tle more than any sum Sir
Charles might offer. On finding that at least L5 could be got for it,
Smith went to the chemist and gave him two guineas, and then sold it to
Stark's agent for seven guineas. Stark took it to London, and sold it at
once to the Rt. Hon. Thos. Grenville for seventy pounds or guineas.

"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