The Sir Symonds D’EWES of that generation was the grandson of the diligent antiquary and politician who has been heretofore mentioned in this volume as the close friend of Sir Robert COTTON, and to whose labours, in a twofold capacity, students of our history owe a far better acquaintance with parliamentary debates, in the times both of ELIZABETH and of CROMWELL, than, but for him, would have been possible. The grandson of the first Sir Symonds had inherited from his ancestor a valuable library; but its possession had no great charm for him. He was willing to part with it, for due consideration, yet aware that he was under an obligation, moral if not legal, not so to part with his books as to lead to their dispersion. On that head, the original collector had thus expressed himself in his last Will:—‘I bequeath to Adrian D’EWES, my young son yet lying in the cradle, or to any other of my sons, hereafter to be born, who shall prove my heir (if God shall vouchsafe unto me a masculine heir by whom my surname and male line may be continued in the ages to come), my precious library, in which I have stored up, for divers years past, with great care, cost, and industry, divers originals and autographs, ... and such [books] as are unprinted; and it is my inviolable injunction and behest that he keep it entire, and not sell, divide, or dissipate it. Neither would I have it locked up from furthering the public good, the advancing of which I have always endeavoured; but that all lovers of learning, of known virtue and integrity, might have access to it at reasonable times, so that they did give sufficient security to restore safely any original or autograph ... borrowed out of the same, ... without blotting, erasing, or defraying it. But if God hath decreed now at last to add an end to my family in the male line, His most holy and just will be done!’ In that case, the testator proceeds to declare, it is his desire that the library should pass to his daughter and her heirs, on like conditions as to its perpetual preservation, so ‘that not only all lovers of learning ... may have access to it at seasonable times, but also that all collections which concern mine own family, or my wife’s, may freely be lent ... to members thereof,’ &c. [Sidenote: D’Ewes, _Autobiography_, in MS. Harl. (B. M.)] Then the testator adds—in relation to the last-named clause—an averment that he had ‘only sought after the very truth, as well in these things as in all other my elucubrations, whilst I searched amongst the King’s records or public offices.’ [Sidenote: WANLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE ACQUISITION OF THE D’EWES LIBRARY.]