Note 13 — Chapter I · THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS
Reading edition
On the preceding blank page there is an inscription in late seventeenth-century handwriting—
“This boucke with letters is wr [remainder of word illegible] Of it you cane no languige make. Ba C. A happie end if thou dehre [dare] to make Remember still thyn owne esstate, If thou desire in Christ to die Thenn well to lead thy lif applie barbara crokker.”
It is at least probable that Wanley, who at this period was collecting Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for George Hickes, secured this MS. from “barbara crokker.” Her naïve avowal of her inability to read the MS. suggests that she probably had no idea of the value of the book, and when one remembers Wanley’s reputation for driving shrewd bargains one cannot help wondering what he paid for this treasure. Those must have been halcyon days for collectors, when a man who had been an assistant in the Bodleian Library with a salary of £12 a year could buy Saxon manuscripts!