24 
I do not say that Sir Thomas is always correct. But, it 
must be allowed that many of his faults are slips on the part 
of the amanuensis, and would have been corrected had the 
book passed into print during the lifetime of the author. 
The collection of Widdrington presents one grave fault—a 
lack of order and method in the arrangement of the chapters. 
At first I suspected that the binder of the papers was in some 
measure answerable for this apparent confusion, so far as the 
order of the chapters is concerned ; but this is not the case. 
There are, at least, three other copies of this manuscript 
besides the one I have re-produced. 
1. As already stated, Drake found a copy of Analecta 
Eboraccnsia among the City Records. 
This MS. was a “ first draft,” without the author’s corrections. 
Drake says that this copy was endorsed as follows :— 
“ This is the first draft out of his own papers. A second, my Lord Fairfax 
has by his delivery, with this note in the front, viz., that in the last and perfect 
copy he has expunged divers things in both the former, and made some small 
additions as were defective in both. 
****** 
This is a more imperfect copy than that which Sir Thomas Widdrington 
delivered to my Lord Fairfax, for it evidently appears that my lord’s book was 
copied out of this. And yet without question this is much more compleat than 
the last, because in the last he has expunged (it is his own word, but very 
improper for so learned a work) divers things in the former.” 
This book is no longer among the Records of the City, but 
it, or a copy of it, is still extant in York. I regret that I have 
had extreme difficulty in viewing this manuscript : the owner, 
for good reasons of his own, being adverse to an examination 
of the volume. 
2. There is a copy of this history at Oxford in the Bodleian 
Library. 1 This has a bookplate of Thomas Beckwith, 2 painter, 
of York. The notes on this folio indicate, and the com¬ 
paratively recent character of the penmanship confirms, that 
this is a copy of the York manuscript just described. 3 
1 Gough, A Catalogue of Books relating to British Topography bequeathed to the 
Bodleian Library in 1797, p. 327. 
2 For an account of this gentleman, see Davies, Walks through York, p. 23S. 
3 This MS. also contains a list of the Mayors, copied from a MS. belonging 
to Dr. T. White, of York. 
