Notes on the Petty Manuscripts.
In Lownde's "Bibliographical Manual" it is asserted that several of the Petty manuscripts are to be found in the Bodleian Library. This is evidently a mistake, for the Bodleian contains only a few letters catalogued in the Aubrey and Pepys collection. After a careful search I failed to discover any other manuscript remains. The British Museum contains manuscript copies of the "Political Anatomy of Ireland," and of the "Essays in Political Arithmetic," two unprinted tracts in defense of the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland, some short papers of no great importance, and a few letters. A list of these manuscripts is given in Ayscough's Catalogue, p. 884, and in the Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts, p. 1137.
Thorpe's "Sale Catalogue," London, 1837, contains a notice of a manuscript volume of the correspondence between Petty and Sir Robert Southwell. Extensive extracts covering several pages are given. In Notes and Queries, 2d series, viii, 130, mention is made of a collection of letters by Petty, advertised for sale in a catalogue of M. A. Cooper's library, Dublin, 1831. In whose hands these two important volumes at present are there is little prospect of discovering. Aubrey reports (iii, 488) that after Petty' s death he saw in his closet a great many tractatiuniculi, among others "An essay to know and judge the value of lands," and an autobiography in Latin. À. Wood, in his notice on Petty (Athenae Oxonienses, pt. iv, 215,) mentions an autobiography of Petty, which he had heard of, but had not seen.
