I fear that I must sell this residue
 Of my father's books; although the Elzevirs
 Have fly-leaves over-written by his hand,
 In faded notes as thick and fine and brown
 As cobwebs on a tawny monument
 Of the old Greeks—conferenda haec cum his—
 Corruptè citat—lege potiùs,
 And so on, in the scholar's regal way
 Of giving judgement on the parts of speech,
 As if he sate on all twelve thrones up-piled,
 Arraigning Israel. Ay, but books and notes
 Must go together. And this Proclus too,
 In quaintly dear contracted Grecian types,
 Fantastically crumpled, like his thoughts
 Which would not seem too plain; you go round twice
 For one step forward, then you take it back,
 Because you're somewhat giddy! there's the rule
 For Proclus. Ah, I stained this middle leaf
 With pressing in't my Florence iris-bell,
 Long stalk and all: my father chided me
 For that stain of blue blood,—I recollect
 The peevish turn his voice took,—'Silly girls,
 Who plant their flowers in our philosophy
 To make it fine, and only spoil the book!
 No more of it, Aurora.' Yes—no more!
 Ah, blame of love, that's sweeter than all praise
 Of those who love not! 'tis so lost to me,
 I cannot, in such beggared life, afford
 To lose my Proclus....
The kissing Judas, Wolff, shall go instead,
 Who builds us such a royal book as this
 To honour a chief-poet, folio-built,
 And writes above, 'The house of Nobody':
 Who floats in cream, as rich as any sucked
 From Juno's breasts, the broad Homeric lines,
 And, while with their spondaic prodigious mouths
 They lap the lucent margins as babe-gods,
 Proclaims them bastards. Wolff's an atheist;
 And if the Iliad fell out, as he says,
 By mere fortuitous concourse of old songs,
 We'll guess as much, too, for the universe.
E. B. Browning. Aurora Leigh.

THE VOCATION

One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was judicious was apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he wanted—namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for, expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that nonchalance about sales which seems to belong universally to the second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even a Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you with an affectionate assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led to fear that a second-hand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by, yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their vocation.—G. Eliot. Daniel Deronda.

TO MY BOOKSELLER

Thou that makst gain thy end, and, wisely well,
 Callst a book good, or bad, as it doth sell,
 Use mine so too: I give thee leave; but crave
 For the luck's sake it thus much favour have
 To lie upon thy stall, till it be sought;
 Not offered, as it made suit to be bought;
 Nor have my title-leaf on posts or walls,
 Or in cleft sticks, advanced to make calls
 For termers, or some clerk-like servingman,
 Who scarce can spell the hard names: whose knight less can.
 If without these vile arts it will not sell,
 Send it to Bucklersbury, there 'twill well.
Ben Jonson.

THE WRITER TO HIS BOOK

Whither thus hastes my little book so fast?
 To Paul's Churchyard. What? in those cells to stand,
 With one leaf like a rider's cloak put up
 To catch a termer? or lie musty there
 With rhymes a term set out, or two, before?
 Some will redeem me. Few. Yes, read me too.
 Fewer. Nay, love me. Now thou dot'st, I see.
 Will not our English Athens art defend?
 Perhaps. Will lofty courtly wits not aim
 Still at perfection? If I grant? I fly.
 Whither? To Paul's. Alas, poor book, I rue
 Thy rash self-love; go, spread thy papery wings:
 Thy lightness cannot help or hurt my fame.
T. Campion.

AD BIBLIOPOLAM

Printer or stationer or whate'er thou prove
 Shalt me record to Time's posterity:
 I'll not enjoin thee, but request in love,
 Thou so much deign my Book to dignify,
 As, first, it be not with your ballads mixed
 Next, not at play-houses 'mongst pippins sold:
 Then that on posts by the ears it stand not fixt,
 For every dull mechanic to behold.
 Last, that it come not brought in pedler's packs,
 To common fairs, of country, town, or city:
 Sold at a booth 'mongst pins and almanacks;
 Yet on thy hands to lie, thou'lt say 'twere pity;
 Let it be rather for tobacco rent,
 Or butchers-wives, next Cleansing-week in Lent.
H. Parrot. The Mastive, or Young-Whelpe of the Olde-Dogge.

IN BONDAGE TO THE BOOKSELLER

Nevertheless conceive me not, I pray you, that I go about to lay a general imputation upon all stationers. For to disparage the whole profession were an act neither becoming an honest man to do, nor a prudent auditory to suffer. Their mystery, as they not untruly term it, consists of divers trades incorporated together: as printers, book-binders, clasp-makers, booksellers, &c. And of all these be some honest men, who to my knowledge are so grieved, being overborne by the notorious oppressions and proceedings of the rest, that they have wished themselves of some other calling. The printers' mystery is ingenious, painful, and profitable: the book-binders' necessary; the clasp-makers' useful. And indeed, the retailer of books, commonly called a bookseller, is a trade, which, being well governed and limited within certain bounds, might become somewhat serviceable to the rest. But as it is now, for the most part abused, the bookseller hath not only made the printer, the binder, and the clasp-maker a slave to him: but hath brought authors, yea, the whole Commonwealth, and all the liberal sciences into bondage. For he makes all professors of Art labour for his profit, at his own price, and utters it to the Commonwealth in such fashion, and at those rates, which please himself. Insomuch, that I wonder so insupportable and so impertinent a thing as a mere bookseller, considering what the profession is become now, was ever permitted to grow up in the Commonwealth.—G. Wither. The Schollers Purgatory.

IN PATERNOSTER ROW

Methinks, oh vain, ill-judging book!
 I see thee cast a wistful look,
 Where reputations won and lost are
 In famous row called Paternoster.
 Incensed to find your precious olio
 Buried in unexplored port-folio,
 You scorn the prudent lock and key;
 And pant, well-bound and gilt, to see
 Your volume in the window set
 Of Stockdale, Hookham, and Debrett.
 Go then, and pass that dangerous bourne
 Whence never book can back return;
 And when you find—condemned, despised,
 Neglected, blamed, and criticized—
 Abuse from all who read you fall
 (If haply you be read at all),
 Sorely will you for folly sigh at,
 And wish for me, and home, and quiet.
Assuming now a conjurer's office, I
 Thus on your future fortune prophesy:—
 Soon as your novelty is o'er,
 And you are young and new no more,
 In some dark dirty corner thrown,
 Mouldy with damps, with cobwebs strown,
 Your leaves shall be the bookworm's prey;
 Or sent to chandler's shop away,
 And doomed to suffer public scandal,
 Shall line the trunk, or wrap the candle.
M. G. Lewis. The Monk.

THE ELEPHANT AND THE BOOKSELLER

The Bookseller, who heard him speak,
 And saw him turn a page of Greek,
 Thought, what a genius have I found!
 Then thus addressed with bow profound:
 'Learned Sir, if you'd employ your pen
 Against the senseless sons of men,
 Or write the history of Siam,
 No man is better pay than I am.
 Or, since you're learned in Greek, let's see
 Something against the Trinity.'
 When, wrinkling with a sneer his trunk,
 'Friend', quoth the Elephant, 'you're drunk:
 E'en keep your money, and be wise;
 Leave man on man to criticize:
 For that you ne'er can want a pen
 Among the senseless sons of men.
 They unprovoked will court the fray;
 Envy's a sharper spur than pay.
 No author ever spared a brother;
 Wits are gamecocks to one another.'
J. Gay. Fables.

LITERARY UPHOLSTERERS

Our booksellers here at London disgrace literature by the trash they bespeak to be written, and at the same time prevent everything else from being sold. They are little more or less than upholsterers, who sell sets or bodies of arts and sciences for furniture; and the purchasers, for I am very sure they are not readers, buy only in that view. I never thought there was much merit in reading: but yet it is too good a thing to be put upon no better footing than damask and mahogany.—H. Walpole. Earl of Orford (Letter to Sir David Dalrymple)

.

No furniture so charming as books, even if you never open them or read a single word.—S. Smith. Memoirs.

ON A MISCELLANY OF POEMS

To Bernard Lintott

'Ipsa varietate tentamus efficere ut alia aliis, quaedam fortasse omnibus placeant.' Plin. Epist.

As when some skilful cook, to please each guest,
 Would in one mixture comprehend a feast,
 With due proportion and judicious care
 He fills his dish with different sorts of fare,
 Fishes and fowls deliciously unite,
 To feast at once the taste, the smell, and sight.
 So, Bernard, must a Miscellany be
 Compounded of all kinds of poetry;
 The Muses' olio, which all tastes may fit,
 And treat each reader with his darling wit.
 Wouldst thou for Miscellanies raise thy fame,
 And bravely rival Jacob's mighty name,
 Let all the Muses in the piece conspire;
 The lyric bard must strike the harmonious lyre;
 Heroic strains must here and there be found;
 And nervous sense be sung in lofty sound;
 Let elegy in moving numbers flow,
 And fill some pages with melodious woe;
 Let not your amorous songs too numerous prove,
 Nor glut thy reader with abundant love;
 Satire must interfere, whose pointed rage
 May lash the madness of a vicious age;
 Satire! the Muse that never fails to hit,
 For if there's scandal, to be sure there's wit.
 Tire not our patience with Pindaric lays,
 Those swell the piece, but very rarely please;
 Let short-breathed epigram its force confine,
 And strike at follies in a single line.
 Translations should throughout the work be sown,
 And Homer's godlike Muse be made our own;
 Horace in useful numbers should be sung,
 And Virgil's thoughts adorn the British tongue.
 Let Ovid tell Corinna's hard disdain,
 And at her door in melting notes complain;
 His tender accents pitying virgins move,
 And charm the listening ear with tales of love
 Let every classic in the volume shine,
 And each contribute to thy great design;
 Through various subjects let the reader range,
 And raise his fancy with a grateful change.
 Variety's the source of joy below,
 From whence still fresh revolving pleasures flow.
 In books and love, the mind one end pursues,
 And only change the expiring flame renews.
 Where Buckingham will condescend to give,
 That honoured piece to distant times must live;
 When noble Sheffield strikes the trembling strings,
 The little Loves rejoice, and clap their wings;
 Anacreon lives, they cry, the harmonious swain
 Retunes the lyre, and tries his wonted strain,
 'Tis he—our lost Anacreon lives again.
 But, when the illustrious poet soars above
 The sportive revels of the God of Love,
 Like Mars's Muse, he takes a loftier flight,
 And towers beyond the wondering Cupid's sight.
 If thou wouldst have thy volume stand the test,
 And of all others be reputed best,
 Let Congreve teach the listening groves to mourn,
 As when he wept o'er fair Pastora's urn.
 Let Prior's Muse with softening accents move,
 Soft as the strains of constant Emma's love:
 Or let his fancy choose some jovial theme,
 As when he told Hans Carvel's jealous dream;
 Prior the admiring reader entertains
 With Chaucer's humour, and with Spenser's strains.
 Waller in Granville lives; when Mira sings,
 With Waller's hand he strikes the sounding strings,
 With sprightly turns his noble genius shines,
 And manly sense adorns his easy lines.
 On Addison's sweet lays attention waits,
 And silence guards the place while he repeats;
 His Muse alike on every subject charms,
 Whether she paints the god of love, or arms:
 In him pathetic Ovid sings again,
 And Homer's Iliad shines in his Campaign.
 Whenever Garth shall raise his sprightly song,
 Sense flows in easy numbers from his tongue;
 Great Phoebus in his learned son we see,
 Alike in physic, as in poetry.
 When Pope's harmonious Muse with pleasure roves
 Amidst the plains, the murmuring streams, and groves,
 Attentive Echo, pleased to hear his songs,
 Through the glad shade each warbling note prolongs;
 His various numbers charm our ravished ears,
 His steady judgement far out-shoots his years,
 And early in the youth the god appears.
 From these successful bards collect thy strains;
 And praise with profit shall reward thy pains:
 Then, while calf's-leather-binding bears the sway,
 And sheepskin to its sleeker gloss gives way;
 While neat old Elzevir is reckoned better
 Than Pirate Hill's brown sheets and scurvy letter;
 While print-admirers careful Aldous choose,
 Before John Morphew, or the Weekly News;
 So long shall live thy praise in books of fame,
 And Tonson yield to Lintott's lofty name.
J. Gay.

VERSES TO BE PREFIXED BEFORE BERNARD LINTOTT'S NEW MISCELLANY

Some Colinaeus praise, some Bleau,
 Others account them but so so;
 Some Plantin to the rest prefer,
 And some esteem old Elzevir;
 Others with Aldous would besot us;
 I, for my part, admire Lintotus.—
 His character's beyond compare,
 Like his own person, large and fair.
 They print their names in letters small,
 But Lintott stands in capital:
 Author and he with equal grace
 Appear, and stare you in the face.
 Stephens prints Heathen Greek, 'tis said,
 Which some can't construe, some can't read;
 But all that comes from Lintott's hand,
 Even Rawlinson might understand.
 Oft in an Aldous, or a Plantin,
 A page is blotted, or leaf wanting:
 Of Lintott's books this can't be said,
 All fair, and not so much as read.
 Their copy cost 'em not a penny
 To Homer, Virgil, or to any;
 They ne'er gave sixpence for two lines
 To them, their heirs, or their assigns:
 But Lintott is at vast expense,
 And pays prodigious dear for—sense.
 Their books are useful but to few,
 A scholar or a wit or two;
 Lintott's for general use are fit.
A. Pope.

TO MR. MURRAY

Strahan, Tonson, Lintott of the times,
 Patron and publisher of rhymes,
 For thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
 My Murray.
To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
 The unpledged MS. authors come;
 Thou printest all—and sellest some—
 My Murray.
Upon thy table's baize so green
 The last new Quarterly is seen,—
 But where is thy new Magazine,
 My Murray?
Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
 The works thou deemest most divine—
 The 'Art of Cookery', and mine,
 My Murray.
Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
 And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist;
 And then thou hast the 'Navy List',
 My Murray.
And heaven forbid I should conclude
 Without 'the Board of Longitude',
 Although this narrow paper would,
 My Murray.
G. Gordon, Lord Byron.

TO THE EDITOR OF 'THE EVERY-DAY BOOK'

I like you, and your book, ingenuous Hone!
 In whose capacious all-embracing leaves
 The very marrow of tradition's shown;
 And all that history—much that fiction—weaves.
By every sort of taste your work is graced.
 Vast stores of modern anecdote we find,
 With good old story quaintly interlaced—
 The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's life-fraught legends you so truly paint—
 Yet kindly,—that the half-turned Catholic
 Scarcely forbears to smile at his own Saint,
 And cannot curse the candid heretic.
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your page;
 Our father's mummeries we well-pleased behold,
 And, proudly conscious of a purer age,
 Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Verse-honouring Phoebus, Father of bright Days,
 Must needs bestow on you both good and many,
 Who, building trophies of his Children's praise,
 Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book—trust me, friend Hone—
 The title only errs, he bids me say:
 For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown,
 He swears, 'tis not a work of every day.
C. Lamb.

I love everything that is old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.—O. Goldsmith.

THE BANNATYNE CLUB, OR ONE VOLUME MORE

Assist me, ye friends of Old Books and Old Wine,
 To sing in the praises of sage Bannatyne,
 Who left such a treasure of old Scottish lore
 As enables each age to print one volume more.
 One volume more, my friends, one volume more,
 We'll ransack old Banny for one volume more.
And first, Allan Ramsay was eager to glean
 From Bannatyne's Hortus his bright Evergreen;
 Two light little volumes (intended for four)
 Still leave us the task to print one volume more.
 One volume more, &c.
His ways were not ours, for he cared not a pin
 How much he left out, or how much he put in;
 The truth of the reading he thought was a bore,
 So this accurate age calls for one volume more.
 One volume more, &c.
Correct and sagacious, then came my Lord Hailes,
 And weighed every letter in critical scales,
 And left out some brief words, which the prudish abhor,
 And castrated Banny in one volume more.
 One volume more, my friends, one volume more;
 We'll restore Banny's manhood in one volume more.
John Pinkerton next, and I'm truly concerned
 I can't call that worthy so candid as learned;
 He railed at the plaid and blasphemed the claymore,
 And set Scots by the ears in his one volume more.
 One volume more, my friends, one volume more,
 Celt and Goth shall be pleased with one volume more.
As bitter as gall, and as sharp as a razor,
 And feeding on herbs as a Nebuchadnezzar,
 His diet too acid, his temper too sour,
 Little Ritson came out with his two volumes more.
 But one volume, my friends, one volume more,
 We'll dine on roast-beef and print one volume more.
The stout Gothic yeditur, next on the roll,
 With his beard like a brush, and as black as a coal;
 And honest Greysteel that was true to the core,
 Lent their hearts and their hands each to one volume more.
 One volume more, &c.
Since by these single champions what wonders were done,
 What may not be achieved by our Thirty and One?
 Law, Gospel, and Commerce we count in our corps,
 And the Trade and the Press join for one volume more.
 One volume more, &c.
Ancient libels and contraband books, I assure ye,
 We'll print as secure from Exchequer or Jury;
 Then hear your Committee and let them count o'er
 The Chiels they intend in their three volumes more.
 Three volumes more, &c.
They'll produce your King Jamie, the Sapient and Sext,
 And the Bob of Dumblane and her Bishops come next;
 One tome miscellaneous they'll add to your store,
 Resolving next year to print four volumes more.
 Four volumes more, my friends, four volumes more;
 Pay down your subscriptions for four volumes more.
Sir W. Scott.

THE BOOKSELLERS' BANQUET

Grave vendors of volumes, best friends of the Nine,
 Give ear to my song as to charm you I try;
 Other bards may in vain look for audience like mine,
 For the muses they chant, for the booksellers I.
 Their notes I have drawn, so 'tis nothing but fair
 That my notes should be drawn, if they please, at a beck;
 Undaunted I warble—I truly declare
 My song is most valued when met by a cheque.
The work we've just finished went off very well;
 It was set out with plates, such as Finden, or Heath,
 If even their professional feelings rebel,
 Must praise on account (not in spite) of their teeth.
 Though by Fraser cut up, and by Murray reviewed,
 Lovegrove's articles all fit insertion have found.
 We have cleared off our boards, but as business is good,
 We keep wetted for use, and for pleasure unbound.
But here not for pleasure alone are we stored
 Like holiday tomes in our gilding so bright;
 Some care 'tis our duty and wish to afford
 In the moment of need to a less lucky wight,
 Whose title is lost, and whose covers are torn,
 When the moth has gnawed through, dust or cobwebs surround,
 And to lift on the shelf our poor brother forlorn,
 As a much damaged old folio treasured by Lowndes.
Though his back stock of life may perchance weigh him down,
 By our aid may the old heavy pressure be moved,
 And new-titled we start him again on the town,
 As a second edition revised and improved.
 And for dealings like this a commission will find,
 And that of a date that the primest is given,
 The commission is—Strive to do good to mankind,
 And the place of its dates is no other than Heaven.
I won't keep the press waiting—my copy is gone,
 Having finished a lay which Bob Fisher, perhaps,
 May out of the head of old Caxton call one,
 If not of his Drawing, yet Dining-room Scraps;
 But as we all still think of Tom Talfourd's bill,
 After sixty years' date, I respectfully beg,
 As a knight of the quill, here to offer for nil,
 My right in this song as a present to Tegg.
W. Maginn.

WHAT A HEART-BREAKING SHOP

But what were even gold and silver, precious stones and clockwork, to the bookshops, whence a pleasant smell of paper freshly pressed came issuing forth, awakening instant recollections of some new grammar had at school, long time ago, with 'Master Pinch, Grove House Academy', inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes, neatly ranged within: what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open: tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the impossibility of turning over, to rush blindly in, and buy it! Here too were the dainty frontispiece and trim vignette, pointing like handposts on the outskirts of great cities, to the rich stock of incident beyond; and store of books, with many a grave portrait and time-honoured name, whose matter he knew well, and would have given mines to have, in any form, upon the narrow shelf beside his bed at Mr. Pecksniff's. What a heart-breaking shop it was!—C. Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit.

GENTEEL ORNAMENTS

If people bought no more books than they intended to read, and no more swords than they intended to use, the two worst trades in Europe would be a bookseller's and a sword-cutler's; but luckily for both they are reckoned genteel ornaments.—Lord Chesterfield.

MAMMON AND BOOKS

All who are affected by the love of books hold worldly affairs and money very cheap, as Jerome writes to Vigilantius (Epist. 54): 'It is not for the same man to ascertain the value of gold coins and of writings;' which somebody thus repeated in verse:

No tinker's hand shall dare a book to stain;
 No miser's heart can wish a book to gain;
 The gold assayer cannot value books;
 On them the epicure disdainful looks.
 One house at once, believe me, cannot hold
 Lovers of books and hoarders up of gold.

No man, therefore, can serve mammon and books.—R. de Bury. Philobiblon.

THE POOR STUDENT

In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains.—C. Lamb. Poor Relations.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE ON BOOKS

I say first we have despised literature. What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses? If a man spends lavishly on his library, you call him mad—a bibliomaniac. But you never call any one a horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their horses, and you do not hear of people ruining themselves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the book-shelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars? What position would its expenditure on literature take, as compared with its expenditure on luxurious eating? We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body: now a good book contains such food inexhaustibly; it is a provision for life, and for the best part of us; yet how long most people would look at the best book before they would give the price of a large turbot for it! Though there have been men who have pinched their stomachs and bared their backs to buy a book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, I think, in the end, than most men's dinners are. We are few of us put to such trial, and more the pity; for, indeed, a precious thing is all the more precious to us if it has been won by work or economy; and if public libraries were half as costly as public dinners, or books cost the tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish men and women might sometimes suspect there was good in reading, as well as in munching and sparkling; whereas the very cheapness of literature is making even wise people forget that if a book is worth reading, it is worth buying. No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armoury, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich nation, and we are filthy and foolish enough to thumb each other's books out of circulating libraries!—J. Ruskin. Sesame and Lilies.

THE VALUE OF BOOK BORROWING

I have sent you the Philosophy—books you writ to me for; anything that you want of this kind for the advancement of your studies, do but write, and I shall furnish you. When I was a student as you are, my practice was to borrow rather than buy, some sort of books, and to be always punctual in restoring them upon the day assigned, and in the interim to swallow of them as much as made for my turn. This obliged me to read them through with more haste to keep my word, whereas I had not been so careful to peruse them had they been my own books, which I knew were always ready at my dispose.—J. Howell. Familiar Letters.

ACCIDENTS TO BOOKS

Fortunate are those who only consider a book for the utility and pleasure they may derive from its possession. Those students who, though they know much, still thirst to know more, may require this vast sea of books; yet in that sea they may suffer many shipwrecks.

Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners!—I. d'Israeli. Curiosities of Literature.

BORROWERS OF BOOKS

To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of alienators more formidable than that which I have touched upon; I mean your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch [Coleridge], matchless in his depredations!

That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out—(you are now with me in my little back study in Bloomsbury, reader!)—with the huge Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, guardant of nothing), once held the tallest of my folios, Opera Bonaventurae, choice and massy divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also, but of a lesser calibre,—Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas), showed but as dwarfs,—itself an Ascapart!—that Comberbatch abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute, namely, that 'the title to property in a book (my Bonaventure, for instance), is in exact ratio to the claimant's powers of understanding and appreciating the same'. Should he go on acting upon this theory, which of our shelves is safe?

The slight vacuum in the left-hand case—two shelves from the ceiling—scarcely distinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser—was whilom the commodious resting-place of Browne on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to discover its beauties—but so have I known a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified to carry her off than himself.—Just below, Dodsley's dramas want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons, when the Fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in sober state.—There loitered the Complete Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream side.—In yonder nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with 'eyes closed', mourns his ravished mate.

One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes, like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I have a small under-collection of this nature (my friend's gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory as mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews. There they stand in conjunction; natives, and naturalised. The latter seem as little disposed to inquire out their true lineage as I am.—I charge no warehouse-room for these deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses.

To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on your viands, if he can give no account of the platter after it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K., to be so importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and adjurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle?—knowing at the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio:—what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love of getting the better of thy friend?—Then, worst cut of all! to transport it with thee to the Gallican land—