142 The Last Book. [ Aue. 
valley. These rivers, I was informed by a work on the Heathen Mytho- 
logy, were the last waters of Lethe and Styx. The truth of this was 
presently confirmed; for several volumes that came fluttering down the 
hills, and with difficulty contended against the drowsy vapours of the 
first of these rivers, dipped their covers in the latter and were saved. 
These books, which were not of the purest kind, retained some of their 
mischievous propensities : as you mused beneath a tree they would sud- 
denly drop from a bough, with some violence, upon your head—which I 
understood to be an exemplification of the undue impression they had 
made in the other world. A vast number, however, faint with the loss of 
blood, which had been taken to enrich the soil of Criticism, fell aftera faint 
struggle, into the bosom of Lethe—others dropped at once, without 
advertisement or epitaph. Many an ill-fated volume—depending perhaps 
too entirely on a simple and antique pathos, on its power to draw tears, 
not making allowance for the new-invented water-proof hearts—perished 
thus in silence— 
“ Ere it could spread its sweet leaves to the air, 
Or dedicate its beauty to the sun.” 
This is but a faint sketch of the Garden of Books ; I must, however, 
hasten to incident. As I stood, like Gulliver, admiring the beauty of a 
band of Lilliputian volumes, I suddenly beheld advancing from the hills 
on every side, with the profusion and rapidity of hail, what on a 
nearer view I discovered to be nothing less than a shower of books— 
every particle of which seemed pregnant with tidings and discoveries. 
An intense sensation diffused itself through the whole valley ; and every 
frontispiece gave sign of a strange and inward perturbation. The cause 
was soon developed. A decree (it was said) had passed the great seal 
of Destiny, that the Genius ef Book-making should be banished for ever 
from the face of the earth, and that any volume found thereon after a 
certain period should suffer annihilation. Of books remarkable for what 
is called dry reading, it was proposed to make a fire large enough to 
thaw a passage to the North Pole; of those found to be of an inflammatory 
nature it was suggested that, by dropping them into the Atlantic at 
equal distances, a bridge might be formed, for the accommodation of 
gentlemen flying from the strong leg of the law. In this state of things, 
sawve qui peut became the only cry, and every printed sheet took flight 
to secure an immortality in the Garden of Books: the greater number, 
however, fell unlamented into Lethe. 
The shock sustained in the world was as that of an earthquake : 
methought I could hear, at that immense distance, the groans of 
compositors, the despair of authors whose fame was yet in manuscript, 
and the phrenzied discussions of editors and publishers. Of these each 
appeared anxious to rescue some favourite volume from perdition. Mr. 
M— begged hard for a particular number of the Quarterly Review; 
Mr. C— for a copy of “his Lordship’s last novel.” Dr. S— delivered 
in two petitions—one for the salvation of the Book of the Church, 
and the other for the destruction of the first number of The Liberal. 
It was hinted, moreover, in the John Bull that a few copies of Sayings 
and Doings should be reserved for the King’s own closet, in case his Ma- 
jesty should be inclined to honour that work with a seventeenth perusal. 
A corresponding anxiety was evinced, in the Valley of Volumes, by 
several books that had been favourites of their masters while on earth. 
Lalla Rookh went sparkling through the garden, murmuring a verse which 
