dedication to his ‘Ecclesiastes,’ addressed to the Bishop of Augsburg (1535), and in the dedication of the 1536 edition of his ‘Adagia,’ addressed to Charles, fifth Lord Mountjoy. Three letters in very readable Latin from Mountjoy to Erasmus, and thirteen from Erasmus to Mountjoy, appear in the collections of Erasmus's letters. The first edition of Erasmus's ‘Adagia,’ published in 1508, is addressed to Mountjoy, and Erasmus states that he wrote that work and ‘De scribendis epistolis’ at Mountjoy's suggestion. About 1523 Mountjoy requested Erasmus to draw up a dialogue on the subject of the religious differences of the day, with a view to aiding in their settlement. Leland was another friend of Mountjoy, and wrote verse in his praise (Collectanea, v. 122). Among the many scholars whom Mountjoy also befriended were Richard Whytforde, Battus, the friend of Erasmus, and Richard Sampson, afterwards bishop of Chichester. Mountjoy was likewise intimate with Sir Thomas More, Grocyn, and Colet, and Ascham many years afterwards referred to his house as domicilium Musarum. Fuller, in dedicating the second book of his ‘Church History’ (1655) to Lord Dorchester, refers to Mountjoy as ‘a great patron to Erasmus, and well skilled in chymistry and mathematics,’ and one of the chief revivers of learning in England (Fuller, Hist., ed. Brewer, i. 126).
Mountjoy was thrice married: 1, (probably before 1500) to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Say; 2, (before 1517) to Alice, daughter of Sir Henry Kebel, lord mayor of London in 1510–11, and widow of William Browne, lord mayor of London in 1507–8; (she died in 1521, and was buried in the Grey Friars' church, London); and 3, to Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, and widow of Robert Willoughby, Baron Broke; she died before 1524. Erasmus, writing to his friend Botzen in 1524, tells us that when Lord Mountjoy was studying with him at Paris he wrote for his pupil's amusement two declamations, the one in praise and the other in contempt of matrimony, and that Mountjoy passionately declared for the former. Erasmus adds that at the time of writing (1524) Mountjoy had become a widower for the third time, and was likely to take a fourth wife. By his first wife he had two daughters, Gertrude and Mary. Gertrude married Henry Courtenay, marquis of Exeter, and was herself attainted when her husband was executed in 1539; she was afterwards pardoned, and dying in 1558, a monument was erected to her memory in Wimborne Minster. Mary, the second daughter, married Henry Bourchier, earl of Essex. By his second wife, Mountjoy had a son Charles [q. v.], and a daughter Catherine, who married (1) John Champernown, and (2) Sir Maurice Berkeley of Bruton. By his third wife he had a son John, who died without issue, and two daughters, Dorothy and Mary.
[Sir Alexander Croke's Genealogical Account of the Croke Family, surnamed Le Blount, ii. 204–222; Erasmi Epistolæ, ed. Le Clerc; Dugdale's Baronage, 520–1; Rymer's Fœdera; Froude's History, i. 470; Brewer's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, 1509–35; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 7, iv. 524; Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. i. 50, 529; Seebohm's Oxford Reformers, passim.]
BLOW, JAMES (d. 1769), printer, a native of Scotland, was apprenticed to Patrick Neill [q. v.], a printer of Glasgow, and when Neill set up the first regular printing establishment in Belfast (before 1094), Blow came with him as an assistant. Blow waa Neill's brother-in-law, but in which way is not known. In Neill's will (dated 21 Dec. 1704) he says : ' I recommend my son John ' [he left also a youngerson, James, and a daughter] 'to the care of my brother Blow, to teach him the trade I taught him, and if he keep the printing-house in Belfast, to instruct him in that calling.' According to Blow's son Daniel (who died near Dundonald, co. Down, in 1810, aged 91) theprinting of bibles was begun in Belfast by Blow 'about 1704.' There is a copy of the bible which shows the imprint, ' printed by and for James Blow and for George Grierson, printer to the king's most excellent majesty, at the King's Arms and Two Bibles in Essex Street, Dublin, mdccii.,' 8vo. But one of the figures of the date has been mutilated, and the true date is mdccli. The bibles of 1751 are Blow's work throughout, but some others purporting to be Blow's bibles are made-up copies, only the title and first sheet being Belfast work, and the remainder Scotch. The patent to print bibles was first given to the Grierson family in 1726 by Lord Carteret, appointed lord-lieutenant on 22 Aug. 1724. George Grierson (who died in 1753, aged 74) married, as his second wife, a daughter of Blow and widow of Francis Cromie. merchant, of Belfast (died December 1731). Bohn, borrowing a note by John Hodgson, in the 'Ulster Journal of Archæology,' vol. iii. 1855, pp. 76-7, mentions in his edition of 'Lowndes,' 1804, i. 189, 'The Bible, Belfast. James Blood [i.e. Blow], 1716, 8vo. first edition of the Scriptures printed in Ireland,' Bohn adds : 'An error occurs in a verse in Isaiah. " Sin no more " is printed "Sin on more." The error was not discovered until the entire impression (8,000 copies) were bound and partly distributed.' Bohn's date is, to
