ngers to him;
the history of printing and of celebrated printers is familiar to him,
as well as all the operations of the typographic art. He is continually
occupied with the works of the ancients and the moderns; he makes it his
business to know books useful, rare, and curious, not only by their
titles and form, but by their contents; he spends his life in analysing,
classifying, and describing them. He seeks out those which are
recommended by talented authors; he runs through libraries and cabinets
to increase the sum of his knowledge; he studies authors who have
treated of the science of books, he points out their errors; he chooses
from among new productions those which bear the stamp of genius, and
which will live in men's memories; he ransacks periodicals to keep
himself well up to the discoveries of his age, and compare them with
those of ages past; he is greedy of all works which treat of libraries,
particularly catalogues, when they are well constructed and well
arranged, and their price adds to their value. Such is the genuine
_Bibliographe_." This reminds one of the old Roman jurists, who briefly
defined their own science as the knowledge of things human and divine.]

Few wiser things have ever been said than that remark of Byron's, that
"man is an unfortunate fellow, and ever will be." Perhaps the
originality of the fundamental idea it expresses may be questioned, on
the ground that the same warning has been enounced in far more solemn
language, and from a far more august authority. But there is originality
in the vulgar everyday-world way of putting the idea, and this makes it
suit the present purpose, in which, a human frailty having to be dealt
with, there is no intention to be either devout or philosophical about
it, but to treat it in a thoroughly worldly and practical tone, and in
this temper to judge of its place among the defects and ills to which
flesh is heir. It were better, perhaps, if we human creatures sometimes
did this, and discussed our common frailties as each himself partaking
of them, than that we should mount, as we are so apt to do, into the
clouds of theology or of ethics, according as our temperament and
training are of the serious or of the intellectual order. True, there
are many of our brethren violently ready to proclaim themselves frail
mortals, miserable sinners, and no better, in theological phraseology,
than the greatest of criminals. But such has been my own unfortunate
exper