Arizona republican., 1904-01-10
SOME FAMOUS MANUSCRIPTS.
Several Lost For Years, Others Saved
 Just in Time.


 Just in Time.
 A country which has supported for a generation a costly commission to secure for the state printed copies of thousands of historic manuscripts it not likely to let go the original copy of l Paradise Lost" and we may be sure that long before the sale announced for next spring the Milton manuscript will rest in the national treasure house. side by side with the scared and yellow of Magma Charta.
 That shriveled parchment the char ter of English freedom was saved, it is said. by the veriest chance from the scissors of a merciless tailor. Struck by the great seals attached to a piece of paper the tailor was cutting up, Sir Robert Cotton stopped the man, gave him four pence for the document he would have destroyed. It is now in the British museum lined and mounted, and in a glass case, the seal a shape less mass of wax, and the characters quite illegible.
 Fourpence will not buy Paradise Lost" and the passing of this interest ing document into the possession of the state will be a much more formal and unromantic transaction. Is it, too much to suppose that the secretary of the Historic Manuscripts Commission will quietly send a check one morning to Messrs Sotheby and hand the man. uscript to Sir Edward -Thompson--at night?
 The commission, if we are to believe and earl, has done much more daring things. The fourth Earl of Ashburn- ham had no great love for it. You are here, sir. under false pretences," he shouted to Sir George Dasent, when the knight, at the earTs invitation, ar rived at Ashburnham. T have dis covered that you are a member sir of that most disreputable society called the Historic Manuscripts Commission: they are a society of ruffians, sir
 Surely" exclaimed Sir George, "a great many eminent persons belong to the commission-Lord Salisbury. for instance, is not a ruffian."
 Yes sir; he is a ruffian when act ing for that society,"" the angry earl burst out: and you sir, are a ruffian. too-you tamper with title deeds. sir!"
 The old lady who received letters from Carlyle would have agreed with the fourth earl. When Froude's Car lyle" appeared she opened her chest filled with letters from the great men of the day and took out a bundle. 'They were written to me-" she burst out as she flung them into the fire. mot to the public and when the children ran in to say that the chim- ney was on fire all that she would say was, Never mind" and the papers went on burning.
 There was burning of manuscripts much less deliberate and much more serious in which the old lady's cor respondent was concerned. Can we ever forget once we have read it. that page in Carlyle's journal in which the great man tells us how on March 6. 1885, John Stuart Mill rapped at the door at teatime?
 He entered pale,'' Carlyle wrote down the next day, unable to sneak. gasped out to my wife to go down and speak with Mrs. Taylor, and came for ward Qed by my hand and astonished looksl the very picture of desperation.
 After various inarticulate and ar ticulate utterances to merely the same effect he informed me that my first volume Cleft out by him in too care :. less a manner. after or while reading iD has, except four or five bits of leaves. irrevocably annihilated!" Tt is gonei" Carlyle wrote again." the whole world and myself backed by it could not bring that back, nay, the old spirit. too, is fled. l find it took five months of steadfast occasionally excessive and always sickly and painful toil." Mill. he added. ''very injudicially stayed with us till late" and left in a relapsed and pitiable state
 Though it is not generally known. another manuscript as famous as Car lyle's was at one time in peril of T similar fate. Lady Simeon since Ten nyson's death has generously present. ed to his son the original manuscrint of Tn Memorium' of which she had possession during the poets life. Fifty years ago the manuscript was nearly lost in London lodging. and there is somewhere an interesting letter from Tennyson, in which, writing to Coven- try Patmore. he said: T went up to my room yesterday to get my book of Elegies; you know what I mean. T long. butcher-ledger-like book I was going to read one or two to an artist here: l could not find it. I have some obscure remembrance of having lent it to you. If so all is well: if not will you go to my old chambers and inst:- tute vigorous inquiry?"
 Two or three weeks had passed since Tennyson had changed his lodgings in Hamstead road and the landladv said no such book had been left. But