The Book-Hunter at Home | Page 9

a convex lid, and was covered with shaggy horsehide, bound with heavily studded leather. The proprietor stated that he had found it in a cellar, full of old books, most of which had already been sold (his listener promptly pictured Caxtons among them); and he was amused to think that any one could be so foolish as to offer him two shillings for such a dirty old box. However, it was carried home in triumph, regardless of the great interest shown by fellow-travellers in the train. A year or two ago the same vender produced a similar trunk, rather larger, which was full of ancient deeds relating to property in Clerkenwell. These he sold for a shilling or two shillings apiece, according to size and seals. The box was larger than our bookman wanted, but apparently it soon found a purchaser.
Surely such instances must be common in this great city, and many a trunk must yet linger in cellars and attics in the old parts of the town. Not many years ago our book-hunter chanced to visit an ancient house at the end of a small court off Fleet Street. Inside, it seemed to be entirely lined with oak planking, and it was occupied, or at least that part into which he penetrated was, by a printer in a small way of business. The staircase was magnificent, of massive coal-black oak; and when our book-hunter remarked upon it, the printer informed him he had discovered that the house had once been the town residence of a famous bishop of Tudor times.[9] How the occupant discovered this fact our bookman does not remember; possibly the house is well known to antiquaries, and the occupier may have read about it or have been told by the previous tenant. But it is also within the bounds of possibility that he unearthed some deed or papers relating to the premises. It is strange, too, that one of the few letters of this bishop which have been preserved refers to books. 'Ye promised unto me, long agone,' he writes to Secretary Cromwell, 'the Triumphes of Petrarche in the Ytalion tonge. I hartely pray you at this tyme by this beyrer, . . . to sende me the said Boke with some other at your deuotion; and especially, if it please you, the boke called Cortigiano in Ytalion.'[10]
There must be many such houses still extant in London, and who knows what there may be in their long-disused attics? Hidden away in the darkness beneath their tiles, between joists and under the eaves, it is possible that books till now unknown to us, by sight at least, may still exist. Or who has explored the lumber accumulated in many a disused cellar within a quarter of a mile of the Mansion House? The very existence of the trunks which we have mentioned proves that such things do still linger in the nooks and crannies of this great city.
And I would not confine my surmise in this direction to London alone. Two ancient libraries there are, one in the North Countrie, the other in the West, that to my certain knowledge have never been explored by modern bibliographer. The latter is spurned and neglected, the books are deep in dust and even mildew; the former is also neglected, but at least the house is inhabited. The owner, an old, old woman, will never permit of any volume being disturbed. It is said that her father collected the books many years ago, and that she still guards them jealously for him.
Perhaps one day a copy of the 'Nigramansir' will emerge from its long sleep in some such house as these. Indeed, it is not so much a matter of surprise that such books should have disappeared, as that they should have remained hidden for so long. In 1909 an ancient volume was accidentally discovered in an old manor-house in the North of England, where it had lain undisturbed for generations. It proved to consist of no less than five of Caxton's publications bound up together. Moreover, it was in the original binding, and was bound, probably, by one of Caxton's workmen, whose initials it bore. On being put up for sale at Sotheby's, it changed hands at ￡2,600.
The account which Gairdner gives in the Introduction to his last edition of the Paston letters, of the loss and rediscovery of those historic documents, is also a striking example of the manner in which books may lie hidden for years. For nearly a century the originals of Sir John Fenn's compilation were utterly lost. 'Even Mr. Serjeant Frere who edited the fifth volume . . . declared that he had not been able to find the originals of that volume any more than those of the others. Strange to say, however,