[376] A touching letter, in English, dated June 28, which Laud forwarded, together with this formal document, is printed in vol. ii. of Wharton's edition of his _Remains_, p. 217. In the same volume are included copies of all the letters which accompanied the Archbishop's gifts to the Library. The following reply (_ibid._ p. 177) to a notification from the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Frewen, of the visitation of his collection, and of the giving special charge to the Librarian respecting their safe custody, seeing that they stood unchained, and in a place frequented by strangers who came to see them, should have been noticed in its due place in the _Annals_. 'SIR, 'I thank you heartily for your care of my books. And I beseech you that the Library-keeper may be very watchful to look to them since they stand unchain'd. And I would to God the place in the Library for them were once ready, that they might be set up safe, and chained as the other books are; and yet then, if there be not care taken, you may have some of the best and choisest tractats cut out of the covers and purloin'd, as hath been done in some other libraries.' 'W. CANT. 'Lambeth, Nov, 15, 1639.' [377] Pedigree of the family of Lane, p. 392 of the _Boscobel Tracts_, edited by J. Hughes, A.M., second edition, 1857. [378] No. 7762 in the catalogue of the South Kensington Museum, in 1862. [379] Mr. John Gough Nichols, in his collection of the _Literary Remains of Edw. VI_, printed by the Roxburghe Club in 1857 (vol. i. pp. cccxxiii-cccxxv), describes these volumes at length, and assigns the whole of both of them to the pen of the King, but some part of the first volume corresponds much more closely with the usual style of Elizabeth's early writing, and a memorandum by Hearne testifies that it was regarded in his day as having been written by her. [380] 'The poem of Joseph and Zuleikha, in the Public Library at Oxford, is perhaps the most beautiful MS. in the world; the margins of every page are gilt and adorned with garlands of flowers, and the handwriting is elegant to the highest degree.' (I. Disraeli's _Romances_, 1799, p. 52.) [381] This book, which has appeared since the earlier sheets of this volume were printed, contains descriptions, with facsimiles, of the Leofric, Dunstan, and Mac-Regol MSS. and of the Rawlinsonian Life of St. Columba, besides those noticed above. [382] Cædmon was a monk of St. Hilda's Abbey, and died in 680. Bede (_Eccl. Hist._ iv. 24) tells the well-known story of his being miraculously enabled by a vision to compose vernacular verses, when previously he had been entirely unable to compose or sing a line, so that when present as a layman at feasts where, on the principle of 'no song, no supper,' every one was expected to raise a lay in his turn, he was wont, when he saw the harp coming round, to rise from his place and go home supperless.