He sold it to Osborne for twenty pounds, and as many books as came to twenty pounds more.

Osborne resold this inimitable windfall to Dr.Askew for sixty guineas.

At Dr.Askew's sale," continued the old gentleman, kindling as he spoke, "this inestimable treasure blazed forth in its full value, and was purchased by Royalty itself for one hundred and seventy pounds!--Could a copy now occur, Lord only knows," he ejaculated, with a deep sigh and lifted-up hands--"Lord only knows what would be its ransom; and yet it was originally secured, by skill and research, for the easy equivalent of two-pence sterling.

* Happy, thrice happy, Snuffy Davie!--and blessed were the times when thy industry could be so rewarded! * This bibliomaniacal anecdote is literally true; and David Wilson, the author need not tell his brethren of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne Clubs, was a real personage.
"Even I, sir," he went on, "though far inferior in industry and discernment and presence of mind, to that great man, can show you a few--a very few things, which I have collected, not by force of money, as any wealthy man might,--although, as my friend Lucian says, he might chance to throw away his coin only to illustrate his ignorance,--but gained in a manner that shows I know something of the matter.

See this bundle of ballads, not one of them later than 1700, and some of them an hundred years older.