All this service most lowly he recommends
unto his good mastership, beseeching him most tenderly
to see the writer somewhat rewarded for his labour in the
"Grete Boke" which he wrote unto his said good mastership.
And he winds up his letter with a request for alms
in the shape of one of Sir John's own gowns; and beseeches
God to preserve his patron from all adversity, with which
the writer declares himself to be somewhat acquainted.
He heads his bill: Following appeareth, parcelly, divers
and sundry manner of writings, which I William Ebesham
have written for my good and worshipful master, Sir John
Paston, and what money I have received, and what is
unpaid. For writing a "litill booke of Pheesyk" he was
paid twenty pence. Other writing he did for twopence
a leaf. Hoccleve's de Regimine Principum he wrote
for one penny a leaf, "which is right wele worth."
Evidently Ebesham did not find scrivening a too profitable
occupation.[1]
[1] Gairdner, Paston letters, v. 1-4, where the whole bill is
transcribed.
CHAPTER XI. THE CHARACTER OF THE MEDIEVAL LIBRARY,
AND THE EXTENT OF CIRCULATION OF BOOKS
"Some ther be that do defye
All that is newe, and ever do crye
The olde is better, away with the new
Because it is false, and the olde is true.
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