AN ANCIENT VOLUME.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1922, 3 December 1913, Page 4

AN ANCIENT VOLUME.

RARE EDITION OF THE PRAYER BOOK. Tho Mollison library lias been enriched .by tho addition of a rare edition of tho Church of England Prayer Boo!-:. Its brown leather cover is bored with innumerable holes, tho metal clasps long -sines broken beyond use. AVhen Cromwell, assumed tho Protectorate in 1053 tho Church of England, as tho representative of the State- religion, lost its power, and the uso of tho Rook ot Common Prayer was prohibited. Willi tho accession of Charles II in 1600 tho Church regained its ascendancy, and tliu Prayer Book was again in demand. But many copies had boon lost or destroyed, and tho bishops picoarod a new edition, to be issued iij 1002. To meet tho immediate, demand "Robert Barker, printer to the King's most excellent Majestic," issued an edition, printed perhaps from the old typo of the original 1601 edition. Very little is known of this edition except that it was printed in folio, octavo, awl quarto sixes. Only three or four known copies exist. Tho volume is one of them, a folio copy, brought to Melbourne a little while ago from Westmoreland, England, and now purchased for tho Mollison library. It bears evidence of hasty publication. 'The names of tho Royal family in tho Litany prayers have been mscHcd as the lettering is different .trom the original type, and where the duplication of a passage has occurred tho I pavo lias not been reprinted; olio 01 them has becu merely crossed out with * Tho'arms of Charles II aro upon it, and the "Lctanie" prays ior "Queen Alary, Jamos Duke of and tho rest of tho Royal progemo. ■ The tvpo is beautiful, clear, and elerratit and the book is embellished with finch-designed initials and tailpieces.