gallery--the tiny
ladders--the broad-winged lecterns, with leathern cushions on the edges
to keep the wood from grazing the rich bindings--the books themselves,
each shelf uniform with its facings or rather backings, like
well-dressed lines at a review. Their owner does not profess to indulge
much in quaint monstrosities, though many a book of rarity is there. In
the first place, he must have the best and most complete editions,
whether common or rare; and, in the second place, they must be in
perfect condition. All the classics are there--one complete set of
Valpy's in good russia, and many separate copies of each, valuable for
text or annotation. The copies of Bayle, Moreri, the Trevoux Dictionary,
Stephens's Lexicon, Du Cange, Mabillon's Antiquities, the Benedictine
historians, the Bollandists' Lives of the Saints, Graevius and Gronovius,
and heavy books of that order, are in their old original morocco,
without a scratch or abrasure, gilt-edged, vellum-jointed, with their
backs blazing in tooled gold. Your own dingy well-thumbed Bayle or
Moreri possibly cost you two or three pounds; his cost forty or fifty.
Further, in these affluent shelves may be found those great costly works
which cross the border of "three figures," and of which only one or two
of the public libraries can boast, such as the Celebri Famiglie Italiane
of Litta, Denon's Egypt, the great French work on the arts of the middle
ages, and the like; and many is the scholar who, unable to gratify his
cravings elsewhere, has owed it to Lucullus that he has seen something
he was in search after in one of these great books, and has been able to
put it to public use.

Throughout the establishment there is an appearance of care and order,
but not of restraint. Some inordinately richly-bound volumes have
special grooves or niches for themselves lined with soft cloth, as if
they had delicate lungs, and must be kept from catching cold. But even
these are not guarded from the hand of the guest. Lucullus says his
books are at the service of his friends; and, as a hint in the same
direction, he recommends to your notice a few volumes from the
collection of the celebrated Grollier, the most princely and liberal of
collectors, on whose classic book-stamp you find the genial motto,
"_Joannis Grollierii et amicorum._" Having conferred on you the freedom
of his library, he will not concern himself by observing how you use it.
He would as soon watch you after dinner to n