Business taking me to Newcastle of late, I found myself in Bell’s little shop on the quay. {65} You know the man by report at least; he is more a collector than a bookseller, though poor; and I verily believe that he would sell all his children—Douglas Bell, Percy Bell, Hobbie Bell, and Kinmont Bell—“for a song.” Ballads are his foible, and he can hardly be made to part with one of the broadsides in his broken portfolios. Well, _semel insanivimus omnes_ (by the way, did it ever strike you that the Roman “cribbed” that line, as the vulgar say, from an epigram in the Anthology?), and you and I will scarce throw the first stone at the poor man’s folly. However, I am delaying your natural eagerness. So now for the story of my great discovery. As our friend Bell would scarce let his dusty broadsheet lumber out of his hands, I was turning to leave him in no very good humour, when I noticed a small and rather long octavo, in dirty and crumpled vellum, lying on the top of a heap of rubbish, Boston’s “Crook in the Lot,” “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and other chap-book trumpery. I do not know what good angel that watches over us collectors made me take up the thing, which I found to be nothing less than a copy of old Guillaume Coquillart. It was not Galliot du Pré’s edition, in _lettres rondes_, but, still more precious had it only been complete, an example in black letter. I give you the whole title. First the motto, in the frieze of an architectural design, ΑΓΑΘΗ ΤΥΧΗ. Then, in small capitals— LES ŒUVRES MAISTRE GVIL LAUME COQUIL LART EN SON VI VANT OFFICIAL DE REIMS. NOV VELLEMENT RE VEVES ET CORRI GEES. M. D. XXXV. On les vend à Lyon en la Maison de Françoys Juste, Demourant devant nostre Dame de Confort. By bad (or good) luck this rare piece was imperfect—the back gaping and three sheets gone. But, in turning over the leaves, I saw something that brought my heart, as they say, into my mouth. So, beating down Bell from his upset price of fourpence to six bawbees, I pushed the treasure carelessly in my pocket, and never stopped till I was in a lonely place by Tyne-side and secure from observation. Then, with my knife, I very carefully uncased Maistre Guillaume, and extracted the sheet of parchment, printed in black letter with red capitals, that had been used to line the binding. A corner of it had crept out, through the injuries of time, and on that, in Bell’s “crame” (for it is more a crame than a shop), I had caught the mystic words Runjt macht Gunjt.