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