then offered to buy them by weight at sixpence
per pound. The bargain was at once concluded, and M. Vanderberg had the
books.

Shortly after, Mr. Stark, a well-known London bookseller, being in
Antwerp, called on M. Vanderberg, and was shown the books. He at once
offered 14,000 francs for them, which was accepted. Imagine the surprise
and chagrin of the poor monks when they heard of it! They knew they had
no remedy, and so dumbfounded were they by their own ignorance, that
they humbly requested M. Vanderberg to relieve their minds by returning
some portion of his large gains. He gave them 1,200 francs.

The great Shakespearian and other discoveries, which were found in a
garret at Lamport Hall in 1867 by Mr. Edmonds, are too well-known and
too recent to need description. In this case mere chance seems to have
led to the preservation of works, the very existence of which set the
ears of all lovers of Shakespeare a-tingling.

In the summer of 1877, a gentleman with whom I was well acquainted took
lodgings in Preston Street, Brighton. The morning after his arrival,
he found in the w.c. some leaves of an old black-letter book. He asked
permission to retain them, and enquired if there were any more where
they came from. Two or three other fragments were found, and the
landlady stated that her father, who was fond of antiquities, had at one
time a chest full of old black-letter books; that, upon his death, they
were preserved till she was tired of seeing them, and then, supposing
them of no value, she had used them for waste; that for two years and
a-half they had served for various household purposes, but she had
just come to the end of them. The fragments preserved, and now in my
possession, are a goodly portion of one of the most rare books from the
press of Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor. The title is a curious
woodcut with the words "Gesta Romanorum" engraved in an odd-shaped black
letter. It has also numerous rude wood-cuts throughout. It was from this
very work that Shakespeare in all probability derived the story of the
three caskets which in "The Merchant of Venice" forms so integral a
portion of the plot. Only think of that cloaca being supplied daily with
such dainty bibliographical treasures!

In the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum is a volume containing
three manuscript dramas of Queen Elizabeth's time, and on a fly-leaf
is a list of fifty-eight plays, with this note at the foot, in the
handw