Books and Bookmen

by Andrew Lang

Transcribed from the 1887 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

BOOKS
AND
BOOKMEN

BY
ANDREW LANG

LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1887

All rights reserved

To
THE VISCOUNTESS WOLSELEY.

Madame, it is no modish thing,
The bookman’s tribute that I bring;
A talk of antiquaries grey,
Dust unto dust this many a day,
Gossip of texts and bindings old,
Of faded type, and tarnish’d gold!

Can ladies care for this to-do
With Payne, Derome, and Padeloup?
Can they resign the rout, the ball,
For lonely joys of shelf and stall?

The critic thus, serenely wise;
But you can read with other eyes,
Whose books and bindings treasured are
’Midst mingled spoils of peace and war;
Shields from the fights the Mahdi lost,
And trinkets from the Golden Coast,
And many things divinely done
By Chippendale and Sheraton,
And trophies of Egyptian deeds,
And fans, and plates, and Aggrey beads,
Pomander boxes, assegais,
And sword-hilts worn in Marlbro’s days.