Dr. Maitland, in his valuable volume on the "Dark Ages," has the following
remarks on a subject which I think has not met with the attention it
deserves:
"Those who are in the habit of looking at such things, know how
commonly early printed books, whose binding has undergone the
analytical operation of damp, or mere old age, disclose the under end
pieces of beautiful and ancient manuscript. They know how freely
parchment was used for backs and bands, and fly-leaves, and even for
covers. The thing is so common, that those who are accustomed to see
old books _have ceased to notice it_."
In order to come within the design of your pages, I must put this in the
shape of a Query, and ask, if it is not a pity that this fact has _ceased
to be noticed_? We do not know what treasures may be contained in the
shabby covers which we contemplate getting rid of. "There are thousands"
(of MSS.), says the same writer, "equally destroyed,--thousands of murdered
wretches not so completely annihilated: their ghosts do walk the earth;
they glide unseen into our libraries, our studies, our very hands; they are
all about and around us. We even take them up and lay them down, without
knowing of their existence; unless time and damp (as if to punish and mock
us for robbing them of their prey) have loosed their bonds, and set them to
confront us."
Archbishop Tenison had not "ceased to notice it." He very diligently
rescued these "fragments" from the hands of his bookbinder and it is to be
regretted that he did not take equal precaution in preserving them.
Recently, all that I could collect have been cleaned, inlaid, and arranged
chronologically, making two interesting and valuable volumes.
How far would it be desirable to unite for the purpose of collecting MS.
fragments, and early printed leaves?
Might not a Society, which should have for its especial object the
_discovery_, cataloguing, and circulating information about these stray
bits, be of great service? _E. g._ I have before me five volumes of
Justinian's _Codices_ and _Digesta_, Paris, 1526; the covers of which are
made of MS. Thirteen leaves go to make one board. They are written on both
sides and thus an easy multiplication gives us 260 pages of MS., or early
printing, in the covers of one work!
It is not unlikely that, if the results of research in this direction were
carefully registered, many perfect pieces might be recovered.