17* ON THE PRICE OF GRAIN. 



the consumer got the better of the rent prices, but sometimes 

 the official went to sleep, and had to pay for his negligence. 

 Out of ninety-six years in the present series, the S. John's 

 College official was caught napping, and paid a higher average 

 than the College received, in nine only. 



The Winchester accounts are invaluable as far as they go. 

 But for some unexplained reason, all the early accounts of 

 this famous corporation have disappeared. Winchester is, I 

 believe, the only great institution of the kind which has been 

 heedless of its records. It is a small matter to lose the private 

 record of a man ; it is a social crime of the highest kind 

 to destroy the private history of an institution ; and this too 

 of an institution which Wykeham made the type, and made 

 it successfully, of the English public school. It is difficult to 

 believe that there were personal motives in destroying this 

 history; I prefer to infer that the attorney has done the 

 mischief. Winchester is a small town, and probably endured 

 the doctrine of an attorney's lien to the uttermost. 



Besides the accounts from these four great centres, a few 

 others have been discovered and consulted. There are some 

 from the domestic accounts of the first Lord North, others 

 from those of the first Lord Spencer. There are some from 

 the family records of the Earls of Pembroke, on an estate of 

 theirs at Worksop. There are the Shuttleworth accounts at 

 Gawthorp ; those of D'Ewes, of the Caryl family, in West 

 Sussex ; of the Archers at Theydon Gernon ; of Johnson and 

 Lord Lovelace at the conclusion of the period, besides other 

 scattered records. Most of these are in the MS. Department 

 of the British Museum. But domestic accounts during the 

 seventeenth century are exceedingly rare. The search for 

 them has been incessant ; the price paid for them, when they 

 are found, is high. 



Some prices have been gleaned from the publications of the 

 county archaeological societies, notably the accounts of Mr. 

 Master of Votes Court in Kent. A few have been found in the 

 Rawlinson and Tanner MSS. preserved in the Bodleian 



