The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-05-15
PRECIOUS AUTOGRAPHS.
the Odd Way in Which a Collector Sc
cured Valuable Historical Papers.


The Odd Way in Which Collector se-
cured Valuable Historical Papers.
On day in the year 1910 there calls
at hshmonger's shop in Old Hunger
ford Market, kept by Yarmouth man
named Jay, a friend, himself from Var
mouth, no tishmonger, but connois-
seur and collector of autographs
with, moreover, sick son, for whom
he desired to buy soles. He buys his
soles, and they are wrapped for hir. in
large stiff sheet of paper, torn from
folio volume that stands at jays ell
bow on the dresser, and with that the
| connoisseur goes home, and, unwrap-
ping the soles, delivers them to the
cook, when, there on the large stiff
sheet of paper, his well-trained eye
catches the signatures of Godolphin,
Sunderland, Ashley, Lauderdale. The
wrapping of the soles is sheet of the
victualing charges for prisoners in the
Tower, in the reign of James H., and
the signatures are those of his Minis
tiers. Any other man must have given
some sign, have gone off to tell some
body; not so the connoisseur, but he
takes his hat and stick, and, whistling
bit, walks back straight into jays
shop, the shop of his fellow-townsman
and he buys a whiting, and he says
That's pretty good paper of yours,
Jay says he; and Jay says, eyes, it
is, bsF plaguy stiff" wrapping the
whiting in another great sheet of the
folio, and adds, 1--WE got a good bit of
it, too; L got it from Somerset House"
The connoisseur's heart gives q
great leap, but, the hero of hundred
bargains, he remains cool and asks the
price of cod. ''Fivepence," returns
jay; "they advertised ten tons of waste
paper, and | offered thirty-ive dollars
a ton, which they took, dye see? And
I've got three tons of it in the stables,
and the other seven they keep till want
il" "All like this?" asks the con-
noisseur, faint with expectancy.
Pretty much" replies Jay, ''all odds
and ends" The connoisser goes home,
with whiting, with cod, with mackerel,
with skate, with parcels of every kind
Of fish for his poor fanciful sick son,
and moreover with great bundle of
these precious papers from Somerset
House, handed over to him carelessly
by his fellow-townsman Jay, who
knows his friends little weakness for
rubbish and fragments, and obligingly
sends around to the stables for an arm
tul for him. And, safe at home, the
oonnoisseur casts the fish on the floor,
and increases the papers, and his head
swims as he looks on accounts of the
Exchequer Office signed by Henry VII.
and Henry VIII, wardrobe accounts
of Queen Anne, and dividend receipts
signed by Pope, Newton, Dryden and
Wren. He is obliged to throw up the
window for air, as in his armful he dis
covers secret-service accounts marked
with the E. G. of Nell Gwynne, q
treatise on the eucharist in the boyish
hand of Edward VI, and disquisition
on the order of the Garter in the schol-
arly writing of Elizabeth. The Gov
ernment, in disposing by tender of
their old papers to Jay, the fishmonger,
have disposed of memorials of those
whom, if the country has not most
reason to be proud of, she has at least
most reason to remember.-C O7Yehill
Magazine.