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Cjje Jtterarg $xmnm of Jongleat. 



By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A.* 



WAS invited some time ago by your Secretary to contribute 

 a paper for your meeting' at Frome, and with the invitation 

 he suggested a subject on which I was to write. It was a very good 

 one, but in one respect too good, inasmuch as it made it necessary 

 for me to compress into a very small compass and to put into such 

 form as should not weary an audience, halting for half-an-hour on an 

 out-door excursion, material which, properly developed, would really 

 fill a volume and that not a small one. 1 The subject was " The 

 Literary Treasures of Longleat." 



These treasures are of two kinds — printed, or in MS. The printed 

 treasures fill two very large rooms : that which is called the Lower 

 or modern library on the ground floor ; and the upper or Old library 

 at the top of the house. The Lower library contains a very fine 

 collection of books, formed chiefly by the grandfather of the present 

 owner of Longleat. There are Greek and Latin classical authors of 

 superb editions ; also many of our rarest county histories, all the 

 four earliest editions of Shakespeare, 2 and a vast number of "rarities'" 



• Eead in the Hall, at Longleat, before the Somersetshire Archaeological Society, on Thursday, 

 12th August, 1875. 



1 A few trifling additions have been made to the paper since it was read, but 

 even in its present form, the reader will kindly please to understand that it 

 presents a very meagre account of the contents of Longleat Library and Muni- 

 ment Room. 



2 On the fly-leaf, at the end of the first edition of Shakespeare, in the library 

 at Longleat, are the following verses, in an old hand : — 



" An Epitaph upon Shakespeare. 



Kenouned Chaucer, Lie a thought more nigh 

 To rare Beaumond : and Learned Beaumond Lie 

 A little neerer Spencer, to make roome 

 For Shakespeare in your threefold fourefold tombe. 

 To lie all foure in one bed make a shift, 

 For, untill doomsday hardly will a fift 

 Betwixt this day and that [by Fate] bee slaine, 

 or whom your Curtaines need be drawn againe ; 



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