Sir Charles I sham. 323 



except Sir Justinian himself. After his death, in 1818, 

 this room was constantly in use, though the books 

 remained untouched. Here it was, that Mr. Charles 

 Edmonds — representative at that time of the eminent 

 firm of Sotheran& Co., of the Strand and Piccadilly — made 

 the discovery of which for a while every book-lover in 

 England, on the Continent, and in America, was talking. 

 Commissioned by Sir Charles Isham in 1867 to arrange 

 and report upon his library, Mr. Edmonds, having 

 completed his work downstairs, was despatched to the 

 realms above to look over the books that had been 

 stowed away in the garret. Groping amongst the 

 contents of the shelves — filled as was supposed with the 

 poor relations of the great folk below-stairs — there came 

 to light a small volume, wearing an outward covering of 

 clean white vellum, the lettering of which had faded 

 out throug'h time. Little wotting of the value of the fish 

 he had just hooked, he opened its title-page, and to his 

 astonishment and delight became aware, at a glance, 

 that he was the fortunate bringer to light of such a 

 volume of gems as has seldom blessed the eyes of a 

 Bibliomaniac. In front appeared a hitherto-unknown 

 edition of Shakespeare's earliest work, Venus and Adonis, 

 printed in 1599 ; secondly, the famous surreptitious 

 collection of Sonnets entitled the Passionate Filgrime, hij 

 T^. /S'/iafces^^ear^', also printed in 1599, and of which the 

 only other existing copy is preserved in Trinity College 

 Library, Cambridge ; and lastly, the notorious tract 

 containing Epigrammes and Elegies by Sir John 

 Davies and Kit Marlowe, all the copies of which were 

 ordered by public authority to be burnt at Stationers' 

 Hall in the aforesaid year of 1599. Very large sums 



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