e is no recreation so lovely as that
afforded by books rich in wisdom and ribbed with ripe and sober
research. This catalogue (nearly 600 pages) is a marvellous precis of
the works of the human spirit. And here and there, buried in a scholarly
paragraph, one meets a topical echo: "THE OXFORD SHAKESPEARE GLOSSARY:
by C.T. ONIONS: Mr. Onions' glossary, offered at an insignificant price,
relieves English scholarship of the necessity of recourse to the
lexicon of Schmidt." Lo, how do even professors and privat-docents
belabour one another!

With due care I fill, pack, and light the last pipe of the day, to be
smoked reverently and solemnly in bed. The thousand brain-murdering
interruptions are over. The gentle sibilance of air drawn through the
glowing nest of tobacco is the only sound. With reposeful heart I turn
to some favourite entry in my well-loved catalogue.

"HENRY PEACHAM'S COMPLEAT GENTLEMAN. Fashioning him absolut in the most
necessary and Commendable Qualities concerning Minde, or Body, that may
be required in a Noble Gentleman. Wherunto is annexed a Description of
the order of a Maine Battaile or Pitched Field, eight severall wayes,
with the Art of Limming and other Additions newly Enlarged. Printed from
the edition of 1634; first edition, 1622, with an introduction by G. S.
Gordon. 1906. Pp xxiv + 16 unpaged + 262. 7s. 6d. net. _At the Clarendon
Press_."

Or this:

"H. HIS DEVISES, for his owne exercise, and his Friends pleasure.
Printed from the edition of 1581, with an introduction. 1906. Pp xviii +
104. 5s. net."

O excellent H! Little did he dream that his devises (with an
introduction by Professor Sir Walter Raleigh) would be still giving his
Friends pleasure over three hundred years later. The compiler of the
catalogue says here with modest and pardonable pride "strongly bound in
exceptionally tough paper and more than once described by reviewers as
leather. Some of the books are here printed for the first time, the rest
are reproductions of the original editions, many having prefaces by good
hands."

One o'clock is about to chime in the near-by steeple, but my pipe and
curiosity are now both going strong.

"THE CURES OF THE DISEASED in remote Regions, preventing Mortalitie
incident in Forraine Attempts of the English Nation. 1598. The earliest
English treatise on tropical diseases. 1915. 1s. 6d. net."

Is that not the most interesting comment on the English colonial
enterprises in Elizabeth's