for he is numbered
with such giants as Hain, Brunet, and Lowndes. The 'Methode pour etudier
l'Histoire' alone is sufficient to show his extraordinary knowledge of
books; indeed, they were the very inspirers of his being and though his
paths led him to high places, 'a passion for study for ever crushed the
worm of ambition.' Having spent the greater part of his eighty-two years
among old books, it was a modern one which caused his end; for,
slumbering over its dulness, he fell into the fire and was burned to
death!

It is said of him that he refused all the conveniences offered by a rich
sister, that he might not endure the restraint of a settled dinner-hour;
preferring to browse undisturbed among his beloved tomes. His immense
knowledge of ancient books is shown by the vast number of diverse works
which he wrote and edited; but so forcible and controversial were his
writings that he was sent to the Bastille some ten or twelve times. It is
even related of him that he got to know the prison so well, that when
Tapin (one of the guards who usually conducted him thither) entered his
chamber, he did not wait to hear his commission but began himself by
saying 'Ah! Bonjour, Monsieur Tapin,' then turning to the woman who
waited on him, 'Allons vite, mon petit paquet, du linge et du tabac,' and
went along gaily with M. Tapin to the Bastille. Verily the true
bibliophile is not as other men, and a modern world looks upon him
askance. Yet his portion is a happiness that riches cannot purchase, for
his soul has found lasting comfort and contentment in a knowledge of the
innermost recesses of human thought. There is no aspect or phase of the
human mind with which he is unacquainted; and it is a knowledge that
books alone can impart.

Yet our true book-lover is not of those whose very religion is the
preservation of the pristine appearance of their books, who deem it
sacrilege to destroy one jot of the contemporary leather in which their
treasures are clothed: liking rather to glue, varnish, and patch,
preferring even a grotesque effect rather than sacrifice an inch of
decayed calf. Their point of view is wholly admirable: that the only form
in which we are justified in possessing a book is that in which it was
originally issued to the world: that the men who bestowed great thought
in giving it birth, to wit, author and publisher, know better what is
meet and seemly for it than can any man of a different age: that one
man's choice i