athered from the following true story, sent me
by a correspondent who was the immediate sufferer:--

One summer day he met in town an acquaintance who for many years had
been abroad; and finding his appetite for old books as keen as ever,
invited him home to have a mental feed upon "fifteeners" and other
bibliographical dainties, preliminary to the coarser pleasures enjoyed
at the dinner-table. The "home" was an old mansion in the outskirts
of London, whose very architecture was suggestive of black-letter and
sheep-skin. The weather, alas! was rainy, and, as they approached the
house, loud peals of laughter reached their ears. The children were
keeping a birthday with a few young friends. The damp forbad all outdoor
play, and, having been left too much to their own devices, they had
invaded the library. It was just after the Battle of Balaclava, and the
heroism of the combatants on that hard-fought field was in everybody's
mouth. So the mischievous young imps divided themselves into two
opposing camps--Britons and Russians. The Russian division was just
inside the door, behind ramparts formed of old folios and quartos taken
from the bottom shelves and piled to the height of about four feet.
It was a wall of old fathers, fifteenth century chronicles, county
histories, Chaucer, Lydgate, and such like. Some few yards off were the
Britishers, provided with heaps of small books as missiles, with which
they kept up a skirmishing cannonade against the foe. Imagine the
tableau! Two elderly gentlemen enter hurriedly, paterfamilias receiving,
quite unintentionally, the first edition of "Paradise Lost" in the
pit of his stomach, his friend narrowly escaping a closer personal
acquaintance with a quarto Hamlet than he had ever had before. Finale:
great outburst of wrath, and rapid retreat of the combatants, many
wounded (volumes) being left on the field.

POSTSCRIPTUM.

ALTHOUGH, strictly speaking, the following anecdote does not illustrate
any form of real injury to books, it is so racy, and in these days of
extravagant biddings so tantalizing, that I must step just outside the
strict line of pertinence in order to place it on record, It was sent
to me, as a personal experience, by my friend, Mr. George Clulow,
a well-known bibliophile, and "Xylographer" to "Ye Sette of ye Odde
Volumes." The date is 1881. He writes:--

"_Apropos_ of the Gainsborough 'find,' of which you tell in 'The Enemies
of Books,' I should like to narra