15 1 16 The Literary Treasures of Longleat. 



a list of all the English residents in the town of Calais at that time, 

 when it belonged to England; the names of the men, women and 

 children, strangers and inhabitants, scattered through the twelve 

 wards of His Majesty's town ; with devices for its fortification, 

 victualling, wages of workmen, &c. Then a MS. copy of a very cele- 

 brated book called "Leicester's Commonwealth/'' a virulent attack by 

 Parsons the Jesuit (or some one else so called), upon the character 

 and life of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. This was secretly 

 circulated, but only in manuscript, for many years, Queen Elizabeth 

 and the Privy Council having published a protest against it as a 

 slanderous story. A greater pack of calumnies against a very eminent 

 man was perhaps never whipped up together, and unluckily Scott's 

 novel of Kenilworth, being built upon it (apparently without the 

 slightest previous inquiry into the truth or falsehood of its statements) 

 is not only full of the grossest historical errors, but has stamped 

 Dudley's name with a most unjust stigma, which may probably 

 never be effaced. There are also some volumes of very valuable 

 original letters, which came from Sheffield Castle when it was 

 dismantled. They are addressed to the Earl and Countess of 

 Shrewsbury, to whom the Castle belonged, and are written by the 

 great Statesmen and others of Queen Elizabeth's time, including 

 several from Her Majesty herself to the Earl. One begins " My 

 good old man.'" In one of these volumes are several letters from the 

 unfortunate Lady Arabella Stuart, the first cousin of King James I. 

 There is also in four large folio volumes a complete history of the 

 Talbot family (Earls of Shrewsbury), compiled entirely out of the 

 records at Sheffield Castle, the greater part of which are now deposi- 

 ted in the Herald's College, London. There are volumes of State 

 papers, ambassadors' correspondence, and the like. A great number 

 also of fantastic essays on alchemy and leech-craft ; strange pres- 

 criptions and antidotes ; astronomical tables and astrology ; discourses 

 on coinage, and on — that secret of secrets— the philosopher's stone ; 

 and of ancient law treatises a very large collection ; also many 

 records of Star Chamber proceedings, which are scarce and valuable. 

 There are several volumes of very old English and French poetry in 

 manuscript. A treatise on chivalry, called " Le Livre des Faiz 



