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CHARLES I. AND QUEEN, PROFILES.

CHARLES I. AND
QUEEN.

BEAUTIES OF
CHARLES II.

ARMS IN STAINED
GLASS.

SIR ORLANDO
BRIDGEMAN.

A BEAUTIFUL finall full-length on board, of a very young lady, in the drefs of the time of Vandyk. The figure is in height only 'feven inches. It is beautifully copied in oil, after that great mafter, probably by Ruffel, who is mentioned by the noble author of the Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii. P. 6.

Two beautiful half-length portraits of Charles I. and his beauteous queen, both profiles, finely painted. They are called Vandyk's, but I fufpect the artist. Charles in black, with one hand playing with his ribbon. Henrietta is in white, lightly holding her mantle.

THERE is befides the fame royal pair in one piece, three-quarters length, finall, evidently by Vandyk. The king is in a light red jacket, laced with filver; fhe in white, a favorite dress with her majefty, and prefenting to him a wreath of laurel. She appears pregnant. They are charmingly painted. The drefs of the king is the fame as the portrait I mentioned at p. 19, only mine is red, laced with gold.

DISPERSED in different rooms are twelve fmall heads of Charles II. and his beauties.

In the windows of the dining-room are several honorary memorials of alliances, or of great men, friends of the family, perpetuated by their coats of arms in ftained glass.

THE first is of Sir Orlando Bridgeman, a perfon eminent for his piety and charity, in the reign of Charles I. and his fucceffor. He was employed on the part of the king as one of the commiffioners at the treaty of Uxbridge, but fell under fome cenfure in fhewing a difpofition to make conceflions in church affairs,

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which were disagreeable to his majefty. Yet lord Clarendon, in his own Life, i. 176. attributes them more to a timidity of difpofition than to any ill defign. At the Reftoration he was fucceflively made chief baron of the exchequer, chief justice of the common pleas; and at length lord-keeper of the great feals. He ended his days in 1674.

THE arms of Cadifod ap Dyfnwal, quartered with feveral coats of arms of the great men in South Wales.

James earl of Derby, his arms quartered with those of his gallant Charlotte de la Tremouille.

SIR Thomas Savage, baronet, afterwards created viscount Savage, by James I.; and in 1639, on the death of his father-in-law lord Darcie, viscount Colchester, became earl Rivers.

ARMS of the Moftyns and Wynnes of Gwydir.

THE Grofvenours and Moftyns, in memory of the marriage of Sydney Moftyn, eldest daughter of the old Sir Roger Moftyn, with Sir Richard Grofvenour, of Eyton, baronet.

Moftyn and Whitelock, occafioned by the marriage of Sir Thomas Mostyn, of Kilken, knight, eldest fon of the old Sir Roger Moftyn, with Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir James Whitelock, knight, one of the puifne judges of the king's bench in 1620, and fifter to the famous hiftorian.

Francis earl of Bedford.

Thomas Egerton, baron Ellesmere. See his origin in my Tour in Wales, vol. i. p. 109.

John Williams, bishop of Lincoln. Thefe arms have, quartered with his own, thofe of the fee of Lincoln, which fhew that they must have been put up before he was removed to the fee of

York,

PORTH-MAWR

LIBRARY.

York, in 1641. Probably all the others were put up at the fame

time.

IN 1570 William Mofton (for till the time of his fon, Sir Thomas Moftyn, knight, that was the manner in which the name was fpelt) meditated a defign of building a new house. By what he executed it appears to have been planned in form of a quadrangle, the old houfe to have been rebuilt, and to have formed the centre, the other three fides to have been the offices. He finished only one, which from the great gate-way in the middle bears to this day the name of Porth mawr.

THE date is expreffed in this manner: ANNO MUNDI 5552. W. M. 1570. If I may compare fmall things with great, my houfe at Bychton was rebuilt, and my houfe at Merton Uchlan was also built in the fame year; fo it seems to have been an improving age.

Ar one end of this building is the library, a room most unworthy of the valuable collection of manufcripts and books it contains. Few, if any, can boast of the number or beauty of the first, especially the illuminated; and I suspect that the number, rarity, and value of the antient claffics, medallic hiftories, gems, and variety of every fpecies of polite literature, is without parallel. They are of the scarceft editions, and printed by the most efteemed printers. I am indebted to Mr. Edward Clarke, A. M. of Jefus college, Cambridge, for a felect catalogue of the most valuable manufcripts and books. The articles mentioned are attended with our joint notes; but my fhare must candidly be confeffed to have been the finalleft. Clarke may be faid to be a fcholar, ex traduce. His mother

Mr.

was

was daughter to the Rev. Dr. William Wotton, famous for having given a tranflation of the laws of Howel Dda. His grandfather, WILLIAM CLARKE, M. A. was ftill more eminent. He affifted Wotton in his labors, by a most learned and elegant Latin preface. to the Leges Wallica. But his name will be for ever delivered to pofterity for his celebrated treatife, The Connection of the Roman, Saxon, and English Coins, printed in 1767, by his friend Mr. William Bowyer. Neither muft I be filent in refpect to Mr.. Clarke's father, who favored the world with a very ingenious ac-count of Spain, where he had refided fome time under the patro-nage of the earl of Bristol, the British minifter at the court of Madrid.

THE late Sir Thomas Mostyn may be faid to have been the founder of the library. In the old catalogue (for Mr. Clarke has formed a moft complete new one) is written, in Sir Thomas's own hand, the following very unneceffary apology: Satius eft

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otiofum effe quam nihil agere !

AT Gloddaeth is another large library, confifting chiefly of old English history, and very valuable Welsh MSS. collected by Sir Roger Moftyn, grandfather to the present baronet..

Manufcripts, &c. in the Moftyn Library..

Arms of Illuftrious Families of France, beginning with the Comte d'Auvergne, the houfes, and caftles, and coats of arms, illuminated. Fol. Vel. illum.

Account of the Rebellion in North and South Wales, in the last Century, quarto. It begins in 1642, and ends in 1656. Part

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GLODDAETH
LIBRARY.

MANUSCRIPIS.

is written in Welsh. It appears by feveral paffages to have been written by a native of Dolgelli.

Biblia Sacra Antiqua. Quarto, vel. flightly illuminated. In most curious small gothic letter.

Of the magnificent MS. Boccace des nab. & illuft. Femmes,' Foll. vell. illum. it fhould be obferved that the illuminations, in point of beauty and number, exceed any thing of the kind. The principal illumination or frontefpiece is a representation of our first parents in the garden of Eden. The Deity is here pourtrayed in the papal robes, with the tiara on his brow, handing Eve out of Adam's fide. Two angels in white furplices fupport his train, which is of blue and gold. The garden is enclosed by the walls and windows of a gothic cathedral.

TOWARDS the end of the volume is a reprefentation of Pope Joan's accouchement in the public streets of Rome, in her way to the Lateran church, between the Coliseum and St. Clement's church, attended by two cardinals, preceded by a white friar, and followed by a numerous concourfe of mob. This celebrated Popefs (if fuch there ever was) is faid to have been a German girl, who had affumed the habit of our fex, went to Athens to ftudy, and made fuch a progrefs as to be the aftonishment of every body. By what steps fhe rose to the papacy I am not told. She attained it in 853, and discharged all the duties of it under the name of John VIII. She unfortunately proved a frail mortal. Her holinefs had an intrigue, and the confequences appeared as related. Unable to bear the fhame, fhe died on the spot. This affair gave occafion to a thousand controverfies which fide had the right is little worth enquiry. Mr. Miffen enters deeply into it, fee vol. ii. p. of his Travels.

He

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