DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51197#0848
820 CATALOGUE OF MANUSCRIPTS [lio6
On the verso of ii b at top is 1566 and on a scroll: M. W.
Darelli liber (the W. D. in monogram).
Details of Darell’s life are given by Stubbs, and he tells us that
the book is next found in Ireland as “the first volume in the MS.
Library of Sir James Ware, the great Irish historian and antiquary.”
He quotes the description of it from the catalogue of Ware’s books
printed at Dublin in 1648 from which I need only excerpt the
words “ Balaeus, ad quern olim pertinebat liber mens.”
Of Sir James Ware’s marks Stubbs says the MS. “contains on
the first leaf (f. ia) his peculiar numbering ‘No. 57 JP ’ and on the
second (ii a) ‘Vol. I. Liber Primus’ and (at bottom) the following
note : ‘ This booke though stiled Flores Historiarum is not the
same in many places wth Matthew of Westminsters Flores Histori-
arum, and seemes rather to have bin done by some of the Canons
of St Pauls in London, vid. an. 1315 and 1336.’”
While in Ware’s hands, Stubbs tells us, the MS. became asso-
ciated with another, which then belonged to Dudley Loftus and is
called the Exemplar Loftusianum. There are several marginal notes
of cent, xvii which refer to the Exemplar Loftusianum.
Ware died in 1666 : in 1686 most of his MSS. were bought by
Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, when Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. In the list of his MSS. {Catalogi MSS. Angl. et Hib.
1697) ours is no. 1 and the Loftus MS. no. 93. Clarendon’s MSS.
were brought to England in 1687 and deposited by him for safety
in Dr (afterwards Abp) Tenison’s Library at St Martin’s in the
Fields. There Wharton used it (before 1692): his extracts are in
the Wharton MS. at Lambeth, no. 590. After 1697 it was bought
with others by the Duke of Chandos. The Chandos Library was
broken up in 1746 and at the auction Richard Widmore, librarian to
the Dean and Chapter of Westminster (and an admirable antiquary),
bought our MS. for nineteen shillings (lot 2283)1.
“On Jan. 17, 1763 this Booke was purchased for five guineas by
Abp Seeker of the Revd. Mr Richard Widmore A.M., Librarian to the
Dean and Chapter of Westminster ” (note of Dr Ducarel in the MS.).
Widmore died in 1764. He had proposed to edit the Flores but
never did.
1 The Loftus MS. remained at St Martin's Library till it was dispersed in 1861 and
passed through Brown to Sir T. Phillipps: it was no. 15,732 in his library.
On the verso of ii b at top is 1566 and on a scroll: M. W.
Darelli liber (the W. D. in monogram).
Details of Darell’s life are given by Stubbs, and he tells us that
the book is next found in Ireland as “the first volume in the MS.
Library of Sir James Ware, the great Irish historian and antiquary.”
He quotes the description of it from the catalogue of Ware’s books
printed at Dublin in 1648 from which I need only excerpt the
words “ Balaeus, ad quern olim pertinebat liber mens.”
Of Sir James Ware’s marks Stubbs says the MS. “contains on
the first leaf (f. ia) his peculiar numbering ‘No. 57 JP ’ and on the
second (ii a) ‘Vol. I. Liber Primus’ and (at bottom) the following
note : ‘ This booke though stiled Flores Historiarum is not the
same in many places wth Matthew of Westminsters Flores Histori-
arum, and seemes rather to have bin done by some of the Canons
of St Pauls in London, vid. an. 1315 and 1336.’”
While in Ware’s hands, Stubbs tells us, the MS. became asso-
ciated with another, which then belonged to Dudley Loftus and is
called the Exemplar Loftusianum. There are several marginal notes
of cent, xvii which refer to the Exemplar Loftusianum.
Ware died in 1666 : in 1686 most of his MSS. were bought by
Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, when Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. In the list of his MSS. {Catalogi MSS. Angl. et Hib.
1697) ours is no. 1 and the Loftus MS. no. 93. Clarendon’s MSS.
were brought to England in 1687 and deposited by him for safety
in Dr (afterwards Abp) Tenison’s Library at St Martin’s in the
Fields. There Wharton used it (before 1692): his extracts are in
the Wharton MS. at Lambeth, no. 590. After 1697 it was bought
with others by the Duke of Chandos. The Chandos Library was
broken up in 1746 and at the auction Richard Widmore, librarian to
the Dean and Chapter of Westminster (and an admirable antiquary),
bought our MS. for nineteen shillings (lot 2283)1.
“On Jan. 17, 1763 this Booke was purchased for five guineas by
Abp Seeker of the Revd. Mr Richard Widmore A.M., Librarian to the
Dean and Chapter of Westminster ” (note of Dr Ducarel in the MS.).
Widmore died in 1764. He had proposed to edit the Flores but
never did.
1 The Loftus MS. remained at St Martin's Library till it was dispersed in 1861 and
passed through Brown to Sir T. Phillipps: it was no. 15,732 in his library.