dust from volumes, preserved in chests and presses, which
had not been opened for many ages." _Philobiblion_, cap. 29,
30.--Warton also quotes, in English, a part of what had been
already presented to the reader in its original Latin form.
_Hist. Engl. Poetry_, vol. i., Diss. II., note g., sign. h.
4. Prettily painted as is this picture, by Warton, the
colouring might have been somewhat heightened, and the
effect rendered still more striking, in consequence, if the
authority and the words of Godwyn had been a little attended
to. In this latter's _Catalogue of the Bishops of England_,
p. 524-5, edit. 1601, we find that De Bury was the son of
one SIR RICHARD ANGARUILL, knight: "that he saith of
himselfe 'exstatico quodam librorum amore potenter se
abreptum'--that he was mightily carried away, and even
beside himself, with immoderate love of bookes and desire of
reading. He had alwaies in his house many chaplaines, all
great schollers. His manner was, at dinner and supper-time,
to haue some good booke read unto him, whereof he would
discourse with his chaplaines a great part of the day
following, if busines interrupted not his course. He was
very bountiful unto the poore. Weekely he bestowed for their
reliefe, 8 quarters of wheat made into bread, beside the
offall and fragments of his tables. Riding betweene
Newcastle and Durham he would give 8_l._ in almes; from
Durham to Stocton, 5_l._: from Durham to Aukland, 5 marks;
from Durham to Middleham, 5_l._" &c. This latter is the
"pars melior" of every human being; and bibliomaniacs seem
to have possessed it as largely as any other tribe of
mortals. I have examined Richardson's magnificent reprint of
Godwyn's book, in the Latin tongue, London, 1743, folio; p.
747; and find nothing worth adding to the original text.]

LOREN. The task we have imposed upon you, my good Lysander, would be
severe indeed if you were to notice, with minute exactness, all the
book-anecdotes of the middle ages. You have properly introduced the
name and authority of Warton; but if you suffered yourself to be
beguiled by his enchanting style, into all the bibliographical
gossiping of this period, you would have no mercy upon your lungs, and
there would be no end to the disquisition.

LYSAND. Forgive me, if I have transgressed the boundaries of good