perate
book-collectors, that, in _some_ of those volumes which are constantly
circulating in the bibliomaniacal market, we had a more clear and
satisfactory account of the rise and progress of arts and sciences.
However strong may be my attachment to the profession of the cloth, I
could readily exchange a great number of old volumes of polemical and
hortatory divinity for interesting disquisitions upon the manners,
customs, and general history of the times. Over what a dark and
troublesome ocean must we sail, before we get even a glimpse at the
progressive improvement of our ancestors in civilised life! Oh, that
some judicious and faithful reporter had lived three hundred and odd
years ago!--we might then have had a more satisfactory account of the
_origin of printing with metal types_.

LIS. Pray give us your sentiments upon this latter subject. We have
almost the whole day before us:--the sun has hardly begun to decline
from his highest point.

LYSAND. A very pretty and smooth subject to discuss, truly! The
longest day and the most effectually-renovated powers of body and
mind, are hardly sufficient to come to any satisfactory conclusion,
upon the subject. How can I, therefore, after the fatigues of the
whole of yesterday, and with barely seven hours of daylight yet to
follow, pretend to enter upon it? No: I will here only barely mention
TRITHEMIUS[458]--who might have been numbered among the patriarchal
bibliographers we noticed when discoursing in our friend's CABINET--as
an author from whom considerable assistance has been received
respecting early typographical researches. Indeed, Trithemius merits a
more marked distinction in the annals of Literature than many are
supposed to grant him: at any rate, I wish his labours were better
known to our own countrymen.

[Footnote 458: We are indebted to the Abbe TRITHEMIUS, who
was a diligent chronicler and indefatigable visitor of old
Libraries, for a good deal of curious and interesting
intelligence; and however Scioppius (_De Orig. Domus
Austriac._), Brower (_Vit. Fortunat. Pictav._, p. 18.), and
Possevinus (_Apparant sacr._ p. 945), may carp at his
simplicity and want of judgment, yet, as Baillet (from whom
I have borrowed the foregoing authorities) has justly
remarked--"since the time of Trithemius there have been many
libraries, particularly in Germany, which have been pillaged
or burnt in the destruction of