by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
monks themselves wrought harm as well as good, for in their zeal to record sacred compositions they
frequently destroyed older and often more valuable documents by scraping off the original writing and
substituting other. This was done for economy's sake, when writing material was costly, and parchments
thus treated are known as palimpsests. Owing to this reprehensible practice, many literary treasures
have been irretrievably lost.
Our Anglo-Saxon literature, for instance, is not represented by any contemporary copies. The
Anglo-Norman writers had a contempt for the old English manuscripts, and turned them into palimpsests
without the slightest idea that there could be any value in them, and attached far more importance to the
writing they themselves were about to make. Thus it happens that we are in the same position with
regard to Anglo-Saxon literature as with regard to classical authors. No original documents exist, and it
is known to us solely through copies, single copies, in most cases. Beowulf, for instance, is represented
only by a manuscript of the first half of the eleventh century, and Caedmon by a manuscript of the tenth
century.
With the invention and spread of the knowledge of printing, however, the risk of loss was greatly
reduced. Such ancient writings as came into the printer's hands were given a fresh lease of life which in
many cases was of indefinite length, or rather, of practically eternal duration. But the fact of being
printed was not invariably a safeguard. Some of the works of the early printers have disappeared
completely, and many are represented only by single copies. The strange history of the British Museum
copy of the famous Book of St. Albans, will serve to show the vicissitudes with which the relics of the
past have to contend in their journey down the ages.
At the end of the last century the library of an old Lincolnshire house was overhauled by someone who
disdainfully turned out of it all unbound books, and had them destroyed. A few of the condemned books,
however, were begged by the gardener. Among them was the Book of St. Albans. At the gardener's
death his son threw away some of the rescued volumes, but kept the "Book." At the son's death, his
widow sold such books as he had left, to a pedlar, for the sum of ninepence. The pedlar re-sold them to
a chemist in Gainsborough for shop-paper, but observing the strange wood-cuts in the" Book," the
chemist offered it to a stationer for a guinea.
The stationer would not purchase, but said he would display it in his window as a curiosity. Here it
attracted attention, and five pounds was offered for it by a gentleman in the neighbourhood. The
stationer, finding the volume an object of desire, gave the chemist two pounds for it and eventually sold
it to a bookseller for seven guineas. Of this bookseller the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville bought it for
seventy pounds, and bequeathed it to the British Museum with the rest of his magnificent library. This
story I give on the authority of Mr. Blades, who also, to instance the wav in which books travel about and
turn up in odd places, relates that a brother of Bishop Heber's, who had been for years seeking for a
book printed by Colard Mansion, but without success, one day received a fine copy from the bishop, who
had bought it from a native on the banks of the Ganges.