Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/234

160 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 days, 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’s a reason for everything; and the mystery was soon revealed. For, it seems, I had the hard hap, in some private conversation, to say the Epistles were a spurious piece, and unworthy of a new edition, Hinc illae lacrimae. This was a thing deeply resented; and to have spoken to me about the manuscript had been to lose a plausible occasion of taking revenge.”