“I have now shortly to state how it came that a book without covers of such extreme age was preserved.  About fifty years since, the library of Thonock Hall, in the parish of Gainsborough, the seat of the Hickman family, underwent great repairs, the books being sorted over by a most ignorant person, whose selection seems to have been determined by the coat.  All books without covers were thrown into a great heap, and condemned to all the purposes which Leland laments in the sack of the conventual libraries by the visitors.  But they found favour in the eyes of a literate gardener, who begged leave to take what he liked home.  He selected a large quantity of Sermons preached before the House of Commons, local pamphlets, tracts from 1680 to 1710, opera books, etc.  He made a list of them, which I found afterwards in the cottage.  In the list, No. 43 was `Cotarmouris,’ or the Boke of St. Albans.  The old fellow was something of a herald, and drew in his books what he held to be his coat.  After his death, all that could be stuffed into a large chest were put away in a garret; but a few favourites, and the `Boke’ among them remained on the kitchen shelves for years, till his son’s widow grew so `stalled’ of dusting them that she determined to sell them.  Had she been in poverty, I should have urged the buyer, Stark, the duty of giving her a small sum out of his great gains.”

Such chances as this do not fall to a man’s lot twice; but Edmond Werdet relates a story very similar indeed, and where also the “plums” fell into the lap of a London dealer.

In 1775, the Recollet Monks of Antwerp, wishing to make a reform, examined their library, and determined to get rid of about 1,500 volumes—­some manuscript and some printed, but all of which they considered as old rubbish of no value.

At first they were thrown into the gardener’s rooms; but, after some months, they decided in their wisdom to give the whole refuse to the gardener as a recognition of his long services.

This man, wiser in his generation than these simple fathers, took the lot to M. Vanderberg, an amateur and man of education.  M. Vanderberg took a cursory view, and then offered to buy them by weight at sixpence per pound.  The bargain was at once concluded, and M. Vanderberg had the books.

Shortly after, Mr. Stark, a well-known London bookseller, being in Antwerp, called on M. Vanderberg, and was shown the books.  He at once offered 14,000 francs for them, which was accepted.  Imagine the surprise and chagrin of the poor monks when they heard of it!  They knew they had no remedy, and so dumbfounded were they by their own ignorance, that they humbly requested M. Vanderberg to relieve their minds by returning some portion of his large gains.  He gave them 1,200 francs.

The great Shakespearian and other discoveries, which were found in a garret at Lamport Hall in 1867 by Mr. Edmonds, are too well-known and too recent to need description.  In this case mere chance seems to have led to the preservation of works, the very existence of which set the ears of all lovers of Shakespeare a-tingling.