orities,
and having also had the honor of being enlisted in the service of the
Lumley Autograph upon an occasion of some importance, as will be shown
by the narrative.

It was just one hundred years since, in 1745, that this celebrated
letter was first brought to light, from the obscurity in which it had
already lain some half a century, and which no subsequent research has
been able fully to clear away. In the month of August of that year, the
Rev. John Lumley, tutor to Lord G----, had the honor of discovering
this curious relic under the following circumstances.

Mr. Lumley was one day perched on the topmost step of a library ladder,
looking over a black letter volume of Hollinshed, from the well filled
shelves of his pupil. Suddenly he paused, and his antiquarian instincts
were aroused by the sight of a sheet of paper, yellow and time worn. He
seized it with the eagerness of a book-worm, and in so doing dropped
the volume of Hollinshed alarmingly near the wig-covered head of his
youthful pupil, who with closed eyes, and open mouth, lay reclining on
a sofa below. The book, grazing the curls of the young lord's wig, he
sprang up from his nap, alive and sound, though somewhat startled.

{Hollinshed = Raphael Holinshed (d. 1580), famous writer of British
historical chronicles, used by Shakespeare as source for some of his
plays}

"Hang it Lumley, what a rumpus you keep up among the books! You well
nigh drove that old volume into my head by a process more summary than
usual."

The learned tutor made a thousand apologies, as he descended the
ladder, but on touching the floor his delight burst forth.

"It was this paper, my lord, which made me so awkward--I have lighted
on a document of the greatest interest!"

"What is it?" asked the pupil looking askance at letter, and tutor.

"An original letter which comes to hand, just in time for my lives of
the tragedians--the volume to be dedicated to your lordship--it is a
letter of poor Otway."

{Otway = Thomas Otway (1652-1685), English playwright who wrote a
number of important tragedies in verse, but who died destitute at the
age of 33. The Coopers were familiar with his work; James Fenimore
Cooper used quotations from Otway's "The Orphan" for three chapter
heading epigraphs in his 1850 novel, "The Ways of the Hour"}

"Otway?--What, the fellow you were boring me about last night?"

"The same my lord--the poet Otway--you may remember we saw his Venice
Preserved las