o the other; "I have discovered here
what I have searched for in vain the last ten years--the Horace of 1580,
the Horace of the Forty Commentators--a perfect treasury of learning,
and marked only fourteen shillings!"

'"Hush, Norreys," said the other, "and observe what is yet more worth
your study;" and he pointed to the third bystander, whose face, sharp
and attenuated, was bent with an absorbed, and, as it were, with a
hungering attention over an old worm-eaten volume.

'"What is the book, my lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys.

'His companion smiled, and replied by another question: "What is the man
who reads the book?"

'Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the student's shoulder.
"'Preston's Translation of Boethius,' 'The Consolations of Philosophy,'"
he said, coming back to his friend.

'"He looks as if he wanted all the consolations philosophy could give
him, poor boy!"

* * * * *

'When Mr. Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an address where to
send it, Harley (the second gentleman) asked the shopman if he knew the
young man who had been reading Boethius.

'"Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends
hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it
through."

'"And never buys?" said Mr. Norreys.

'"Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, "they who buy
seldom read. The poor boy pays me twopence a day to read as long as he
pleases. I would not take it, but he is proud."'

[202:A] It was in one of these alleys or tributaries that a lawyer's
clerk, returning from his office, carried home in triumph to Camden Town
a copy of Marlowe's 'Tragical History of Doctor Faustus,' 1663, which he
bought for 1s.

[217:A] Concerning the Hande and Starre, Fleet Street, and the renowned
Richard Tottell, 'printer by special Patentes of the bokes of the Common
Lawe in the several Reigns of King Edw. VI. and of the quenes Marye and
Elizabeth,' it may be pointed out that this house, 7, Fleet Street,
exists as before, the only modern addition being the half-brick front
which was placed there more than a hundred years ago. Jaggard, the
bookseller, lived there after Tottell, and from thence he issued the
first edition of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet,' actually printed in
the rear (now Dick's Coffee-house), and the possibility of Shakespeare
having often called to correct the proof-sheets is conjured up. The
house was in turn occu