Interesting Manuscript Bibles.
In the British Museum there are two copies of the Scriptures which are peculiarly calculated to interest the pious visitors, from the circumstances under which they were transcribed. The elder manuscript contains "The Old and New Testaments, in short hand, in 1686," which were copied, during many a wakeful night, by a zealous Protestant, in the reign of James II., who feared that the attempts of that monarch to re-establish Popery would terminate in the suppression of the sacred Scriptures.
The other manuscript contains the book of Psalms and the New Testament, in 15 volumes, folio, written in characters an inch long, with white ink, on black paper manufactured for the purpose. This perfectly unique copy was written in 1745, at the cost of a Mr. Harries, a London tradesman. His sight having failed with age so as to prevent his reading the Scriptures, though printed in the largest type, he incurred the expense of this transcription that he might enjoy those sources of comfort which "are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold."
The British Museum paid $3750 for the manuscript Bible made by Alcuin, in the eighth century, for the Emperor Charlemagne, whose instructor and friend he was.