Library

Before returning to Basel in the summer of 1635, Frey bought a lot of books in England, which are held at the University Library of Basel. Most of them are sermons, devotional and theological works or titles connected to his work as a Professor of Greek, but a handful of very different volumes document not only his love for England but also an intellectual curiosity that is remarkable in a Protestant churchman, who asked to be read "certain sermons" in English during his final illness.

Maybe the most striking section is literature, and especially theatre. When Frey's mentor Wolfgang Meyer studied in England in the 1590s, his brother admonished him that he should focus on theology and "not watch all those plays and processions". Frey, in contrast, felt free to acquire the expensive Second Folio of Shakespeare's works, which now takes pride of place in the UB Basel. He also bought verse epics like Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene and George Sandys' translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, as well as spiritual poetry like Vigilio Malvezzi's Davide Perseguitato and the early Latin epigrams of the later Catholic convert Richard Crashaw. There are several volumes on geography and history, including Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the World, and a horse-riding manual. Several volumes of music including Thomas Morley's Canzonets and William Byrd's Cantiones are listed in a late-17^th-century catalogue but have since disappeared.

Most of Frey's books are bound in gilt-tooled leather and carry a printed exlibris, but show almost no signs of use. In September 1635, he wrote to a friend: "My books (which I have bought in England) are yet at Cologne and in the Low Countries, from whence I cannot expect any, until we have peace along the Rhine". Even if the books did arrive soon after, Frey had little time for reading in his final year, in which he lectured, Greek, married, did research, corresponded with friends and negotiated his future prospects in Britain. In fact, they may have been bound and preserved in his memory. However, about 35 volumes do carry Frey's signature or manuscript notes. They include his Bible in Hebrew and Greek with Thomas Sternhold's miscal settings of the psalms, the Common Book of Prayer and a copy of Lewis Bayly's devotional uber-bestseller The Practice of Piety. And again there are some surprising items such as Joseph Rutter's "pastorall Tragicomoedie" The Shepherd's Holyday - which was probably performed when Frey was in England. Most remarkably, Frey made dozens of marginal notes in his copy of Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning, a foundational text of scientific empiricism.