BOOKS OF SECRETS. 33 



sheepskin, the boards that it is stretched over being left unHned. No 

 attempt was made to turn them out in an attractive shape. They were 

 not written by scholars for scholars, but were meant for common use and 

 were got up as economically as possible. With the exception of Albertus 

 Magnus and Aristotle and may be one or two others, there is not a single 

 author known outside the present connection. Thomas Hill, John Hester, 

 John White, Hannah WoUey, John Shirley, Robert Lovel, Edward Fenton, 

 Owen Wood, A. T., G. W., C. B., who were they ? Little or nothing is 

 known about them. Their names are attached in Catalogues to one or 

 more books, and some of them may have found their way into the 

 Dictionary of National Biography, but their names have not borne their 

 books into fame, any more than the fame of their books has perpetuated 

 their names. 



But whatever the exterior may have been the contents seem to have 

 been sufficient, and the books served their day and generation. How 

 hard the service must have been is eloquently, if not pathetically, pro- 

 claimed by the few victims that have survived, and appeal to us for 

 sympathy. When it is remembered that the circulation must have been 

 enormous, that there was a market for every book of the kind written, 

 that of the popular books edition after edition followed at three or four 

 years' interval, and when after years on years of waiting not a single copy of 

 some of these editions ever appears, one can realise the consumption and 

 destruction that must have gone on and can understand how these books 

 are now so scarce. Sometimes one has the luck to light on a volume of 

 Secrets as fresh as if it had just come from the Looking-glass on London 

 Bridge, or from the Ring, or the Pelican in Little-Britain, or from Duck- 

 lane, but that is a phenomenal exception. For one cannot go into the 

 market and purchase whatever book one wants, and in the condition one 

 would prefer. Some might be acquired without much delay, but for others 

 one might have to wait a life-time. So there is nothing for it but to 

 watch, and when the desired object comes along to seize it. It may be 

 imperfect, it may be dirty, it may be in tatters, but it will be time enough 



