This gentleman tells us, at one part of his explanation, that the sheet of paper which he used was the outside of several others, on some of which accounts had been kept in the reign of Charles the First; and being at that time wholly unacquainted with the water-marks used in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, “I carefully selected (says he) two half-sheets, not having any mark whatever, on which I penned my first effusion.” A few pages further on he writes—“Being thus urged forward to the production of more manuscripts, it became necessary that I should possess a sufficient quantity of old paper to enable me to proceed, in consequence of which I applied to a bookseller, named Verey, in Great May’s Buildings, St. Martin’s Lane, who, for the sum of five shillings, suffered me to take from all the folio and quarto volumes in his shop, the fly leaves which they contained. By this means I was amply stored with that commodity; nor did I fear any mention of the circumstance by Mr. Verey, whose quiet unsuspecting disposition, I was well convinced, would never lead him to make the transaction public, in addition to which he was not likely even to know anything concerning the supposed Shaksperian discovery by myself, and even if he had, I do not imagine that my purchase of the old paper in question, would have excited in him the smallest degree of suspicion. As I was fully aware from the variety of water-marks which are in existence at the present day, that they must have constantly been altered since the period of Elizabeth, and being for some time wholly unacquainted with the water-marks of that age, I very carefully produced my first specimens of the writing on such sheets of old paper as had no mark whatever. Having heard it frequently stated that the appearance of such marks on the papers would have greatly tended to establish their validity, I listened attentively to every remark which was made upon the subject, and from thence I at length gleaned the intelligence that a jug was the prevalent water-mark of the reign of Elizabeth, in consequence of which I inspected all the sheets of old paper then in my possession, and having selected such as had the jug upon them, I produced the succeeding manuscripts upon these, being careful, however, to mingle with them a certain number of blank leaves, that the production on a sudden of so many water-marks might not excite suspicion in the breasts of those persons who were most conversant with the manuscripts.”