1826. ] The Last Book. 143 
I well knew, but which had evidently adapted itself to circumstances ; 
it ran thus :— 
“ Oh! if there be on that earthly sphere 
A boon to debtor and creditor dear, 
’Tis the last sure bill which an author draws 
On the firm that bleeds and breaks in his cause.” 
Meanwhile my dream varied, and a point of contention seemed to arise 
among all ranks of authors. The order of fate being irrevocable, and 
_ sentence having been passed on every library, it was rumoured that one 
volume would be set apart as a final victim, and thus each writer claimed 
for himself the privilege of naming the Last Book. Many were the 
hands held up, and many the candidates proposed ; the Book of Martyrs, 
a Law-list, a banker's cheque-book, and the Complete Housekeeper, 
were severally nominated and negatived ; when suddenly, to my great 
surprise, the shouts and lamentings subsided, the number of pamphlets 
and periodicals that flitted across the mountains visibly diminished, and 
the immortal tenants of the valley shook their leaves in the sun, and 
gladdened the air with music, as though nothing had happened. From 
a stray volume of the Tatler I ventured to beg a solution of the mystery. 
* Would heart of man once think it?” My pen trembles to its feathery 
tip, lest its verity be suspected. The Genius of Book-making, so far 
from being deposed, was in excellent health and spirits, and flourishing 
proudlier than ever. In short, the predicted extermination of the tribe 
of books was neither more nor less than a ruse, practised by a committee 
of booksellers on the Author of Waverley (they believe any thing in 
Scotland), with intent, &c. to make him write faster, and to alarm him 
into an abatement of the odd shillings in the—how many thousand 
guineas ? mentioned as the price of his next quire of foolscap. Men will 
“ Make flexible the knees of knotted oaks,” 
to attain a desired end. Whether the plan succeeded or not it was no 
part of my purpose to inquire. 
I was also unspeakably mortified to find that the Last Book—for the 
altar of which imagination had reserved her choicest images—the paper 
whereof was compounded of the robes and winding-sheet of genius, the 
Se ink drawn from the eyes and hearts of the enlightened, while the types 
; were as the teeth of famished men—I was grieved to find that this Last 
_ Book was no other than a vapid tale of modern fashionable life, that had 
_ been advertised, in one of those paragraphs that float on the surface of 
the daily press, as “ The Last Book published by during the present 
season!” My indignation at this discovery broke the spell, and I was 
driven for ever from the Garden of Books; but not before I had taken 
an inventory of every volume I had seen there, with an epitome of the 
examinations they had severally passed at the Gate of Immortality. 
i 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOPE. 
Things may be well to seem 
That are not well tobe! 
And thus hath Fancy’s truest dream 
Been realized to me. 
We deem the distant tide 
A blue and solid ground; 
We journey to the green hill’s side— 
And thorns are only found. 
