In another case there were the original autograph copies of
several famous works,--for example, that of Pope's Homer, written on the
backs of letters, the direction and seals of which appear in the midst of
"the Tale of Troy divine," which also is much scratched and interlined
with Pope's corrections; a manuscript of one of Ben Jonson's masques; of
the Sentimental Journey, written in much more careful and formal style
than might be expected, the book pretending to be a harum-scarum; of
Walter Scott's Kenilworth, bearing such an aspect of straightforward
diligence that I shall hardly think of it again as a romance;--in short,
I may as well drop the whole matter here.
All through the long vista of the king's library, we come to cases in
which--with their pages open beneath the glass--we see books worth their
weight in gold, either for their uniqueness or their beauty, or because
they have belonged to illustrious men, and have their autographs in them.
The copy of the English translation of Montaigne, containing the strange
scrawl of Shakespeare's autograph, is here. Bacon's name is in another
book; Queen Elizabeth's in another; and there is a little devotional
volume, with Lady Jane Grey's writing in it.
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