ASSISTANTS.

MR. WILLIAM LIMBERY GROSVENOR.

PHILIP HARVEY.

JASPER THOMAS HOLMES.

GEORGE FOX.

GEORGE DAVIS.

GEORGE TOMKINS.

JOHN CAPRON.

GEORGE EBSWORTH.

BENJAMIN NETTLEFOLD.

RICHARD TAYLOR.

NATHANIEL HOLMES.

WILLIAM ARNOLD.

STEPHEN JAMES SMITH.

JAMES FARQUHAR, M. P.

HAWLEY CLUTTERBUCK.

ROBERT RANDALL.

GEORGE DAMES.

SETH STEPHEN WARD.

RICHARD THORNTON.

SAMUEL ASH.

RICHARD GOVEY.

JOHN SOUTHGATE.

STEPHEN PEACOCK.

DAVID YEATS.

MR. WILLIAM VINES, CLERK.

PREFACE.

THE nature and design of this Work are too obvious to require explanation: but as it is constructed on a plan differing from most other Catalogues, an apology may be needful for its peculiarities. If it be objected that it was superfluous to copy every word of the title of each book, the information gained by reading the full titles, compared with what a list containing little more than names and dates can give, will be a sufficient answer. An alphabetical arrangement is an unsatisfactory method of describing a collection of books; for without a considerable knowledge of bibliography it will be needful often to search through the whole; while a well classed catalogue of a library is a lasting analysis of its contents, and a ready guide to every inquirer. The classification into which the Lewisham books are here reduced, will tend to show how advantageously a like plan might be adopted in the great Libraries of this country; and indeed, there are no other means of readily ascertaining what are their comparative riches in the several departments of literature. The notes may be perhaps considered too frequent and diffuse; but the useful, or original, and sometimes very curious matter that they contain, will (it is hoped) sufficiently compensate for their abundance.

Next to Biography, one of the most interesting subjects of Literary History, is, the origin and growth of Libraries : but the little attention that has been bestowed on it, has been the cause of our ignorance of a thousand valuable facts, which if brought to light would be readily acknowledged as such. The identification and authenticity of im

portant MSS. the discovery of the MS. notes and criticisms of learned men from their autographs existing in the books, and the real names of the authors of works published either anonymously or under fictitious names, would be the frequent results of minute researches in great libraries, and of the disclosure of smaller collections which abound in this country and if no very important facts of these kinds be found in the present volume, yet there are some that are too interesting to be disregarded. It scarcely needs to be added, that no pains have been spared by the compiler to secure accuracy; and that his grateful acknowledgements are due to several gentlemen for their valuable advice and co-operation.

MEMORIALS

OF

THE FAMILY OF COLFE,

AND OF

THE LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF THE

REVEREND ABRAHAM COLFE.

THE ancestors of the Reverend Abraham Colfe were descended of an English family,' and settled at Calais; where his "grandfather, Amandus or Almantius Colfe, and Catherine Bradfield his wife, good Christians and zealous professors of the Gospel," had a considerable estate, which they lost on the capture of Calais by the French in 1558. Shortly after, on the death of the persecuting Queen Mary, many of the Calisians and French Protestants came to Eng

The word or, in the following
Few early traces of the name

'As he himself informs us in his will, page 9. quotation, has been omitted in the printed copy. of Colfe or Calfe can be found on record. The Agincourt Roll. states that Mons'. JOHN CALF was a knight in the retinue of the young Duke of Suffolk in that expedition in 1415, among whose lancemen were WILLIAM and WALTER CALF. (See Nicolas-es History of the Battle of Agincourt, 1827, 8°. Roll, p. 20.) King Henry V. left some of his men behind at Calais; which may be conjectured to have been the original settlement of the family there. Stowe mentions a JOHN CALFE buried in the church of S. Nicholas, Queen-hithe, 1426. (Survey of London, 1633, fol. p. 398.) The arms allowed to the Colfes, are the same as those of the Colts of Essex, and the former name has been sometimes written Coult as well as Calf.

b

2

X

land, and settled in Canterbury, in such numbers that the undercroft of the Cathedral was appointed for their place of worship, which is still continued to their descendants.' Among these came AMANDUS COLFE; who, in an antient pedigree, is described as "Aymon Colf of Guysnes" not far from Calais, where his wife's father, John Bradfield (son of Thomas Bradfield, of Namptwich, in Cheshire) was living. What other children her father had, is unknown, but she is called a co-heir' in the Kentish Visitation of 1619.3 They fixed their dwelling in a house without the West-gate of Canterbury, which they dwelt in all their life, and which was afterward occupied by their son Joseph. They were both buried in the neighbouring church, called "Rood-church;" and their grandson Abraham left a bequest for the perpetual preservation of their monument.

Nothing is known of their eldest child William : he probably died young. Their second son, RICHARD COLFE, was brought from Calais when about eight years old, and was sent to London to be educated at Christ's Hospital.* Having entered at Christ-church College, Oxford, he took his degrees in Arts, and was at length made Doctor of Divinity, on the 30th of June 1608.5 He succeeded Richard Willoughby in the fifth stall of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, probably not long before the tyrannical visitation of Archbishop Whitgift in 1589, at which time his name was placed last on the list of Canons. He be

1 Abraham Colfe bequeathed a weekly benefaction of a penny loaf to their poor. (Will, p. 9).

2 Glover's MS. of Flower's Visitation of Cheshire, 1566. (1 D. 14, fo. 115, in the Heralds' College.) See the Pedigree at p. xvi.-xvii.

3 MS. in the College, C. 16, fo. 65.

4 Will, p. 43; and see page 146 of this work.

5 Wood's Fasti Oxon. I. 327, ed. Bliss.

Strype's Life of Whitgift, I. 596. (Oxford edition, 8o.) Le Neve was not able to find the year of his appointment to the prebend: Fasti, p. 16. (Lond. 1716, fol.)