LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED, 323 



taining the pvirely fabulous cliaracter of Troy and its siege. My copy 

 of Yerstegan's "Restitution of Decayed Intelligence" was once 

 owned by Jacob Bryant. It was presented by bim at Eton, in 1802, 

 to G. H. Noebden, who bas recorded tbe fact on a fly-leaf. Mr. 

 Noebden was tbe autbor of a German Grammar, wbicb was keeping 

 its ground in a nintb edition in 1843, seventeen years after tbe death 

 of its autbor ; also of an English and German Dictionary, papers in 

 the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, and other works. Mr. 

 Noehden was chief superintendent of the department of Numismatics 

 in the British Musevim ; as also, after him, was Edward Hawkins, 

 who likewise once possessed Bryant's volume, and made a note of tbe 

 circumstance in 1827.-— Verstegan's book would be one quite after 

 the heart of Jacob Bryant, especially as seen in the type and small 

 quarto form of 1628. Tbe title-page reads thus: "A Restitution 

 of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities concerning the inost noble 

 and renowned English Nation. By tbe stvidie and travell of R. V. 

 Dedicated unto the King's Most Excellent Majestic, 1628." (This 

 would be James I., a kindred spirit.) Inserted in the title-page is a 

 carious copperplate engraving of tbe Tower of Babel, with numerous 

 groups of j)eople starting off from it in divers directions. Below this 

 is printed IsTationum Origo. Another temporary possessor, bearing 

 the name of " Francis Di^ake," bas inscribed bis name in black-letter, 

 half on one side of these words and baK on the other. The date, 

 1628, forbids tbe notion that this is an autograph of the famous Sir 

 Francis Drake. Sir Francis died in 1596. — Let the brief records of 

 successive owners to be seen often on the fly-leaves and title-pages of 

 old volumes be regarded with tenderness. Let them not be indis- 

 criminately erased. We may occasionally here meet angels unawares. 

 We may sti;mble unexpectedly on memorials of great and good men. 

 The moral efiect, too, of these casual records is to be considered. They 

 produce in us something of tbe feeling expressed by tbe poor monk in 

 presence of Leonardi da Yinci's fresco. We are the sliadows ; we 

 are the fleeting entities ; not tbe perishable leaflets before us. 



I now come to a volume which recalls tbe memory of Horace 

 Walpole, the dilettante lord of Strawberry Hill, and youngest son of 

 tbe Sir Robert Walpole, tbe statesman who held that every man had 

 his price. The copy of the Hesperides of Ferrarius which I possess 

 is from the library of Strawberry Hill. This is a folio work, printed 

 at Rome, in 1646, by Hermann Scheus. The following is its title : 



