The manuscripts of the Revd. W.D. Macray

The Manuscripts of Rev. William Dunn Macray, M.A., F.S.A., Ducklington Rectory, Witney.

• In an octavo vellum volume, in date of about 1380–1400, containing various scientific and astronomical tracts, there is an alphabetical table (headed "Sinonima herbarum") of the Latin names of herbs with their English equivalents, which fills 13 pages. It is mentioned at p. lxxxvii of the preface to vol. I. of Mr. Cockayne's Leechdoms, &c. (Rolls' Series, 1864), and occasionally referred to in the notes upon the text of that work.
• A small folio, towards the end of the 15th cent., containing, on eleven paper leaves, a short French Chronicle of the wars of the English in France in 1414–1429. Beg. "En lan mil cccc. et xiiii. au mois daoust " au commencement arriva le Roy dangleterre a toute sa puissance " en Normandie, et prist port empres Harrefleu et assiegea Harrefleu " et les bones viiles dentour." Formerly in Archbishop Tenison's Library in Westmnister, which library was sold by auction under the authority of the Charity Commissioners in 1861. It has marginal notes made by some French scholar at a recent date, who has noted at the beginning that it is a "Cronique tres interessante." It belonged in the 16th cent. to one "George Neudigate." Its original vellum cover is the will of Marguerite d'Aubigné, widow of Jehan Royrand, sieur de la Claye et de Bretignolles, dated 20 Jan. 1512.
• 8vo on paper. "Ritus jejunii Judaici, cum præcipuis cir- " cumstantiis, ex Mishneh Torah desumpti," by Richard Brett, of Lincoln College, Oxford. A beautifully written little book, in Hebrew and Latin, which is specially interesting from its dedication, under date of Sept. 2, 1605, to the Lady Arabella ("Angabellæ") Stuart; from which it appears that the book was sent to her at Windsor as a memento of her visit to Oxford with James I. in that year.
• A 4to volume of sermons for several saints' days, in the hand-writing (very closely written) of George Wishart, chaplain to the Marq. of Montrose, and afterwards bishop of Edinburgh. The authorship is ascertained from internal evidence. The sermons were preached in a town during its siege (which had lasted for some months) by Parliamentary forces, by one who had been recently appointed to a lectureship. The town is shown by several allusions to be Newcastle, which was besieged by the Scottish army, in league with the English, from Feb. to Oct. 1644; and we learn from Brand's History of Newcastle that Wishart was appointed lecturer at St. Nicholas, 12 May, 1643. Several incidents which occurred during the siege are mentioned; e.g., a narrow escape of having the powder-magazine blown up, the passing of a shot between the Mayor (elected for the third time, Sir John Marley) and his sword-bearer, and the slaying of "a whole crew of enemies" by a shot fired from Westgate. In a sermon on St. Matthew's day the writer says that he had written some treatise on the question of the original language of St. Matthew's Gospel. This is not known to be extant, but may possibly exist, like these sermons, in some anonymous manuscript. This volume was formerly in the library of George Chalmers, and was described in his Sale Catalogue as containing "sermons of the latter "part of the sixteenth century."

• A curious volume (in quarto, pp. 136) of poems written by a lady who had gone into exile in France as one of the attendants on the Queen of James II. They have no poetical merit, but are interesting as relating chiefly to the Revolution, and to the events of the years following, up to the death of James II. in 1701. The authoress had published a small volume in 1688, from which some of the pieces are taken; but this has not been traced. She was of a Leicestershire family; her father and uncle fought for Charles I., and their gardener, "a tippling swain," fought at Edgehill, Naseby, &c.; she had a brother a physician who was dead; another brother and an uncle appear to have been killed in fighting against Monmouth; two Colonels Connock are mentioned, who were respectively her uncle and cousin by her mother's side. She describes the miseries suffered by the people at St. Germain's, and especially by the English exiles, from pestilence and famine in 1694 and 1695. When she wrote this volume she was becoming blind. She was a convert from the Church of England to that of Rome, and writes with the coarsest bitterness against the Church she had forsaken. The volume is dedicated to the Prince of Wales, and has many verses relating to persons in the exiled Court, with pieces on the relief of Londonderry, the battle of the Boyne, &c.