4 Charles William Wallace 



deeds and wills. The hope, however, of reaching the "deeds, 

 charters, letters patent," etc., that occasioned this suit seems not 

 alluring. My later investigations in the Guildhall and elsewhere 

 satisfy me that if they are ever found, it will be only by accident 

 rather than by systematic research. After the Lord Chancellor 

 called these papers into court and disposed of them as seemed 

 meet, they were again doubtless placed in private hands in trust. 

 No one can say where to look for them. They may have gone 

 Ipng ago to the toy drum-head, the glue-pot, the bonfire, or the 

 cook's kindling-box. Or they may yet lie stored in some lawyer's 

 vault, or be hidden in "box, bag, or chist" of some private family. 



Two months ago a friend of the writer rescued, in one of the 

 inns of court, an armful of old parchments which the janitor 

 was carrying out to be burned. They proved to be valuable 

 court records of Henry VIII. Recently while visiting at an 

 ancient mansion near London the writer saw a manuscript book 

 of cookery and general recipes dating from Elizabeth and 

 James I., — the only ancestral MS. relic the present owner rescued 

 from a box in a garret from which the maid had for some time 

 drawn a supply of kindling. Not long ago an official suggested 

 to me the propriety of printing the Privy Council Registers in 

 thin volumes, with small type, and burning the originals because 

 they took up so much room. The Library Committee of the 

 Guildhall some years ago recommended in their published report 

 that a lot of "unimportant" records lying loose on the floor of 

 one room of the city archives should be burned to make room 

 for more valuable material. 



The above are instances which every searcher for original 

 records can duplicate and sometimes centriplicate. They show 

 the improbability of reaching the privately kept records once 

 held by Ann Bacon. Of course it is clear that these did not 

 include Shakespeare's deed or mortgage, which were taken in 

 charge by their respective owners, but did include all earlier 

 records and transfers pertaining not only to his property but to 

 that of the others both before and after the original tract was 

 split up and sold in parcels. Such documents were essential 

 evidences in maintaining or transferring title, and served as orig- 



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