The Saint Paul globe., 1904-01-24
Famous Manuscripts
Have Queer Adventures

session during the poets life. Fifty
years ago the manuscript was nearly
lost in a London lodging, and there is
somewhere an interesting letter from
Tennyson, in which, writing to Gov
entry Patmore, he said: Il went up to
my room yesterday to get my book OF
Elegies; you know what 1 mean, a
long, butcher-ledger-like book. | was
going to read one or two to an artist
here: L could not find it, l have some
obscure remembrance of having lent it
to you. If so. all is WE'LL if not. will you
go to my old chambers and institute a
vigorous inquiry?'
Two or three weeks had passed since
Tennyson changed his lodgings in
Hampstead road, and the landlady said
no such book had been left. But Pat
more, insisting on looking himself,
found the manuscript in a cupboard
where Tennyson had kept his provi-
Sions
Once before Tennyson had lost a
manuscript, which he never recovered.
He lost the first manuscript of Poems,
Chiefly Lyrical out of his great coat
pocket one night while returning home
from nelghboring town, and sat down
with courage worthy of Carlyle and
rewrote the poems from beginning to
end.
Examples without number come to
mind of manuscripts which have lain
Tor years and generations sometimes
for centuries, out of sight. Millions
Commonplace Book was lost for 200
years. and was only found and pub
lished in 1874. But for an accident his
"Comus" might have been lost to the
world, as it narrowly escaped being
bricked up with the Bridgewater pa
pers, which had all perlshed when
found.
The Creevey papers, which all the
world has been reading of late, lay for
sixty years undiscovered. and we have
had in the last few years a remarkable
example of how. even in these days,
momentous manuscripts may lie hidden
and unsupported beyond the gaze of
man. The oldest code of laws in the
world, promulgated by king of Baby
Ion forty-two centuries ago, was found,
thanks to the enterprise of the French
government, only last year and though
this ancient manuscript is written in
stone. 1t is an amazing thing that we
can now read, in King Hammurabfs
own words, 4,314 lines of the statutes
he enacted for his people more than
two thousand years before Christ.
There is now In st. Petersburg the
Oldest known manuscript of the New
Testament in Greek, saved from de-
struction by the merest chance sixty
years ago. Crossing the halls of n
convent at The foot of Mount Sinai.
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES saw basket
full of parchment leaves on their way
to be burned. Two baskets had already
gone, he was told. and all that he could
secure for himself was a small bundle
of odd leaves. But the monks now
interested in the waste paper" saved
the rest from the fire, and nine years
after, on return visit to the convent.
Tischendorf found that the steward
had, wrapped in red cloth, "a bulky
kind of volume" which proved to be
the whole of the New Testament, with
parts hitherto unknown, and parts of
the Old, which had long been sought.
He begged the volume for the cZar,
and today it lies. well preserved in spite
of its 1900 years of age, among the
treasures of. the Russian capital.
The Stuart papers, one of the most
precious possessions of King Edward,
were found lying in garret by an out
law, upon whose head the British gov
| ernment had set price, who bought
| them for Il paltry sum as "a heap of
tradesmen's bills. and afterward ended
a miserable life by strangling himself in
a London tavern. But for this tragedy
of life these priceless volumes i'm the
kings library would doubtless have
perished unknown. More pathetic is the
manuscript of one of the most beauti-
full poems in English literature. Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, on his wife's death,
placed the manuscript of The Blessed
DamoseP' in her coffin and buried it
with her 1t was his only copy, and
the poem was then imprinted. And un-
printed it would have remained had not
his friends induced the poet to- regain
possession of the poem and give it to
the world. So the blessed Damosel'
hTnIIOht 10 Of
Heaven. Mail.