPLETOFT]; but one, more accurate, is to be found at the end of 

 Hearne's Gail ^indicia, which makes them seven in number : the third 

 in order, was by the compilers called "The whole law of God;" but 

 Hearne, in loc. tit. has given the title in terms that more fully declare 

 its contents. The book consists of sundry chapters of the Penta- 

 teuch, and other parts of the Bible of the last translation, pasted down on 

 leaves equal in size to the largest Atlas ; together with such commen- 

 taries thereon as they could find in the printed works of Mr. Farrar's 

 friend, Dr. Tho. [Jackson, and other expositors: to these w*re added 

 and pasted in the margin, from a small impression of the New Testament 

 all such passages in St. Paul's Epistles as tend to the explanation of the 

 law, and particularly of the types : and for the better illustration of the 

 whole, were inserted cuts taken out of printed books, and otherwise 

 collected, referring to the subject matter of the book amounting in num- 

 ber to upwards of twelve hundred. This stupendous work was, in the 

 month of March; 1776, purchased by the Rev. Mr. Bourdillon, minister 

 of th French protestant church in Spitalfields, at a sale of the library of 

 the Rev. Mr. De Missy ; and is HOW, January, 1784, in his possession. 

 At the same auction, was also sold to a bookseller, for four guineas, an- 

 other book of the like kind, compiled by the same persons, entitled, 

 " Actions, Doctrines, and other Passages touching our Blessed Lord and 

 Saviour Jesus Christ." The title at length, of this also, is given by 

 Jiearne in itc, tit. 



