It Is Equally
Interesting To Note That The Inventory Of The Soldier Standish Should
Name Only One Book On Military Science, "Bariffe's Artillery," Though It
Includes Abundant Evidence To Controvert, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, The
Suggestion Which Has Been Made, That He Was Of The Romanist Faith.
Just
which of the books left by the worthies named, and others whose
inventories we possess, came with them in the Pilgrim ship, cannot be
certainly determined, though, as before noted, some still in existence
bear intrinsic testimony that they were of the number.
There is evidence
that Allerton made gift of a book to Giles Heale of the MAY-FLOWER
(perhaps the ship's surgeon), while the ship lay at Plymouth, and Francis
Cooke's inventory includes "1 great Bible and 4 olde bookes," which as
they were "olde," and he was clearly not a book-buyer, very probably came
with him in the ship. In fact, hardly an adult of the Leyden colonists,
the inventory of whose estate at death we possess, but left one or more
books which may have been his companions on the voyage.
Some of the early forms of British and Dutch calendars, "annuals," and
agricultural "hand-books," it is certain were brought over by several
families, and were doubtless much consulted and well-thumbed "guides,
counsellors, and friends" in the households of their possessors. The
great preponderance of reading matter brought by the little colony was,
however, unquestionably of the religious controversial order, which had
been so much a part of their lives, and its sum total was considerable.
There are intimations, in the inventories of the Fathers, of a few works
of historical cast, but of these not many had yet been printed.
"Caesar's Commentaries," a "History of the World," and a "History of
Turkey" on Standish's shelves, with the two Dictionaries and "Peter
Martyr on Rome" on Dr. Fuller's, were as likely to have come in the first
ship, and to have afforded as much satisfaction to the hungry readers of
the little community as any of the books we find named in the lists of
their little stock.
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