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The exhibits and miniatures of which are found in this section, are designed to assist the serious student and reader in following the path of the Authorship Controvesy that has been so laboriously persued by many authors and researchers during its commence.

These exhibits have been placed here as not to interrupt the flow of reading in the Baconian Dictionary sections, being a finding list of Bacon’s works, his history, his thoughts and his aims, which are a subject of study and discussion.

Dee’s Library

In 1842, Halliwell-Phillipps edited for the Camden Society a volume entitled The Diary of Dr. John Dee. To the diary itself, which extends with considerable gaps over the years (1554) 1577 to 1601, was appended the catalogue of Dee’s manuscript library, taken from an autograph MS., in the Gale Collection at Trinity College, Cambridge. Dee was not merely an alchemist and spiritualist, but a really learned man, and one who had done his best, by petitions and otherwise, to stimulate interest in the rescuing of manuscripts from the dissolved monastic libraries and to induce the sovereign to establish a central national collection of them.

John Dee was born in 1527 and when the diary begins, we find him living at Mortlake. In 1583 (on September 21) he left England, with the impostor Edward Kelly, for Bohemia and Poland, whence, after a most unsuccessful and detrimental sojourn, he returned to Mortlake in December 1589. In 1595 he was made Warden of Manchester College. In 1604 he came back to Mortlake and in 1608 he died there in poverty.

In 1583, he started for the Continent. As soon as he was fairly off, a raid was made upon his house by the less respectable residents in Mortlake (among the better sort he seems to have been popular and well-liked), his books were, to some extent, dispersed, and valuable scientific instruments broken or stolen. On his return six years later he was able to recover, it is said, three fourths of the books, but the apparatus was gone forever. The cause of the raid was no doubt Dee’s dealings with spirits, which not unnaturally earned for him the reputation of being a sorcerer. 1 The catalogue of 1583, then, cannot be regarded as a full record of the manuscripts which Dee possessed at the time of his death. Some volumes are entered in it which were lost or destroyed soon after it was made, and, on the other hand, during the twenty-five years that elapsed between its making and Dee’s death, it is not to be supposed that he did not make additions to his collection.

There are, in fact, volumes in existence which contain his name, with dates of acquisition long subsequent to 1583. He may have parted with some of his treasures under stress of poverty during the years immediately preceding his death: his biographers say that he did, but the fact is not of great importance as regards any investigation. It is of more interest to learn what happened to the library when he was gone. Upon this some light is thrown by Archbishop Ussher’s correspondence. Sir Henry Bourgchier, writing to Ussher in 1624 (sixteen years after Dee’s death), speaks of Dee’s library, which “hath been long litigious, and by that means unsold” 2 In another letter on March 23, 1624 he says “Vettius Valens in Greek is Mr. Selden’s now, but was sometimes Dr. Dee’s, but the rest of his books will be had very shortly, as many as are worth the having.” In October 1626 Dr. Bainbridge, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, writes to the Archbishop: “I am bold to enter your Grace’s bibliotheca with the humble request that I may have the names of such mathematical books as were Dee’s.” He adds that he had seen in London a list of bare tides of Dee’s books, and had been to Sir Robert Cotton, but his books were not yet ordered in a catalogue.

From these passages can be gathered that litigation (consequent most likely on Dee’s debts) had prevented the dispersion of the library until 1625 (probably February 1626), and that, when it was finally sold, Ussher and Cotton had made considerable purchases. Selden, we see, also bought at least one book. We find Dee books too in the collections of Digby, Ashmole, Savile (Sir Henry, who died before Dee) but there is a yet more important purchaser. The number of volumes from this source which have made their way to the Corpus Christi College in Oxford cannot fail to arrest attention. It constitutes by far the largest portion of Dee’s library that is to be found in any one place. A document exists, 3 which shows that a number of Dee’s MSS., were offered for sale to the College by Brian Twyne, the famous Oxford antiquary, who was a Fellow of the Society. The purchase was declined, but the books were ultimately bequeathed by Twyne to the College. Twyne’s special reason for buying the books may be rested upon John Twyne, his grandfather, schoolmaster, mayor, and antiquarian of Canterbury, who had procured a good many MSS., from the dissolved library of St. Augustine’s Abbey there, and these had afterwards come into Dee’s hands. Brian Twyne knew this, and desired to recover and keep together his grandfather’s collections. Certain it is that many of the Dee-Twyne-Corpus Christi books are from St. Augustine’s, less certain that they were owned by John Twyne. Brian Twyne, by the way, did not succeed in securing all the St. Augustine’s MSS., that Dee owned. The most important one, the catalogue of the Abbey library, went to Ussher at Dublin.

We find stray volumes making their way into the libraries of Pepys, Gale, Harley, and Sloane (one at Lambeth must have been bought by Bancroft before Dee’s death). One can be found in a foreign library, and that belonged to Kenelm Digby. Two others, doubtful, are among Queen Christina’s MSS., in the Vatican. There is more however, to be said about the growth of the collection. There are two lists of Dee’s MSS., earlier than 1583: one is in a small notebook of his at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (MS. 191). This book contains:

• List of MSS., owned by Dee in 1556.
• List of MSS., borrowed by him from Peterhouse, Cambridge, to be returned in 1558.
• Contents of a MS., borrowed from Dr. Hathar.
• Contents of a MS., borrowed from Queen’s College, Oxford.
• List of MSS., bought by him from John Leland’s library in 1556, and from other sources.
• Alchemical books read by him in 1556.

The other list is contained in the British Museum MS., Add. 35213 (formerly Phillipps 10701). It is the volume from which Mr. Gilson printed the very interesting catalogue of the MSS., of Long Harry Savile of Banke (d.1617). On ff. 1–4 it contains a roughly-written list of Dee’s books, written and printed, in his autograph, the MSS., being entered on ff. 3b and 4. This second list cannot be far removed from the first list in date. The first list is, in any case, of greater importance, since it shows the sources whence some of Dee’s MSS., came. Halliwell-Phillipps gave identifications (not always correct) of twenty-two MSS., and the means of identification vary. Sometimes we have Dee’s signature in full; but often we have to depend on subsidiary marks: autograph notes are not uncommon; other books bear an A or the astrological sign of Jupiter thrice repeated or a mark like, a small ladder. Sometimes names of owners, like P. Saunders, whom we know to have been Dee’s associates, combine with the contents of a MS., to ensure an identification. Often the contents of the MS., are the only guide. One feature, it is true, Halliwell-Phillipps has omitted to notice, with few exceptions the entries of MSS., up to No. 67 have a T prefixed to them. The others have in most cases the letters Fr. These same letters, T and Fr., are prefixed to the entries of printed books, which of course fill the greatest part of the MS. Could “Fr.” well stand for Francis?