he doth reign,
In tyme to come, if writers loose their paine
The pen records tyme past and present both:
Skill brings foorth bookes, and bookes is nurse to troth.

CHURCHYARD'S _Worthiness of Wales_
p. 18, edit. 1776.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

=The Cabinet.=

OUTLINE OF FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Tout autour oiseaulx voletoient
Et si tres-doulcement chantoient,
Qu'il n'est cueur qui n'ent fust ioyeulx.
Et en chantant en l'air montoient
Et puis l'un l'autre surmontoient
A l'estriuee a qui mieulx mieulx.

Le temps n'estoit mie mieulx.
De bleu estoient vestuz les cieux,
Et le beau Soleil cler luisoit.
Violettes croissoient par lieux
Et tout faisoit ses deuoirs tieux
Comme nature le duisoit.

OEUVRES DE CHARTIER, Paris, 1617, 4to. p. 594.

Such is the lively description of a spring morning, in the opening of
Alain Chartier's "_Livre des quatre dames_;" and, excepting the
violets, such description conveyed a pretty accurate idea of the
scenery which presented itself, from the cabinet window, to the eyes
of Lysander and Philemon.

PHIL. How delightful, my dear friend, are the objects which we have
before our eyes, within and without doors! The freshness of the
morning air, of which we have just been partaking in yonder field, was
hardly more reviving to my senses than is the sight of this exquisite
cabinet of bibliographical works, adorned with small busts and
whole-length figures from the antique! You see these precious books
are bound chiefly in Morocco, or Russia leather: and the greater part
of them appear to be printed upon _large paper_.

LYSAND. Our friend makes these books a sort of hobby-horse, and
perhaps indulges his vanity in them to excess. They are undoubtedly
useful in their way.

PHIL. You are averse then to the study of bibliography?

LYSAND. By no means. I have already told you of my passion for books,
and cannot, therefore, dislike bibliography. I think, with Lambinet,
that the greater part of bibliographical works are sufficiently dry
and soporific:[95] but I am not insensible to the utility, and even
entertainment, which may result from a proper cultivation of
it--although both De Bure and Peignot appear to me to have gone
greatly beyond the mark, in lauding this study as "one of the most
attractive and vast pursuits in which the human mind can be
engaged."[