ABSTRACT
To most people, undoubtedly, the great collection of recorded law amassed at the Public Record Office would be the last place they would expect to find the materials wherewith history is made pleasant. But to the antiquary, and to one who will trouble himself to look for them, the Records afford glimpses at the ways of the world that is gone, as interesting and amusing as do even the old chroniclers, quaint old Stow, or gossipy Froissart. The Records of the State Paper Office, consisting as they do chiefly of letters, are extremely prolific in these curiosities, and a few of them augmented by some from other departments, have been noted down here. Their miscellaneous character is astonishing. In one bound-up volume of old State Papers the reader will find recipes for gout, theological disquisitions, plans of fortifications, a novel, extracts from a play, Latin proverbs, and a score of other things equally alien to the original function of the State Paper Office proper, but still interesting, dirty and difficult to read.
