14 
hints and mutilated passages, might have 
been spared! We should have known the 
succession of princes, 
empires, the actions of the great, and 
epinions of the wise, the laws and cou- 
' $titations of every state, and the arts by 
which pubhe grandeur and happiness are 
acquired and ate 
In a work entitled, ‘‘ Trade and Hus- 
baudry improved,” we are informed, that 
nO worm or mouse will cat paper writ- 
ten with ink, m which is.a decoction of 
wermwood. Bat if historians speak true, 
it will requive more art to restrain the ha- 
voc made by men than by vermin. ‘The 
Romans (say they) burnt the books of 
the christians and the philosophers; 
the Jews burnt the books of the chris- 
tiaus and the pagans ; ; and the christians 
-burnt the books of the pagans, and the 
Jews. But the most violent persecution 
which the republic:-of ore has under- 
gone, is that of the caliph Omar. After 
having it proclaimed throughout the king- 
dom, that the Alcoran contained every 
thingy which was useful to believe and to 
Know; he caused all the books 1m his ex- 
tensive realms to he collected, and con- 
sumed by the owners of ‘the public 
baths. 
Were books now allowed to. follow 
that fair progress of-dilapidation, which 
is the general fete of other things, they 
would rather point out’ the erudition of 
their owners, than so often reflect dis- 
grace on them. But a nurse snatches 
up a book to quiet a noisy child with 
the exhibition of its pictures; another 
besmears it with buttered fingers ‘at the 
breakfast table: the servant tears out 
the title page, to light her parlour-fre, 
because she is in a harry ; ; young master 
is allowed to strip it to embellish his kite; 
aud miss throws 1t to her favourite Chloe, 
to ply with on the fioor; another reads 
it by the fire till the binding 1s warped 
off from the leaves, cr till he falls asleep, 
and the book falls a prey to the flames. 
But, to such as care nothing for the 
contents of a book, a knowledge ‘of its 
rarity and value would, no doubt, have 
been a sutlicient inducement to preserve 
it. 
“In the Bibhograph ical Dictionary, 
we are informed, that the folio edition 
et Cicero de Othctis, 1465, which at 
Mr. Allen’s sale sold for sixty-three 
pounds, was gnce purchased by an old 
Seotch usher, at a book-stall, for One 
Salling. 
«. The ches of the English lancuage, 
(says an eminent author), are much great~ 
Reflections on the Preservation and Care of Books. 
the revolutions of 
[Aug. I, 
er than they are commonly supposed. 
Many useful and valuable books he bu- 
ried in shops and libraries, unknown and 
unexamined, anless some lucky compiler 
opens them by chance, and finds an easy 
svoil of wit and learning. § 
Several thousand volumes are an- 
nually torn up, by the dealers in old 
books about London, who often find the 
public so ijliberal in their offers,- that tal- 
iow-chandlers and cheesemongers give a 
better price for them as waste paper. 
And many private persons, m clearing 
their apartments, will sell valuable old 
books for three pence per pound, to a 
chandler; and yet trom their ignorance 
of books, will, at another time, make no 
scruple in asking a bookseller a shilling 
for an old court calendar; because the co~ 
ver looks so nice. 
it is a singular faet, that many of those 
who complain, of our ‘peing overwhelmed 
with books, are such as continually con= 
tribute to their increase. Though it 1s 
beyond a doubt, but that there are many 
worthless bowls which might very well be 
spared ; and it is not the destr uction of 
such as these, which any rational man 
can regret ; but it is with books, as with 
sects and parties; every one would con- 
demn him whose doctrine or politics, did 
not accord with his own, would despise 
the subject for which he has no taste, or 
“exterminate the < argument directed against 
his own iniquity or interest: and. thus 
might a recurrence to the unsparing bar- 
barism of former ages, be witnessed 
among those who lament the redundanee 
of books, or whose party spirit would. 
wiltugly assist in their destruction. 
One man may abhor the-book which 
another admires, but» he who abhors it, 
possesses no more right to suppress that 
gratification, or advantage which the book 
may afford another, than he has to block 
up his neighbour's aadow for no other 
reason than to deprive him of light; and 
yet, nothing is more common than to 
hear booksellers assure us, that innumer- 
able quantities of books ate eagerly 
sought after, and purchased by those who 
are commissioned to commit them to the 
flames; and that this is generally done 
under the specious pretext of conferring 
a benefit on mankind. The unprejudiced 
put of the world will perhaps scarcely 
believe, that there are still men who are 
gratified by such sohitary and cowardly 
triomphs; and I, who have been Jong fa-= 
mihar maith books, must confess, that 
among all which T have’ seen or read, 
though there were soine books of which 
I did 
