hey say our books will disappear,
That ink will fade and paper rot—
I sha’n’t be here,
So I don’t care a jot.
The best of them I know by heart,
As for the rest they make me tired;
The viler part
May well be fired.
Oh, what a hypocritic show
Will be the bibliomaniac’s hoard!
Cheat as hollow
As a backgammon board.
Just think of Lamb without his stuffing,
And the iconoclastic Howells,
Who spite of puffing
Is destitute of bowels.
’Twould make me laugh to see the stare
Of mousing bibliomaniac fond
At pages bare
As Overreach’s bond.
Those empty titles will displease
The earnest student seeking knowledge,—
Barren degrees,
Like these of Western College.
That common stuff, “Excelsior,”
In poetry so lacking,
I care not for—
’Tis only fit for packing.
It has occurred to me that publishers might appeal to bibliomaniacal tastes by paying a little more attention to their paper, and I have thrown a few suggestions on this point into rhyme, so that they may be readily committed to memory:
SUITING PAPER TO SUBJECT.
rinters the paper should adapt
Unto the subject of the book,
Thus making buyers wonder-rapt
Before they at the contents look.
Thus Beerbohm’s learned book on Eggs
On a laid paper he should print,
But Motley’s “Dutch Republic” begs
Rice paper should its matter hint.
That curious problem of what Man
Inhabited the Iron Mask
Than Whatman paper never can
A more suggestive medium ask.
The “Book of Dates,” by Mr. Haydon,
Should be on paper calendered;
That Swift on Servants be arrayed on
A hand-made paper is inferred.
Though angling-books have never been
Accustomed widely to appear
On fly-paper, ’twould be no sin
To have them wormed from front to rear.
The good that authors thus may reap
I’ll not pursue to tedium,
But hint, for books on raising sheep
Buckram is just the medium.
VII.
WOMEN AS COLLECTORS.
