been one of Ponsonby's apprentices, and, on setting up with Flaskett, soon secured an aristocratic connection, among his customers being the Earl of Northumberland. John Harrison the younger was for some time a troublesome member of the Stationers' Company. He was one of those who in 1585 sold pirated copies of John Day's "Psalms of David " and " A. B. C. with the lytell Catechisme," 1 and on various other occasions he was fined for breaking the rules of the Company. His tardy confession in this instance was probably well below the mark, and was perhaps prompted by other motives than a desire to assist justice. It does not seem to have been followed by any punishment-indeed such little matters were no bar to a man's preferment-and John Harrison the younger rose in due course to be a Warden of the Company. His shop was in St. Paul's Churchyard. Such were the chief men against whom Ponsonby claimed the protection of the Court of Star Chamber. In each of their shops he had discovered a stock of the pirated edition of " Arcadia," and at first sight it looks as though it was mainly upon this fact that he based his charge. But it must be remembered that he had at his back all the powerful machinery of the Company, and may have learned from his agents enough to convince him of their complicity. Nor was there anything out of the way in the suggestion that these men had taken shares in the venture, as it was quite a common thing at that time for several booksellers to share the risk in the publication of large books. Clearly William Scarlett was a man of straw, and, in spite of his denial, probably Ponsonby was not far wrong in his belief that Scarlett was sent to Scotland by the other defendants for the purpose of arranging matters with Waldegrave. Ponsonby no doubt suffered heavily by this piracy; but his prompt and vigorous action must have ruined the 1 Arber's "Transcripts," vol. ii., pp. 791, 792. "speculation," and entailed a far greater loss on those who had embarked in it. Since writing the above I have come across a report of a copyright trial between Andrew Millar and Robert Taylor with respect to the printing of an edition of Thomson's "Seasons." The report is called "The Question concerning Literary Property" (London, 1773, 4to), and this passage occurs in it, p. 13: "No Case of a Prosecution in the Star Chamber, for printing without Licence, or Against Letters Patent, or pirating another Man's Copy, or any other disorderly printing, has been found. Most of the Judicial Proceedings of the Star Chamber are lost or destroyed." The learned counsel had clearly made an insufficient search, though, as it is true that the Judgments of the Court are all lost, the documents which I have now unearthed would not have helped him much. HENRY R. PLOMER. THREE RECENTLY DISCOVERED BINDINGS WITH LITTLE GIDDING STAMPS. N 1895, in "Bibliographica," I gave some account of the then known bindings which had been made at Little Gidding before its partial demolition in 1647. Of these bindings, all of which are very interesting, the most remarkable and beautiful are those bound in gold and stamped in gold and silver. Of absolutely certain Little Gidding workmanship of this kind there now exist only four known examples. The first, undated, is the property of Captain Gaussen; the second, also undated, is in Lord Salisbury's library at Hatfield; the third, dated 1640, was made for Archbishop www 206 RECENTLY DISCOVERED BINDINGS Laud, and is kept at St. John's College, Cambridge; the fourth belongs to Lord Normanton, and is at Somerley. These volumes are all very large, and contain curiously compiled harmonies of parts of the Bible laboriously collected together and pasted down side by side. The bindings are decorated, as to their general design, on a uniform plan—namely, a circular centre ornament with quarter-circles of the same stamps in each corner of the boards. But besides these four harmonies, I drew attention in the same paper to two printed books, the bindings of which, in gilded and silvered velvet, nearly resemble them. One of these is a copy of a "Notitia Dignitatum," printed at Lyons in 1608, the other an edition of Mercator's Atlas printed at Amsterdam in 1613. Both these volumes are in the British Museum, forming part of the Old Royal Library of England, and belonged originally to Charles I. I put forward the theory, which up to the present has not been adversely criticised, that both these books, even if not entirely bound there, had at all events been re-covered at Little Gidding. Now another book has been found which resembles these two last in all important and distinctive particulars. I. Last November Major E. Montagu-Stuart-Wortley |