Mr. Crowninshield strongly advised Mr. Livermore
against parting with his four leaves, because, as he said, 'They would
enable Stevens to complete his copy and to place it in the library of
Mr. Lenox, who would then crow over us because he also had a perfect
copy of "The Bay-Psalm Book."'
"Having thus completed my copy and had it bound by Francis Bedford in
his best style, I sent it to Mr. Lenox for L80. Five years later I
bought the Crowninshield Library in Boston for $10,000, mainly to
obtain his perfect copy of 'The Bay Psalm Book,' and brought the whole
library to London. This second copy, after being held several months,
was at the suggestion of Mr. Thomas Watts, offered to the British
Museum for L150. The Keeper of the Printed Books, however, never had
the courage to send it before the Trustees for approval and payment; so
after waiting five or six years longer the volume was withdrawn, bound
by Bedford, taken to America in 1868, and sold to Mr. George Brinley
for 150 guineas. At the Brinley sale, in March, 1878, it was bought by
Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for $1200, or more than three times the cost
of my first copy to Mr. Lenox."
We hear the expression of a book being "worth its weight in gold." "The Bay
Psalm-Book," in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, weighs
nine ounces, hence Mr.
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