TREASURES OF SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 23

TREASURES OF SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES

The Society of Antiquaries possesses one of the few remaining copies of ‘ The Boke of St. Albans,’ written by Juliana Berners and printed at St. Albans in 14R7. This remarkable work consists of four treatises on Hawking, Hunting, and the Lynage of Coote Arniiris and the Blasynge of Armis (which de'al with heraldry). There is, too, a copy of the Nuremberg ‘ Chronicle,’ a history of the world printed at Nuremberg in 1403 and embellished, ns the phrase goes, with 2,000 amusing wood cuts. One of these, which has a certain topicality, is a view of the city of Prague—such a view ns few Czechs would recognise to-day. The library is rich in manuscripts. Here, for example, is the Winton Domesday, a survey of the . city of Winchester, dated 1120, in the original stamped leather binding. Here is the Lindsey Psalter, written between 1220 and 1222 for Robert of Lindsey, Abbot of Peterborough. And here, too, are some wardrobe accounts, or household expenses, of Edward I. and Edward 11., covering many pages of small medieval script. An impressive volume in l the Antiquaries’ great collection is one which contains the beautifully written Inventory of the Jewel House, taken at the death of King Henry VIII. and beginning, “ First, the King’s Crowne of gold . . .” The crown, incidentally weighed four score and ISoz. The library has some surprising contrasts. Not far from the Jewel House inventory you will find a leather-bound manuscript volume of a tour in Nithdale. A. Mr Robert Riddell made the tour during the eighteenth century, and, being full of zeal, wrote a careful account, illustrated it with watercolour sketches, and read it to the Societv of Antiquaries. What gives to the book its lasting interest is the manuscript poem by Robert Burns written on one of the leaves. Apparently Riddell had persuaded Burns to copy the lines u written in a window of the Hermitage of FriarsCarse.” They form the poem beginning:—

Thou whom chance may hither lead, Re thou clad in russet weed, Be thou deckt in silken stole, Crave these counsels on thy soul , ,