TREASURE HOARD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 302, 21 December 1935, Page 10

TREASURE HOARD.

BOOKS AND COINS.

RARE 1582 BIBLE. CROMWEIX PROCLAMATION. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, November 30. Eleven railway -wagons -were needed to bring part of a remarkable collection of books, MSS., pictures, and curios to Kendal, following a business deal in the English Lake District. The collection was bought from the executors of a Darlington recluse, Mr. J. C. Brigham, a Quaker. Thero are rare treasures among the vast collection, of which the books alone number 500,000, and weigh IGO tons. One of the most valuable items is an early edition of the Douai Bible, which was first published in 1582.

Some of the other treasures are: — First editions of the works of Voltaire, Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott; a, Rembrandt etching, dated 1041; &

number of Saxton's 10th-century maps; a little satchel carried by Wordsworth on his mountain tramps in the Lake District; a Sickert drawing of Dieppe; a small portrait, believed to be the Duke of Monmouth; a water-colour portrait of Robert Burns; the original of a letter written to Lord Nelson by Sir Benjamin Hallowell-Carew, who was a captain under Nelson at the Siege of Cadiz; a quantity of Roman coins in good preservation; Oliver Cromwell's proclamation that lie had become "Lord High Protector," dated June 20, 10o7; a document dated 1471 signed by Pope Sixtus IV.; copies of Dickens'-works bearing the author's autograph: extracts from the private diaries of Richard Thornton, geographer with the Livingstone expedition. Accounts, kept in the 18th century by Lord Townshend's private secretary contain such items as: Chocolate, £13; pocket money for his lords»hi|H £21; straw in street during Lady Townshend's illness, £50. Included in the funeral expenses was an item of £30 for wine.