or his kinswoman, and such a
delightful signature. What has become of it? It is sad even to commit
to paper the story--one among many. An American gentleman acquired it,
tore the portrait and leaf of inscription out, and threw the rest
away! Why, forsooth, should he keep a folio volume against his
inclination? He left that to whomsoever it might chance to fall--a
mangled corpse!

It is not peremptorily necessary, however, that there should be
witness in black on white to the prior holder of a literary _bijou_;
for the external evidence may prove abundantly adequate to the
satisfaction of the most sceptical. A binding is quite capable of
serving as a voucher and guarantee for the _provenance_ of a printed
book or manuscript, provided that all the links in the chain are
sound. The Prayer-Book of Queen Henrietta Maria, the _Fables_ of La
Fontaine with the arms of Marie Antoinette as Dauphine, an
unquestioned Grolier or Maioli, and still more such a bibliographical
phoenix as that volume bound in gold of Lady Elizabeth Tyrrwhit's
_Prayers_, formerly belonging to Queen Elizabeth, which the late Sir
Wollaston Franks purchased at an incredible price and presented to the
British Museum--these, and many more, speak for themselves. Yet where
a royal or noble personage is not in the case, when it is only some
Shakespeare or some Milton who is concerned, let us preferably have
the written internal passport. We would barter all the books which we
have indicated for the Florio's _Montaigne_ with the poet's signature
on the fly-leaf, albeit it is in no better a covering than its
Shakespearian jacket of shabby old calf.

More than one volume in the earlier range depends very
disproportionately for its interest on the preliminary matter in the
form of a Preface or Dedication. In _Prefaces, Dedications, Epistles_,
1874, the writer drew attention to this point, and furnished a
considerable series of such _prolegomena_ in illustration of the
fact. But there are cases, of course, where the inscription is of a
piece with the book, as in Davenant's _Madagascar_, 1638, where the
poet wrote and printed on the leaf following the title: "If these
Poems live, may their Memories, by whom they were cherish'd, _End.
Porter, H. Jarmyn_, live with them."

The Imprimatur, or License to the Printer, occasionally supplies a
curious literary or biographical side-light. That to Davenant's play
of the _Witts_, 1636, runs: "This Play, called the WITTS, as