Naturally, _The Lyon in Mourning_ was one of his most valued possessions, and he guarded it with the most jealous care. Only on one occasion would he allow it out of his own hands. He would show his friends the external bulk of it, but they were not permitted to pry within. One young relative, who did not apparently stand very high in the author's favour, had the temerity to ask that the 'black-edged volumes' might be sent to him in London for completing a narrative which he and another were preparing for publication, and in reply got the rebuff, that there was much room for doubting his competency for the task he had undertaken, while as for the loan of the Manuscript, he had asked what the author would not have granted to his own father. However, Bishop Forbes judged it expedient to part with them for a time when his residence was threatened with a search. He had this to plead as an excuse to Dr. Burton, who begged the Bishop to furnish from his collection some materials to make his own proposed publication more perfect. 'I was obliged,' he replies, 'to secret my collection, having been threatened with a search for papers. I have therefore put my collection out of my own custody into the keeping of a friend, where I cannot have access to it without some difficulty, and I resolve to keep it so, that so I may defy the Devil and the Dutch.' Indeed, this was his usual way with it, for he writes to another, 'I keep my collection in a concealment always, so that I am not afraid of its being seized by enemies; and it is not every friend I allow to see only the bulk and outside of my favourite papers.'[11] [11] f. 1426.