Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/80

68 A LAWSUIT AS TO THE books called ' Grace Abounding ' of either the plaintiff or defendant, but of which of them he could not certainly remember, nor the number nor price, nor to whom he paid the money, but he believed that they were both privy to the sale. Nicholas Boddington, who gave his age as forty- five 'or thereabouts/ said he had known the parties to the suit about fourteen or fifteen years, and that it was in the year 1692 and 1693 tnat ^ e bought ten thousand copies of the First Part of the c Pilgrim's Progress ' of the plaintiff Ponder, and paid the defendant Braddyl after the rate of five shillings per ream for them, although he had agreed with the plaintiff that he was to have them at four shillings and sixpence a ream. As to the Second Part of the c Pilgrim's Progress ' and the book called c Grace Abounding,' he knew no more than that they were the lawful copies of the plaintiff. With regard to the bill shewn him he recognized it as being in Braddyl's handwriting, which he knew very well. Ponder's witnesses can hardly have helped him very much. They said as little as they could, and what little they did say was rather in Braddyl's favour. Undoubtedly, the most interesting fa6ts revealed by these documents are the size of the later editions and the sum paid for printing them namely, four and sixpence a ream, which allowed the printer to sell them to the wholesale book- sellers at threepence-halfpenny a volume. We cannot, of course, argue from this that this was the sum paid for printing the first edition, as there is no likelihood that this was printed in such large