The arms of Sir Peter Manwood, judge, antiquary and M.P. for Sandwich, appear stamped in gilt on a volume of 1600, Samuel Lewkenor's A discourse not altogether unprofitable, nor unpleasant for such as are desirous to know the situation and customes of forraine cities without trauelling to see them.

Annotations to a copy of John Sergeant's Solid philosophy asserted, against the fancies of the ideists, or, The method to science farther illustrated : with reflexions on Mr. Locke's Essay concerning human understanding (1697) in the hand of John Locke, the empiricist philosopher. Locke replies to Sergeant's criticisms of his system referring to himself in the third person. For further information see John W.

Bookplate of the Scottish historian and philosopher David Hume in one of two composite volumes of miscellaneous works belonging to him, now in St John's Library.

Donated by Herbert Somerton Foxwell.

Two volumes in the Library bear the bookplate of Pierre-Daniel Huet, scholar, scientist and Bishop of Avranches, whose attacks on the rationalism of Descartes made him a leading proponent of fideism.

Autograph of William Gilbert, royal physician and author of a pioneering work on magnetism in which he coined the term 'electricity', here latinized as "Guil. Gylberde" on the title-page of an edition of Galen (1562).

Bookplate of the historian and author of The decline and fall of the Roman Empire from a copy of Walter Harte's The history of the life of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, Sirnamed, the Great (1759). See Geoffrey Keynes, The library of Edward Gibbon, 1940, p. 145 for further details.

The first volume of the Library's copy of Robert Fludd's Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia (1617-1621) bears a dedicatory inscription to John Williams by Fludd himself.

The Elizabethan polymath, humanist and spiritualist John Dee, who studied at St John's, amassed a huge library of at least 3,000 printed volumes, as well as a large number of manuscripts, which he initially housed in his residence at Mortlake. Almost as soon as he departed for Poland to embark on that period of his life which caused most controversy, his communications with spirits, his house was raided and many books were stolen.

The gold-stamped arms of Sir Walter Chetwynd, historian of Staffordshire and antiquary, from a copy of Aristotle's Rhetoric (London, 1619).

The autographs of Thomas Cartwright, puritan controversialist, and Hugh Broughton, divine and Hebraic scholar, who both studied at St John's and became Fellows of the College, from the front fly-leaf of an edition of Hesychius' Lexikon (1521), which also has a contemporary blind-stamped binding.