sought to make amends with a richly ornamented Crucifix, and images of our Lady and St. John which she clad in gold ' and silver and offered them and many other ornaments to 'the church.' Did not M. Dorez pronounce that the covers of her Gospels are of continental workmanship, it would be pleasant to think that they had been executed in England, like their contents, and originally intended for St. Cuthbert. The cover of the later of the Missals is also a reliquary, with the names engraved of the powerful saints whose bones lie within, Our Lady herself, and also SS. Bartholomew, Thomas, Peter, Paul, James, George, and Oswald. These four manuscripts had been looted from the castle of Fulda (where was preserved the library of Weingarten) by General Thiebault in 1806. He admits in his memoirs that, while sending some to the Imperial Library at Paris, and others to the Library of Fulda, he kept several for himself. In October 1818 one Mr. Phillipps, an auctioneer of London, informs Mr. Coke that he has four rich manuscripts to dispose of at a price of £200. They come from M. Delahante, a dealer in Paris. Mr. Roger Wilbraham is sent to inspect them, and he reports in a few days: The MSS. are more curious for their 'bindings than their contents, these bindings being of em'bossed silver, one of them apparently of gold, but possibly only of gilt metal. They are enriched with precious stones 'which are probably of little value.' My friend Mr. Douce, who was Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, writes: The covers of 3 of the MSS. are the most interesting parts of them, the 4th is curious for its antiquity, about the '9th or 10th century. MSS. with such covers are extremely 'rare everywhere, nor do I remember to have seen any in 'this country. They have not more than 8 or 10 in the Royal Library at Paris.' In a second letter, Mr. Douce proceeds: The MSS. are doubtless worthy of being placed in any collection. . . . The paintings are rude and of little

6

value, as being of common subjects. If I was an affluent collecter, I should not scruple to offer 100 or 150 Guineas ' for them.' It is as well for Holkham that Nollekens had not at that time left his fortune to Mr. Douce. Mr. Coke apparently boggles at the price demanded. It is but two years since he spent £2,000 for pictures and books at Roscoe's sale, and bills are coming in from Jones the book-binder. So Wilbraham writes a fortnight later, that he will try and bring down Mr. Phillipps to the terms mentioned by Mr. Coke. He will be very wily, but he urges Mr. Coke to secure the manuscripts, for he has just heard that Mr. Heber is in town, a dangerous rival.' Sir Francis Palgrave is sent to inspect and he reports enthusiastically but adds: 'I did not 'make any notes on the spot, lest Mr. Auctioneer should 'thereby be induced to set a higher value on his treasures.' On 20 October Mr. Wilbraham reports to Mr. Coke: 'Phillipps thinks £200 ridiculously too high, an idea which 'I encouraged very much, and he promised to write to the 'owner at Paris to urge him to make a further reduction of 'his demands. Mr. Phillipps was very anxious to send them 'down to you, which I affected to discourage very much, ' though, in fact, I was more anxious for that measure than ' he was, lest they should be seen by Mr. Grenville, Mr. Heber, 'or the Marquis of Douglas, who would snap them up even at the high price now asked. Mr. P. told me he had advanced £100 upon the MSS. and the duties, carriage, etc. come to £15 more. I pretended to think he would have 'some difficulty in covering his own advance and expenses, 'which he himself seemed to fear, and he was pleased at my saying that the most I could advise you to give would be 100 Guineas. The consequence is that they will be sent 'down to you by the Fakenham coach to-morrow, and it may be advisable that they should leave Holkham no more.' They have left Holkham only once, when they were sent to

Mr. Roscoe for purposes of his Catalogue, and travelledJudith's precious volumes-by Goldby's waggon from the George Inn, Smithfield'. Mr. Dibdin saw them as they passed through London, and declared that, had he met with them abroad, he would have given £500 for them for Lord Spencer.

Since that year, so eventful for the Holkham Library, when Mr. Douce belittled Early English work as rude and common, and the inconceivable haggling went on over the price-it would seem as if the Parisian dealer had consented to take 100 guineas-no more manuscripts have been added to the collections made by Edward, by Thomas, and by Thomas William Coke, except a volume of household accounts kept by Chief Justice Coke's first wife, Bridget Paston, in 1597. This was bought for £50 at Mr. Ord's sale in 1829: £50! the price paid a few years previously for the fine copy of the Mainz Psalter. Half a dozen overlooked by Roscoe are at this moment being repaired and bound, and will soon rejoin their ancient companions on the shelves. The memory of the three collectors is kept green at Holkham, that of the chief collector especially so, perhaps, in winter, from one rather curious circumstance. The Holkham farms used to be held by a tenure which he, Thomas Coke, must have highly approved the payment at Christmas time of two fine fighting-cocks to the Lord of the Manor. In humaner days this has been commuted for a good fat turkey.

THE EARLY CAREER OF EDWARD RABAN, AFTERWARDS FIRST PRINTER AT ABERDEEN

I

BY E. GORDON DUFF 1

N 1886 Mr. Edmond published his very careful and valuable book on the Aberdeen printers. As a bibliography it has always been considered a model piece of work, and its excellence has always appeared the more noteworthy to those who understood the very hampering conditions under which it was conceived and carried out.

As inevitably happens, no sooner was the book published than new and important sources of information came to light, and Mr. Edmond in 1888 contributed to Scottish Notes and Queries a few short articles on the later discoveries. These were afterwards reprinted in a small pamphlet entitled Last Notes on the Aberdeen Printers, issued in the very limited edition for private circulation of fifty-six copies.

At that time Mr. Edmond had moved from Aberdeen to London, and his time was fully occupied with his duties as a librarian at Sion College, and with outside literary work; so that, being far removed from all the original sources of information and in an entirely changed atmosphere, he seems never to have followed up the various clues which the newly discovered books afforded, or to have worked further at Raban's books. That he would have done so when opportunity offered can hardly be doubted, but unfortunately that opportunity never came. In the present paper I have made full use of his later discoveries, and from these, together with other new material, have endeavoured to build up the story of the adventurous early life of the Aberdeen printer and 1 Read before the Bibliographical Society, 19 December 1921.