MSS.

Some historic manufcripts, however, were without Historic doubt locked up amongst family writings, where they preferved. remained unregarded and useless for centuries; the poffeffors, if they knew they had fuch papers, confidering them as of no confequence; and if ever they were afterwards looked at, the examiner perhaps caft them afide as illegible.

ancient

Would the ancient nobility and gentry of and gentry of this Search for kingdom, and the present owners of manors and estates, writings. formerly belonging to religious focieties, or to old and refpectable families, permit their wormeaten writings and mouldy papers to be carefully perused by those whose education and pursuits have given them knowledge and taste for such an undertaking, it might not even now be too late to discover, and bring to light, many curious and valuable manuscripts, which probably would afford us fresh information in various arts and fciences, confirm doubtful Facts, and fix on fure foundations many events in our own history, even from very early periods down to the Reformation, now unknown or uncertain.

These letters, which are here prefented to the public, Thefe letters are a convincing proof, both of the prefervation of fuch an example. papers, and of the neglect which attends them; for though they were in the poffeffion of different antiquaries for above a century, they have lain by totally neglected, and perhaps forgotten.

It is a truth greatly to be lamented, that almost all Faults of general general collectors, though eager in their purfuit, are fickle collectors. in the object; whereas would they confine their attention

VOL. I.

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to

Foregoing remarks exemplified

Prefent age has learned

writers.

to one particular, and having laid in a fufficient fund of materials, then ufe the fame industry in digefting and arranging those materials, as they before employed merely in collecting them, and when thus put into order, give them to the public, how much good would they do to fociety, and to themselves! inftead of which, as foon as a fufficient quantity of matter is amassed for their originally intended plan, the whole is laid aside, and a new pursuit takes place : thus, wandering from one fpecies of collecting to another, their life wears away; they become old men, and pass to their grave without having benefited their contemporaries by any useful or curious publication; too often, it is to be feared, with ruined, or at leaft wafted eftates; their collections are then difperfed by public fale, perhaps for the fame purpose as before collected-to be looked at, laid afide, and forgotten!

These observations occurred from the editor's particular acquaintance with a great collector, poffeffed of found abilities, and whofe judgment in points of antiquarian knowledge was extenfive; who frequently made refolutions, that next year he would digeft his various collections, and form fome of them for public inspection: but he wanted perfeverance; he grew old; he died in his chair, at the advanced age of feventy-four years, without ever having completed any literary undertaking, and in circumstances from which his children felt the effects of his indifcretions.

To the honour, however, of the present age, we have feveral learned antiquaries and collectors, who have already

pub

published, and are still preparing for the prefs, works, which now place them amongst the first writers, and will convey their names to future ages with due credit to themfelves, and honour to their country.

Would collectors in general follow fuch examples, and They should each contribute his flock to the public fund of learning, to others. how many ufeful and ingenious publications would come abroad! the rage for collections, acquired with loss of fortune, would be in a great measure stopped; and those already prudently made, would remain in the respective families of the original collector, as marks of his taste and learning.

What a pleasure would it be to a perfon fond of exa-Reflections mining into the events of paft ages, to be able to converse on paft ages. with those who lived in the times, and were present at the events themselves! As this cannot be, will not the next degree of pleasure arise from reading what those very perfons, at the very time when the events happened, wrote to their contemporaries?

This may here be done, by a perufal of their letters; of the letters which they really wrote, and not fuch as are too often delivered down to us by hiftorians, where the fentiments, the ftyle, and the language, are generally those of the hiftorian himself, and not of the person; few

Letters of

remote ages

fure

real and original letters of remote times, being now in existence.

Even the private letters of private men, who have lived afford plea in ages paft, afford much pleasure to a ftudious and contemplative mind; we seem to see the man, to converse with him, and in his familiar effufions to penetrate his thoughts.

to every reader:

particularly to the antiquary and hiftorian.

Dark period of history.

But when the private letters of great men, men of eminence in the ft te, whofe lives and actions fill the page of history, are preserved and brought to light, how enthusiastically do the antiquary and historian pore over their contents; and examine with eager curiosity the ftyle, the language, and even the hand-writing; deducing, from all, inferences favourable to learning and history, in tracing the gleams of taste and genius, in elucidating events already imperfectly known, and in discovering others hitherto unknown.

Will not every reader receive greater pleasure from the fpeeches of princes, warriors, and statesmen, in our great Shakspeare's Drama, when he has seen their hand-writing, when he has perused their letters, when he has only not converfed with the men themselves?

Will not the antiquary and hiftorian become, in their own minds, almost contemporaries with York and Canterbury, Salisbury and Warwick, Buckingham and Norfolk, Suffolk and Hastings?

From the reign of king Stephen, there is no period fo flightly illuftrated by records, and authentic documents, as the turbulent and diftracted years, which paffed from

the

.

the latter part of Henry VIs'. reign, to the acceffion of Henry VII. almost the only registers preserved were written in characters of blood: battles and executions alone mark out to the historian his path, from one scene of confusion to another; and his most trusty guide is the genealogist, who, recording the years in which fuch or fuch of the great nobility were beheaded, afcertains the dates of the various revolutions.

Whatever, therefore, tends to throw a gleam of light on fo clouded an horizon, must be a grateful present to those, who would investigate their country's story; and when we have despaired of recovering any important documents of those disastrous times, the flightest relics of so obscure a season may seem almost as precious as the better preserved remains of periods fully illuftrated.

The blasted stock of a tree, a heap of ftones, is a welcome land-mark to a traveller, who fearches for a road amidst a

level and dreary desert.

private let

ters.

In a dearth of information, how grateful a treasure Collection of must we efteem a collection of private letters, written during the combustions occafioned by the quarrels between the two Rofes!

Any confidential effusions between relations and friends, in those fad and dangerous moments, when conveyance was difficult, when families were divided into different factions, and difaffection to the triumphant party was perilous, were little likely to be hazarded, and less likely to be preferved.

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