In the summer of 1877, a gentleman with whom I was well acquainted took lodgings in Preston Street, Brighton.  The morning after his arrival, he found in the w.c. some leaves of an old black-letter book.  He asked permission to retain them, and enquired if there were any more where they came from.  Two or three other fragments were found, and the landlady stated that her father, who was fond of antiquities, had at one time a chest full of old black-letter books; that, upon his death, they were preserved till she was tired of seeing them, and then, supposing them of no value, she had used them for waste; that for two years and a-half they had served for various household purposes, but she had just come to the end of them.  The fragments preserved, and now in my possession, are a goodly portion of one of the most rare books from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor.  The title is a curious woodcut with the words “Gesta Romanorum” engraved in an odd-shaped black letter.  It has also numerous rude wood-cuts throughout.  It was from this very work that Shakespeare in all probability derived the story of the three caskets which in “The Merchant of Venice” forms so integral a portion of the plot.  Only think of that cloaca being supplied daily with such dainty bibliographical treasures!

In the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum is a volume containing three manuscript dramas of Queen Elizabeth’s time, and on a fly-leaf is a list of fifty-eight plays, with this note at the foot, in the handwriting of the well-known antiquary, Warburton: 

“After I had been many years collecting these Manuscript Playes, through my own carelessness and the ignorance of my servant, they was unluckely burned or put under pye bottoms.”

Some of these “Playes” are preserved in print, but others are quite unknown and perished for ever when used as “pye-bottoms.”

Mr. W. B. Rye, late Keeper of the Printed Books at our great National Library, thus writes:—­

“On the subject of ignorance you should some day, when at the British Museum, look at Lydgate’s translation of Boccaccio’s `Fall of Princes,’ printed by Pynson in 1494.  It is `liber rarissimus.’  This copy when perfect had been very fine and quite uncut.  On one fine summer afternoon in 1874 it was brought to me by a tradesman living at Lamberhurst.  Many of the leaves had been cut into squares, and the whole had been rescued from a tobacconist’s shop, where the pieces were being used to wrap up tobacco and snuff.  The owner wanted to buy a new silk gown for his wife, and was delighted with three guineas for this purpose.  You will notice how cleverly the British Museum binder has joined the leaves, making it, although still imperfect, a fine book.”

Referring to the carelessness exhibited by some custodians of Parish Registers,

Mr. Noble, who has had great experience in such matters, writes:—­