The bookseller opened the newcomer's volume, looked at the title-page, and handed it without a word to his customer, who took it with a look of surprise.
'Something wrong?' said he, 'why, bless me, what's this—1707—that rascal Curll's edition—where did you get this?'
The young man told him, adding that he gave sixpence for it.
'Sixpence, did you?' said the connoisseur; 'well, I'll give you six guineas for it': which he did, there and then.
It was a copy of the rare 'pirated' collection of his poems, published without Matt Prior's knowledge, some two years before the first authentic edition appeared. Some years later, when the elderly collector died, this volume came to the saleroom with the rest of his books. It realised forty pounds! So much for the ugly duckling.
What an absorbing topic is that of 'lost books'! There is a fascination about the subject that every bibliophile must have experienced. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast,' and it is impossible to read of books long lost without making a mental note of their titles in the hope that some day we may come across them. Perhaps it is these memories, pigeon-holed in our mind, that add a zest to anticipation whenever we go book-hunting on our travels. But alas! the reward for the bibliophile's hope in this direction is rare as the blossoming of the aloe.
It is curious to think of the thousands of books that have completely disappeared. Nowadays the Act which assures the preservation in our greater libraries of every book published in this country will doubtless prevent the disappearance of a good many English books of lesser importance, such as school books and other works that are quickly superseded. But before the passing of this Act there was nothing to prevent an unpopular or useless work from becoming extinct, and vast numbers must have disappeared in this country alone. There are many books, however, important books even, and books which we know to have been immensely popular in their day, of which so much as a glimpse has been denied us. The 1606 octavo of 'The Passionate Pilgrim,' the first issue of John Barclay's satirical romance 'Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon,' published at London in 1603, the 'Famous Historie of the Vertuous and Godly Woman Judith,' London, 1565 (of which a title-page has been preserved), what would not every book-collector give for copies of these?
Then there are such early-printed works as Caxton's translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, probably published by him about 1480, 'The Life of St. Margaret' (known by three leaves preserved in the Bodleian), the 'goste of guido' or Ghost of Guy, and the Epitaph of the King of Scotland, all printed by Pynson, as well as that mysterious volume ycleped 'The Nigramansir,' said to be by John Skelton the poet-laureate who lived under five kings and died in 1529. Many of Skelton's works, perhaps even the majority of his writings, are known to us by title and hearsay alone; but who shall say that his 'Speculum Principis,' or 'the Commedy Achademios callyd by name,' which he himself mentions, are lost beyond all hope of recovery? 'The Nigramansir' was actually seen by Thomas Warton, the poet-laureate, in the 'fifties of the eighteenth century, and is described by him in some detail. His account is so interesting that it deserves quoting.
'I cannot quit Skelton,' he writes, 'without restoring to the public notice a play, or morality, written by him, not recited in any catalogue of his works, or annals of English typography; and, I believe, at present totally unknown to the antiquarians in this sort of literature. It is, The nigramansir, a morall enterlude and a pithie written by Maister skelton laureate and plaid before the king and other estatys at Woodstock on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkin de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504.'
Against this Warton makes the following note: 'My lamented friend Mr. William Collins . . . . shewed me this piece at Chichester, not many months before his death (Collins died in 1759), and he pointed it out as a very rare and valuable curiosity. He intended to write the History of the Restoration of Learning under Leo the Tenth, and with a view to that design had collected many scarce books. Some few of these fell into my hands at his death. The rest, among which, I suppose, was this Interlude, were dispersed.'
