Un Bouquiniste dans l’Ivresse....
Rien n’égale ma joie ... je viens d’acheter pour cinquante écus un Horace imprimé à Amsterdam en 1780! Cette édition est excessivement précieuse: à chaque page elle est criblée de fautes!
Lithograph by Honoré Daumier, (1844)
The Book Collector
“Quiconque est loup agisse en loup,
C’est le plus certain de beaucoup.”
I should like to warn you, from the outset, that this essay will be as lively as a speech by Mathurin Cordier[1] or a chapter of Despautere![2] God, Nature, and the Academy have enclosed my imagination within these narrow boundaries, which it is no longer able to overstep. At least you can always refrain from reading me, and in that are more fortunate than I—who, following the dictates of a too exigent publisher, have no choice but to write. The drawings were made, the plates were ready; and the only thing needed to complete the issue was a long and unprofitable text. Well, then—here it is! But you will be disappointed if you expect to find in it one of those clever portraits to which your favorite authors have accustomed you. If what you are seeking is an original and telling sketch of the bouquiniste, the second-hand-book addict, then you need go no further. Pause here, and, following the modest advice of certain almanacs: “[See illustration on opposite page.]”