nihlinmania. 



of the Baptists should not have sprinkled edges. All books relating to 

 those of defective vision should be blind-tooled. Books about the deaf 

 and dumb should be in quiet colors . Of course, books on similar sub- 

 jects should be similarly bound ; for example a description of Noah's 

 Ark and on the art of preserving pears; the Complete Angler and a 

 geometry; a demonology and a spelling book ; the Curtain Lectures 

 and a History of the Gunpowder Plot ; statistics of the fever and ague 

 and a history of earthquakes and so on. Time will not suffice to speak 

 in detail of the Bibliomaniacs who reprint rare books from their own 

 libraries in editions of limited numbers ; of authors, like Walpole, who 

 print their own works, and whose fame as printers is better deserved 

 than their reputation as writers ; of novelists, like Thackeray, who 

 design the illustrations for their own romances ; of illustrators who pull 

 to pieces dozens of books for the pictures, in order to insert them in 

 some favorite volume, whose text they serve to explain or depict ; of 

 amateurs who bind their own books; of lunatics who yearn for hooks 

 wholly engraved, or printed only on one side of the leaf, or Greek 

 books"' wholly in capitals, or others in the italic letter; or black-letter 

 fanciers ; or tall copy men ; or missal men ; but we must give a word of 

 praise to those who gather books on special subjects. These, provided 

 the subjects of their labor are useful or interesting, may be regarded, 

 like physicians who adopt specialities of practice, or scholars who illus- 

 trate peculiar branches of knowledge, as public benefactors. Thus 

 Shakespearian collections are of immense value and convenience to com- 

 mentators and students of the great dramatist, and form their place of 

 resort, while classical libraries are the Mecca of scholars engaged in the 

 solution of disputed linguistic questions. How much of early English 

 poetry was preserved by the exertions of antiquarians, delvers like Hit- 

 son and Hazlewood, and found a safe repose on their shelves ? And 

 even if the subject is not necessarily useful or practical, it may yet 

 serve tor pleasant relaxation and harmless amusement. 



In nothing is the Bibliomaniac more plainly discernible than in his 

 fastidious. care of his books. The historian Prescott, it is recorded, 

 "would often stop before the books, especially his favorite books, and 

 be sure that they were all in their proper places, drawn up exactly to 

 the front of their respective shelves, like soldiers on a dress parade, 

 sometimes speaking of them, and almost to them, as if they were 

 personal friends." 



Luxurious cases, with glass doors, and cloth-lined shelves, cushioned 

 tables, print-stands, and outer mprocco cases for specially gorgeous 

 volumes, all attest the bookman's tenderness for his adopted children. 

 How the wretched man suffers at seeing a favorite volume in the 



