the number of such an enthusiastic
class of book-collectors--I'm for _Natural History_; and, in this
department, for birds and beasts--_Gesner_ and _Bewick_![462]

[Footnote 462: The works upon Natural History by Gesner, and
especially the large tomes published about the middle of the
sixteenth century, are, some of them, well worth procuring;
on account of the fidelity and execution of the wood-cuts of
birds and animals. Bewick's earliest editions of _Birds_ and
_Beasts_ should be in the cabinet of every choice
collector.]

PHIL. Restrain your wild feelings--listen to the sober satire of
Lysander. Have you nothing else, in closing this symptomatic subject,
to discourse upon?

LYSAND. There is certainly another point not very remotely connected
with the two preceding; and it is this: a passion to possess large and
voluminous works, and to estimate the treasures of our libraries
rather by their extent and splendour than by their intrinsic worth:
forgetting how prettily Ronsard[463] has illustrated this subject by
the utility and beauty of small rivers in comparison with those which
overflow their banks and spread destruction around. "Oh combien (says
Cailleau, in his _Roman Bibliographique_) un petit livre bien pense,
bein [Transcriber's Note: bien] plein, et bein [Transcriber's Note:
bien] ecrit, est plus agreable, plus utile a lire, que ces vastes
compilations a la formation desquelles l'interet a preside plus
souvent que le bon-gout!"

[Footnote 463:

Ie te confesse bien que le fleuve de Seine
A le cours grand et long, mais tousiours il attraine
Avec soy de la fange, et ses plis recourbrez,
Sans estre iamais nets, sont tousiours embourbez:
Vn petit ruisselet a tousiours l'onde nette,
Aussi le papillon et la gentille auette
Y vont puiser de l'eau, et non en ces torrens
Qui tonnent d'vn grand bruit pas les roches courant:
Petit Sonnets bien faits, belles chansons petites,
Petits discourds gentils, sont les fleurs des Charites,
Des Soeurs et d'Apollon, qui ne daignent aymer
Ceux qui chantent une oeuvre aussi grand que la mer,
Sans riue ny sans fond, de tempestes armee
Et qui iamais ne dort tranquille ny calmee.

_Poems de Ronsard_; fol. 171. Paris 1660. 12mo.

These are pretty lines, and have a melodious flow; but