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MONTHLY REVIEW OF FJTERATURE. 



Reminiscences of a Literary Life. By the Rev. T. Frognall Dibdin, 

 CD. In two handsome volumes, royal 8vo., with a finely done portrait 

 of the author, together with numerous engravings on wood and copper 

 — all of them of a superior order. John Major, 71, Great Russell 

 Street, Bloomsbury, pp. 982. — {Second Notice.) 



We promised to return to these amusing and instructive volumes, yet we trust 

 we have not led any of our readers to suppose that any analysis or de- 

 scription of them within our power, or the necessarily contracted space of an 

 ordinary notice, could at all supersede the benefit or pleasure to be derived from 

 their actual perusal. Our first notice was a very short one, for the reason assigned, 

 yet we hope it has operated as a provocative to some to open the book— to shut 

 it again very speedily, we think would prove a much more difficult task. De- 

 vouring, not reading, is the word with those who fully estimate this literary treat. 

 The sreat wenY of Dr. Dibdin (yet coupled with a too great anxiety about the 

 opinion of others) has brought upon him many enemies, who are loud and clamo- 

 rous in their censures, and tedious in proportion as they would dissuade the pub- 

 lic from tasting an almost nev? literary banquet, which it has been the doctor's 

 envied fortune to present to the age in which we live. It is, in fact, a difficult 

 thing to do justice to any of his works in a review — the eye, in most of them, 

 demands an honeat pupil, and the heart should be in its right place ! since his very 

 embellishments not unfrequently forestall or indicate the various pleasurable feel- 

 ings excited by the text. Bibliogruplii/ — to many a completely novel word — as 

 cultivated by Dr. Dibdin, is not a dull and dry pursuit, but an improver, even, of 

 refined intellect; and the result of its study, aided by a lively and unwearied pen, 

 and a thorough knowledge of every branch of the subject, has given to this author 

 a complete fascination over every cultivated and elegant mind, whether male or 

 female. He is the first writer among us who has imparted to bibliography the 

 charms of wit and humour, sentiment and feeling — thus he has pleased the wise 

 and the good, and offended none but the would-be literary stoics and the philo- 

 sophical blackguards ; and the rage of the latter is approaching to suffocation, 

 whilst the doctor's admirers are evidently on the increase. 



An accomplished literary antiquary, as well as a competent judge of the relative 

 value of certain works, from their respective dates and editions — their editors, 

 printere, and publishers — he has contrived to imbue the public mind, throughout 

 his various publications, with as high a relish for the strong sense and simple ele- 

 gance of the authors of the olden time, as if they possessed the works themselves, 

 from which he has so judiciously culled the chiefest beauties. The Spencer cata- 

 logue is a complete epitome of all that is curious in that noble collection, from the 

 rude types and cuts of the early typographers, to the style of writing or translating 

 those most precious volumes of antiquity which have been brought together by 

 the unbounded care and expense of the noble owner. The " Bibtiomafiia" foims 

 a history of the improving intellect of our own country, from the invention of 

 printing to our own times. The pleasant and communicative way in which he 

 dwells on the beauties of the old writers makes him equally the favourite of those 

 who can or cannot indulge in the pleasures of book-collecting. His manner is 

 completely his own. 



