Happily, a large number of them have found a home either in the boundless collections of Sir Thomas Phillipps, or the British Museum, in the latter of which, at least, they will be safe from further spoliation. It seems as though they had been, from time to time, freely lent and never returned. On the deaths of the authors or scholars who used them, they were probably found by their executors, without evidence of ownership, and so sold with other assets. If the information given me be correct, Bloomfield had free access to this Collection in preparing his ' History of Norfolk,'  for I am told that numerous charters are among his papers, with the distinguishing mark appointed by Sir Edward to designate his own manuscripts, . No doubt he borrowed them, and on his death the right ownership was unknown, and they are to this day in Bloomfield's Collection, as I am informed, mingled with his other papers. Seal-collectors, too, have been cruelly unsparing in their plunder. 
   But, with all these drains and spoliations, a grand collection still remains, amply testifying to the lavish zeal and ardour of its founder, and sufficient to secure the gratitude and admiration of every scholar.
In examining them, the diligent antiquary and genealogist will be rewarded by the discovery of many facts which have hitherto escaped research, and will find abundant materials for elucidating those which are already familiar to us.
   As an interesting picture of the mode in which many country gentlemen of that day employed their time, I cannot refrain from giving here the following extract from a letter written in the year 1639, in which Sir Edward's cousin, the learned Sir Roger Twysden, invites him to Roydon Hall, to discuss the propriety of starting their cousin Sir Harry Vane (the Treasurer) for the county, in the forthcoming Parliament.
   '' Where you speak of coming over hyther (though, with an