Page:An Inquiry into the Authenticity of certain Papers and Instruments attributed to Shakspeare.djvu/24

have been found in a mansion-house in the country; but whether the first discovery was made in town or country, we are not told. Neither are we informed what led the discoverer to examine the deeds and papers of the unknown gentleman. They, however, who recollect the first production of these curiosities, may remember that it was then said by those who gave credit to their authenticity, that the discoverer met the possessor, to whom he was wholly unknown, at a coffee-house, or some other publick place: that the possessor was a gentleman of large fortune, who lived chiefly in the country, and was devoted to rural amusements, but had chambers in the Temple, to which he occasionally resorted: that the conversation turning on old papers, and autographs, of which the discoverer said he was a collector, the country-gentleman exclaimed, ‘‘If you are for autographs, I am your man; come to my chambers any morning, and rummage among my old deeds; you will there find enough of them:” that accordingly the discoverer went there, and on taking down a parcel of old deeds from a shelf, in a very few minutes lighted on