The transcript of Magna Charta, now in the British Museum, was discovered by Sir Robert Cotton in the possession of his tailor, who was just about to cut the precious document out into "measures" for his customers. Sir Robert redeemed the valuable curiosity at the price of old parchment, and thus recovered what had long been supposed to be irretrievably lost.
When Mr. Fox's furniture was sold by auction, after his decease in 1806, amongst his books there was the first volume of his friend Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_: by the title-page, it appeared to have been presented by the author to Fox, who, on the blank leaf, had written this anecdote of the historian:--"The author, at Brookes's, said there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table. Eleven days after, this same gentleman accepted a place of lord of trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!" Such was the avidity of bidders for the most trifling production of Fox's genius, that, by the addition of this little record, the book sold for three guineas.
Sir Joshua Reynolds used to relate the following characteristic anecdote of Johnson:--About the time of their early acquaintance, they met one evening at the Misses Cotterell's, when the Duchess of Argyll and another lady of rank came in. Johnson, thinking that the Misses Cotterell were too much engrossed by them, and that he and his friend were neglected as low company, of whom they were somewhat ashamed, grew angry, and, resolving to shock their suspected pride, by making the great visitors imagine they were low indeed, Johnson addressed himself in a loud tone to Reynolds, saying, "How much do you think you and I could get in a week if we were to work as hard as we could?" just as though they were ordinary mechanics.
The Earl of Dudley, in his _Letters_, (1814) says:--"To me Byron's _Corsair_ appears the best of all his works. Rapidity of execution is no sort of apology for doing a thing ill, but when it is done well, the wonder is so much the greater. I am told he wrote this poem at ten sittings--certainly it did not take him more than three weeks. He is a most extraordinary person, and yet there is G. Ellis, who don't feel his merit. His creed in modern poetry (I should have said _contemporary_) is Walter Scott, all Walter Scott, and nothing but Walter Scott. I cannot say how I hate this petty, factious spirit in literature--it is so unworthy of a man so clever and so accomplished as Ellis undoubtedly is."