Two or three other fragments were found, and the landlady stated
that her father, who was fond of antiquities, had at one time
a chest full of old black-letter books; that, upon his death,
they were preserved till she was tired of seeing them, and then,
supposing them of no value, she had used them for waste;
that for two years and a-half they had served for various
household purposes, but she had just come to the end of them.
The fragments preserved, and now in my possession, are a goodly
portion of one of the most rare books from the press of Wynkyn
de Worde, Caxton's successor. The title is a curious woodcut
with the words "Gesta Romanorum" engraved in an odd-shaped
black letter. It has also numerous rude wood-cuts throughout.
It was from this very work that Shakespeare in all probability
derived the story of the three caskets which in "The Merchant
of Venice" forms so integral a portion of the plot. Only think of
that cloaca being supplied daily with such dainty bibliographical
treasures!
In the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum is a volume
containing three manuscript dramas of Queen Elizabeth's time, and on
a fly-leaf is a list of fifty-eight plays, with this note at the foot,
in the handwriting of the well-known antiquary, Warburton:
"After I had been many years collecting these Manuscript Playes,
through my own carelessness and the ignorance of my servant,
they was unluckely burned or put under pye bottoms.
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