The importance of this document was recognized at a comparatively early date, and a facsimile prepared by John Pine, a well-known engraver of the day, some eighteen months after the great fire. The engraving bears a certificate dated 9th May, 1733, narrating that the copy is founded on the original, which had been shrivelled up by the heat; but that where two holes had been burned, the obliterated words had been replaced from the other version (to be immediately described), also preserved in the Cottonian collection. (2) _The British Museum Magna Carta, number two_—formally cited as “Cotton, Augustus, II. 106.” The early history of this document is unknown, but sometime in the seventeenth century it came into the possession of Mr. Humphrey Wyems, and by him it was presented to Sir Robert Cotton on 1st January, 1628–9. Unlike the other Cottonian copy, this one is happily in an excellent state of preservation; but there is no trace left of any seal.[287] Three of the five addenda inserted at the foot of the copy previously described are found in a similar position here; but the substance of the two others is included in the body of the deed. On the left-hand margin, titles intended to be descriptive of several chapters occur in a later hand.[288] Thus for the preservation of two original copies of the national charter of liberties the nation is indebted to Sir Robert Cotton, but for whose antiquarian zeal they might both have been lost. Apparently, however, a story told by several authors[289] as to the humiliating fate which threatened the original Magna Carta must be rejected. Sir Robert, it is said, discovered “the palladium of English liberties” in the hands of his tailor at the critical moment when the scissors were about to transform it into shapes for a suit of clothes. This is undoubtedly a fable, since both manuscripts of Magna Carta in the Cottonian collection are otherwise accounted for. ----- Footnote 287: “The fold and label are now cut off, though it is said once to have had slits in it for two seals, for which it is almost impossible to account; but Dr. Thomas Smith, in his Preface to the _Cottonian Catalogue_, Oxford, 1695, folio, states that they were those of the barons” (Thomson, _Magna Charta_, 425). Footnote 288: Reproductions of this copy are sold at the British Museum at 2s. 6d. each. Footnote 289: See Isaac D’Israeli, _Curiosities of Literature_, I. 18, and Thomson, _Magna Charta_, 424. -----