at last Trustees were appointed, and the
valuable library was re-arranged and catalogued, this "Caxton," together
with the fine copy of "Latterbury" from the first Oxford Press, had
disappeared entirely. Whatever ignorance may have been displayed in the
mutilation, quite another word should be applied to the disappearance.

The following anecdote is so _apropos_, that although it has lately
appeared in No. 1 of _The Antiquary_, I cannot resist the temptation of
re-printing it, as a warning to inheritors of old libraries. The account
was copied by me years ago from a letter written in 1847, by the Rev. C.
F. Newmarsh, Rector of Pelham, to the Rev. S. R. Maitland, Librarian to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and is as follows:--

"In June, 1844, a pedlar called at a cottage in Blyton and asked an old
widow, named Naylor, whether she had any rags to sell. She answered, No!
but offered him some old paper, and took from a shelf the 'Boke of St.
Albans' and others, weighing 9 lbs., for which she received 9_d_. The
pedlar carried them through Gainsborough tied up in string, past a
chemist's shop, who, being used to buy old paper to wrap his drugs in,
called the man in, and, struck by the appearance of the 'Boke,' gave him
3_s_. for the lot. Not being able to read the Colophon, he took it to an
equally ignorant stationer, and offered it to him for a guinea, at which
price he declined it, but proposed that it should be exposed in his
window as a means of eliciting some information about it. It was
accordingly placed there with this label, 'Very old curious work.'
A collector of books went in and offered half-a-crown for it, which
excited the suspicion of the vendor. Soon after Mr. Bird, Vicar of
Gainsborough, went in and asked the price, wishing to possess a very
early specimen of printing, but not knowing the value of the book. While
he was examining it, Stark, a very intelligent bookseller, came in, to
whom Mr. Bird at once ceded the right of pre-emption. Stark betrayed
such visible anxiety that the vendor, Smith, declined setting a price.
Soon after Sir C. Anderson, of Lea (author of Ancient Models), came in
and took away the book to collate, but brought it back in the morning
having found it imperfect in the middle, and offered L5 for it. Sir
Charles had no book of reference to guide him to its value. But in the
meantime, Stark had employed a friend to obtain for him the refusal of
it, and had undertaken to give for it a lit