him spinne: and at seeing the word Frankford or Venice, though but on
the title of a booke, he is readie to break doublet, cracke elbows,
and over-flowe the room with his murmure.'[195] Bibliography is his
darling delight--'una voluptas et meditatio assidua;'[196] and in
defence of the same he would quote you a score of old-fashioned
authors, from Gesner to Harles, whose very names would excite
scepticism about their existence. He is the author of various works,
chiefly bibliographical; upon which the voice of the public (if we
except a little wicked quizzing at his _black-letter_ propensities in
a celebrated North Briton Review) has been generally favourable.
Although the old maidenish particularity of Tom Hearne's genius be not
much calculated to please a bibliomaniac of lively parts, yet
Rosicrusius seems absolutely enamoured of that ancient wight; and to
be in possession of the cream of all his pieces, if we may judge from
what he has already published, and promises to publish, concerning the
same. He once had the temerity to dabble in poetry;[197] but he never
could raise his head above the mists which infest the swampy ground at
the foot of Parnassus. Still he loves 'the divine art' enthusiastically;
and affects, forsooth, to have a taste in matters of engraving and
painting! Converse with him about Guercino and Albert Durer, Berghem
and Woollett, and tell him that you wish to have his opinion about the
erection of a large library, and he will 'give tongue' to you from
rise to set of sun. Wishing him prosperity in his projected works, and
all good fellows to be his friends, proceed we in our descriptive
survey."

[Footnote 194: Pope's _Dunciad_, b. i. v. 149.]

[Footnote 195: _Coryat's Crudities_, vol. i., sign. (b. 5.)
edit. 1776.]

[Footnote 196: Vita Jacobi Le Long., p. xx., _Biblioth.
Sacra_, edit. 1778.]

[Footnote 197: See the note p. 11, in the first edition of
the _Bibliomania_.]

LIS. I am quite impatient to see ATTICUS in this glorious group; of
whom fame makes such loud report--

"Yonder see he comes, Lisardo! 'Like arrow from the hunter's bow,' he
darts into the hottest of the fight, and beats down all opposition. In
vain BOSCARDO advances with his heavy artillery, sending forth
occasionally a forty-eight pounder; in vain he shifts his mode of
attack--now with dagger, and now with broadsword, now in plated, and
now in quilted armour: nought avails him. In ev