p of books without
intelligent curiosity, has, since libraries have existed, infected weak
minds, who imagine that they themselves acquire knowledge when they keep
it on their shelves. Their motley libraries have been called the
_madhouses of the Human mind_; and again, _the tomb of books_, when the
possessor will not communicate them, and coffins them up in the cases of
his library. It was facetiously observed, these collections are not
without a _Lock on the Human Understanding_.[10]

The BIBLIOMANIA never raged more violently than in our own times. It is
fortunate that literature is in no ways injured by the follies of
collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily
protect the good.[11]

Some collectors place all their fame on the _view_ of a splendid
library, where volumes, arrayed in all the pomp of lettering, silk
linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather, are locked up in wire
cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the _mere reader_, dazzling
our eyes like eastern beauties peering through their jalousies!

LA BRUYERE has touched on this mania with humour:--"Of such a collector,
as soon as I enter his house, I am ready to faint on the staircase, from
a strong smell of Morocco leather. In vain he shows me fine editions,
gold leaves, Etruscan bindings, and naming them one after another, as if
he were showing a gallery of pictures! a gallery, by-the-bye, which he
seldom traverses when _alone_, for he rarely reads; but me he offers to
conduct through it! I thank him for his politeness, and as little as
himself care to visit the tan-house, which he calls his library."

LUCIAN has composed a biting invective against an ignorant possessor of
a vast library, like him, who in the present day, after turning over the
pages of an old book, chiefly admires the _date_. LUCIAN compares him to
a pilot, who was never taught the science of navigation; to a rider who
cannot keep his seat on a spirited horse; to a man who, not having the
use of his feet, would conceal the defect by wearing embroidered shoes;
but, alas! he cannot stand in them! He ludicrously compares him to
Thersites wearing the armour of Achilles, tottering at every step;
leering with his little eyes under his enormous helmet, and his
hunchback raising the cuirass above his shoulders. Why do you buy so
many books? You have no hair, and you purchase a comb; you are blind,
and you will have a grand mirror; you are deaf, and you wil