Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/191

Rh a very little book, and the writing as legible as print. Well, the collation, it seems, was sent defective to Oxon; and the blame, I suppose, laid upon me. I returned again to the Library some months before the edition was finished: no application was made for further use of the manuscript. Thence I went for a whole fortnight to Oxon, where the book was then printing, conversed in the very College where the Editors resided. Not the least whisper there of the manuscript. After a few weeks, out comes the new edition, with this sting in the mouth of it. 'Twas a surprise indeed, to read there, that our manuscript was not perused. Could not they have asked for it again, then, after my return? 'Twas neither singular nor common humanity, not to inquire into the truth of the thing before they ventured to print, which is a sword in the hand of a child. But there is a reason for everything; and the mystery was soon revealed. As for the King's manuscript, they had no want nor desire of it; for, as I shall show by and by, they had neither industry nor skill to use either that or their own. And for my part, I, it seems, had the hard hap, in some private conversation, to say the Epistles were a