GOLDEN VOLUMES! RICHEST TREASURES!
Golden volumes! richest treasures!
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits and moving sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages,
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved,
Dear volumes!—you have not deceived!
This passion for the acquisition and enjoyment of books has been the occasion of their lovers embellishing their outsides with costly ornaments: a rage which ostentation may have abused; but when these volumes belong to the real man of letters, the most fanciful bindings are often the emblems of his taste and feelings. The great Thuanus was eager to procure the finest copies for his library, and his volumes are still eagerly purchased, bearing his autograph on the last page. A celebrated amateur was Grollier, whose library was opulent in these luxuries; the Muses themselves could not more ingeniously have ornamented their favourite works. I have seen several in the libraries of our own curious collectors. He embellished their outside with taste and ingenuity. They are gilded and stamped with peculiar neatness, the compartments on the binding are drawn, and painted, with different inventions of subjects, analogous to the works themselves; and they are further adorned by that amiable inscription, Jo. Grollierii et amicorum!—purporting that these literary treasures were collected for himself and for his friends.—I. d'Israeli. Curiosities of Literature: Libraries.