In short, it was
the very Torso of autographs. Happily the position which it finally
attained was one worthy of its merits, and we could not have wished
it a more elegant shrine than the precious pages of the Holberton
Album, a volume encased in velvet, secured with jeweled clasps,
reposing on a tasteful etagere.
{etagere = small table or shelf for displaying curios (French)}
But I proceed without further delay to relate some of the more
important steps in the progress of this interesting paper, from the
garret of the starving poet to the drawing-rooms of Holberton House,
merely observing by way of preface that the following notice may be
relied on so far as it goes, the writer--Colonel Jonathan Howard of
Trenton, New Jersey,--having had access to the very best authorities,
and having also had the honor of being enlisted in the service of the
Lumley Autograph upon an occasion of some importance, as will be
shown by the narrative.
It was just one hundred years since, in 1745, that this celebrated
letter was first brought to light, from the obscurity in which it had
already lain some half a century, and which no subsequent research
has been able fully to clear away. In the month of August of that
year, the Rev. John Lumley, tutor to Lord G-----, had the honor of
discovering this curious relic under the following circumstances.
Mr.
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