CURIOUS ANECDOTES Of THE DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.
It was a Florentine who found, buried in a heap of dust, and in a rotten coffer belonging to the monastery of St. Gal, the works of Quintilian: and, by this fortunate discovery, gave them to the republic of letters.
Papirius Masson found, in the house of a book-binder of Lyons, the works of Agobart. The mechanic was on the point of using the manuscripts to line the covers of his books.
A page of the second Decade of Livy was found by a man of letters on the parchment of his battledore, as he was amusing himself in the country. He ran directly to the maker of the battledore: but arrived too late; the man had finished the last page of Livy, in completing a large order for these articles about a week before.
Sir Robert Cotton, being one day at his tailor’s, discovered that the man held in his hand, ready to be cut up for measures, the original Magna Charta, with all its appendages of seals and signature. He bought this singular curiosity for a trifle; and recovered in this manner, what had long been given over for lost.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.