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LITERARY ANECDOTES

OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ONE of the earliest publications from Mr. Bowyer's press in the year 1732 was,

"Marmorum, Arundellianorum, Seldenianorum, aliorumque, Academiæ Oxoniensi donatorum*; unà

* "The antient marbles that form the most authentic history of Greece, collected by Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, and given to this University by his grandson Henry Duke of Norfolk, were first illustrated with a learned comment, the year after they came over, by Selden.-Philip Earl of Arundel, father of the noble collector, was the greatest Antiquary in Europe, except Ferdinand de Medici. Persecuted by the intrigues of a jealous Court, to which his own father the great Duke of Norfolk had fallen a victim, he was preparing to retire from England, and indulge his only ambition, the study of polite literature. Elizabeth remanded him, and, not content with a heavy fine and imprisonment, had him tried for treason. Being unable to convict him of any thing but Popery, she left him to languish nine years in prison, where he sunk under her displeasure and his own austerity. Among the celebrated Libraries of the age in this kingdom his was the completest in the antiquarian way. His son Thomas inherited his spirit and taste, with better fortune. Too much of a patriot to be esteemed by James, too little of a parasite to cringe to his favourite, too honest and disinterested to have many friends in their parliament, he could not attain to the seals after the great Bacon, who drew his last breath in his house at Highgate. In Charles's first parliament he was instrumental to the establishment of the fundamental privileges of the peerage; and the King seems to have observed his father's conVOL. II.

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