same sale was an equally interesting letter from Lord Strafford to his wife, whilst a prisoner in the Tower, expressing his belief that there was nothing in the charge against him, or that, "at the worst, his Majesty will pardon all." This produced 40l. 10s. In the library at Windsor is preserved a very interesting literary relic of the unfortunate King. Anybody that has read Milton's Iconoclastes will remember the passage:-" I shall not instance an abstruse writer, wherein the King might be less conversant, but one whom we well know was-the closet companion of these hid solitudes, William Shakspeare." The King's copy is still to be seen in the royal library. Of autographs in books the British Museum has a very rich collection, though at the time when the reckless sale of duplicates was practised, some volumes were most culpably parted with. Among them is said to have been King Henry VIII.'s copy of the book that won for him the title of defender of the faith, with his autograph corrections, and a copy of the works of the Emperor Julian, with notes by James I. But there is no chance of the present chief librarian committing such mistakes as these. Oxford, however, has no reason to complain of the Museum malpractices, since she owes to them the possession of the splendid Douce collection. At the Hibbert sale in 1829, there was purchased for the Museum, for the sum of 2671. 15s., a German Bible, said to have belonged to Luther up to the time of his death, and afterwards to Melancthon, Bugenhegius, and Major. Autographs of all these famous men were in it. If, however, we are to believe Mr. Sotheby, they are all forgeries. Less open to doubt is a letter-closely connected with the history of religion-of John Wesley to "Dear Sammy." In it he says, "I still think when the Methodists leave the Church of England, God will leave them. . . . . It would be contrary to all common sense, as well as to good conscience, to make a separation now." There are few things in literary history more remarkable than the fact that relics of the handwriting of so voluminous an author as Shakspeare are so rare. There do not appear to be more than five or six that are undoubtedly genuine. There are, of course, the three signatures to his will, and the Guildhall Library has the counterpart of the document to be mentioned presently, for which was paid the sum of 147. In 1858 the British Museum secured the original mortgagedeed by which "William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, gentleman," granted to Henry Walker, citizen of London, a lease of a dwelling-house in Blackfriars, for the term of ten years. On the first of the four labels which are attached to it is the signature "Wm Shakspre." It cost the Museum 300 guineas. In 1805 the Bodleian Library secured a specimen, which there is little doubt is genuine, at a ridiculously small price. It is written in faded ink on the title-page of a small octavo Aldine edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1502). The signature is "Wm. Shr." The owner of the book in 1682 wrote within the cover, "This little book of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will. Shakspeare's." Some doubts were thrown upon the genuineness of the signature in the auction-room, and the library became possessed of this rich treasure for 91. If, however, there is a singular scarcity of Shakspeare's autographs, this is by no means the case with those of another of our greatest poets, Milton. The Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, has a rich collection of his juvenile and other poems-including Comus, Lycidas, and the first design of what was afterwards Paradise Lost. Its original form is that of a Scriptural drama. The MS. of the first book of Paradise Lost which was forwarded to London for licensing, is now in the possession of Mr. Baker, of Bayfordbury, Herts. In the Bodleian, again, are some autographs of his works which he had presented to Dr. Rous, its principal librarian. In the British Museum is a volume of Aratus with his autograph which was purchased for 401. 10s. But perhaps the most interesting of Milton's papers is the covenant indenture between himself and Samuel Symons, printer, for the sale and publication of Paradise Lost. It is dated April 27, 1667. By it the printer was to pay him 51. at once, and 5. additional on the sale of each of the first three impressions—each impression consisting of 1,300 copies. Milton, therefore, was to receive 207. in all, if 3,900 copies were sold. The sale, however, never reached this point, for by a deed of release made by his widow in 1680, she covenants to receive 81. in full of all demands, 101. having been paid previously. The original deed was formerly in the possession of Sir Thomas Lawrence, at whose sale it fetched 631. It afterwards belonged to the poet Rogers, who gave, it is said, 100 guineas for it. He presented it to the British Museum. Mr. Sotheby, however, in his sumptuous volume, Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, would have us believe that the signature after all is not really Milton's-not because it is impossible for a blind man to make a signature, as anybody may convince himself on being blindfolded, but because it is so exactly like the hand of an amanuensis employed on his treatise De Doctrina Christiana. In 1858 Mr. Monckton Milnes-now Lord Houghtonsecured a similar example signature to the conveyance of a bond for 4001. to the Cyriack Skinner to whom Milton dedicated his noble sonnet on his blindness. The price paid was only 19 guineas. It had belonged to Mr. Singer, at whose sale an interesting letter from Nell Gwynne was disposed of. It is addressed to Lawrence Hyde, the second son of the great Lord Chancellor: but pretty Nelly's education had been sadly neglected, and she had to use the services of a friend. Her letter concludes, “We are agoing to supe with the king at Whitehall and my Lady Harvie, the king remembers his sarvis to you. Now lets talke of State affaires for we never caried things so cunningly as now, for we don't know whether we shall have peice or war, but I am for war, and for no other reason but that you may come home. I have a thousand merry conceits but I can't make her write 'um, and therefore you must take the will for the deed. Good-bye. Your most loveing, obedient, faithfull and humbel sarvant, E. G." In the Soane Museum is a most interesting volume, the original copy of the Gerusalemme Liberata in the handwriting of Tasso. Lord Guildford, to whom it formerly belonged, has written on the flyleaf, "I hope it will be recorded to future ages that England possesses the original MS. of one of the four greatest epic poems the world has produced, and beyond all doubt, the only one of the four now existing." Other MSS. of Tasso are in the British Museum. The prices at which the Cortegiano of Castiglione, with an autograph sonnet of Tasso, has been sold at different times, are perhaps worth mentioning. At Singer's sale in 1818 it produced 301., at Hibbert's (1829) 1007., at Hanrott's (1833) 681., at Heber's (1835) 417., at Bishop Butler's (1840) 647. It contained also a copy of Crichton's challenge already alluded to. Another very interesting book is a copy of Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (4to., Parma, 1581) with MS. corrections in the handwriting of the printer Aldus, to whom it is supposed they were communicated by Tasso himself, whilst in prison. Bishop Butler gave 30 guineas for it at the Libri sale it produced only 181. Of more modern autographs, it will be sufficient to mention those of Sir Walter Scott. At Mr. Utterson's sale the original MS. of Peveril of the Peak sold for 441.; in 1857 it brought 501. In the beginning of 1855 Kenilworth was bought for the British Museum for 411. But the prices obtained last July for those disposed of by Christie and Manson go far beyond this. Anne of Geierstein fetched 121 guineas; fragments of Waverley and Ivanhoe, with some other papers, 130 guineas. Of Sir Walter's poems, Marmion brought 191 guineas; the Lady of the Lake, 264; the Vision of Don Roderick and some other poems, 37; Rokeby 130; and the Lord of the Isles 101. I ought perhaps to mention one more instance, Gray's Elegy, the MS. of which was purchased by Mr. R. Wrightson in 1854 for 130. When we remember the very large prices that have been paid for ancient MSS. and the autographs of distinguished persons, we cannot be surprised at the number of forgeries that have been perpetrated. I do not allude to such instances as that of the Amber Witch, a trick played off upon the infallible critics of Tübingen with such astonishing success, nor again to such a case as Chatterton's famous Rowley MSS.; but this present century has seen some wonderful examples of wholesale forgeries. In 1852 there were brought to Mr. Murray forty-seven autograph letters of Lord Byron. From the quarter through which they came to him, he had reason to believe them genuine, and he accordingly purchased them for something over 1201. They were forgeries every one. About the same time Mr. Moxon bought at a sale several letters of Shelley. These he very naturally published. But here again the fraud was soon discovered, and Mr. Moxon accordingly suppressed the book and called in all the copies that had been delivered to the trade. The book is now a curiosity. The forged MSS. themselves were given to the British Museum. But by far the most accomplished forger of modern times is M. Simonides. He comes from the island of Syrene, opposite Caria, and made his first public appearance at Athens, where he offered some MSS. for sale, which he said had been carried off secretly from Mount Athos. A commission, which was engaged to examine them, reported favourably, especially upon a MS. of Homer, which accordingly was purchased at a high price. Before very long it was discovered that the text of this ancient MS. was Wolf's, with all the errata. Next he appeared at Constantinople, where he tried hieroglyphics, cuneiform inscriptions, and Armenian history, but somewhat unsuccessfully. Nothing daunted, he tried a new device, and came out as another Douster Swivel. He declared that at a certain spot an Arabic MS. in Syriac characters would be discovered by digging. Workmen were accordingly employed, Simonides himself not being allowed to descend. By-and-by a pause was made for luncheon, and not long afterwards Simonides called out, "There it is; bring it up." The soil about it, however, was quite different from that of the ground. The workmen were grinning, and when interrogated confessed that during luncheon the Greek came out for a short time, jumped into the pit, and began to burrow. He next made his appearance in England with, amongst other wonderful treasures, a MS. of Homer on serpent's skin, which professed to have been sent from Chios to Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus. This and several others he persuaded Sir Thomas Phillips to purchase. Almost the only libraries which he failed in cheating were the British Museum and the Bodleian. On visiting the latter place he showed some fragments of MSS. to Mr. Coxe, who assented to their belonging to the twelfth century. "And these, Mr. Coxe, belong to the tenth or eleventh century?" "Yes, probably." "And now, Mr. Coxe, let me show you a very ancient and valuable MS. I have for sale, and which ought to be in your library. To what century do you consider this belongs?" "This, Mr. Simonides, I have no doubt," said Mr. Coxe, "belongs to the nineteenth century." The Greek and his MS. disappeared. Some time afterwards a palimpsest manuscript was sent to Berlin, professing to be a history of the Kings of Egypt in Greek, by Uranius, of Alexandria. The Academy declared it genuine, and the Minister of Public Instruction was ordered to purchase it for 5,000 thalers. Professor Dindorf offered the University of Oxford the honour of giving this valuable book to the world, and the work was accordingly begun under the editorship of the professor. Before many sheets, however, were struck off, notice came that the printing was to be stopped. Lepsius, naturally anxious to know how far Uranius supported or demolished some of his theories about Egyptian history, was disappointed as well as amused to find that the book was little more than a translation into very bad Greek of portions of the writings of Bunsen and himself. Ehrenberg then examined the manuscript with his microscope, and discovered that the palimpsest was really later than the more modern one,-the old ink overlaid the new. Simonides' last appearance is a very amusing one: he claims to be the writer of the Codex Sinaiticus of the New Testament, that was discovered by Tischendorf, partly in 1844 and partly in 1859, in one of the monasteries of Mount Athos. The account which Simonides gives of it is that in 1839 the monks of the Russian convent determined to make a transcript of the Scriptures in ancient characters on vellum as a present to the Emperor Nicholas. Dionysius the scribe to the monastery declining to undertake the work, Simonides, the nephew of the head of the monastery, offered to execute it. The Archimandrite, Dionysius of Xeropotami, another monastery on Mount Athos, declares that the story is false in every particular. There is little doubt that the manuscript which has been published so magnificently in four folio volumes at the expense of the Emperor of Russia is the oldest manuscript of the New Testament in existence. I ought perhaps to mention a circumstance which was alluded to at the recent meeting of the British Association. There has very lately been communicated to the French Academy an elaborate correspondence between Newton and Pascal, which, if genuine, would transfer to the latter the honour of the discovery of the law of gravitation. Sir D. Brewster, however, gave, at Dundee, several very strong reasons for considering the correspondence "a gigantic fraud-the greatest ever attempted in the world, connected with science and literature." For the all of a Friend's Study. STONE walls, they say, have ears-Twere scarcely wrong To wish that these walls likewise had a tongue. How many gracious words would then be said, What terse quotations fresh applied and fit, What gay retorts and summer-lightning wit, What sweet and deep affections would find vent, A. M. |