328 LEAVES THEY HAVE TOUCHED. 



even in poetry, inadmissible. In his translation of this passage it 

 is most judiciously avoided : ' QuS,que sepulchralem pedibus collegit 

 amictum, Frigidior nivibvis, candidiorque manus.' "—The Mr. Bourne 

 here named is of course the well-known Yincent, or Yinny, Bourne. 



By a relic of Deuce's we are brought, as we have seen, in relation 

 with Isaac Disraeli ; and Isaac Disraeli puts us in relation with Dr. 

 Samuel Johnson, slightly, in this way : When Isaac Disraeli was 

 yet a very youthful and quite nameless writer, as his son Benjamin 

 informs us, he ventured one day tremblingly to present at Dr. John" 

 son's house an original manuscript, to be examined and pronounced 

 upon by him. It happened to be the period of Dr. Johnson's last ill- 

 ness ; and the reply returned by the Doctor's black servant, Bichard, 

 at the door, was, that his master was not well, and could not attend 

 to anything of the kind. The timid young author, not aware of the 

 seriousness of the Doctor's condition, took this to be a mere put-off. 

 But in a few days Johnson's death was announced. We shall 'pre- 

 sently be again brought near to Dr. Johnson. — -Douce's library, it 

 may be of interest to know, has been added to the stores of the 

 Bodleian at Oxford. The motto on his bookplate, in my copy of 

 Grose, is Celer et vigilans — an allusion to the three fleet gi-eyhounds 

 which are seen racing across his escutcheon. 



I cherish with care a pamphlet containing a few words in the hand- 

 writing of the author of the Curiosities of Literature — Isaac Disraeli 

 himself. This relic has a farther value with me, because it was once 

 the property of another distinguished literary man, Samuel Rogers, 

 the poet and banker. The pamphlet in question is an answer, by 

 Isaac Disraeli, to some strictures of Lord Nugent on his " Commen- 

 taries on the Life and Reign of Charles the Eirst ;" and this particular 

 copy was the one presented by its author to Rogers, as is shown by ■ 

 the autograph inscrij)tion on its outer title-page. The following are 

 the few words on account of which I treasure this tract : Samuel 

 Rogers, with the Author's regards. The matter of the little 

 book is also full of interest, treating of the characters of Sir John 

 Eliot, Hampden and Pym, in the same strain of minute research 

 which characterizes the Curiosities of Literature and other works of 

 the elder Disraeli. 



Another of the class on whom Dibdin has fastened the designation 

 of Bibliomaniacs must now engage our attention. We have all, 

 doubtless, heard of the insatiable book collector, Richard Hebei', 



