Loren. You are right. 'Ere you revisit this spot, those inspiring gentlemen shall surround me.
Belin. And pray add to them the busts of Thomson and Cowper: for these latter, in my opinion, are our best poets in the description of rural life. You remember what Cowper says—
God made the country, and Man made the town?
Alman. This may be very well—but we forget the purpose for which we are convened.
Lis. True: so I entreat you, Master Lysander, to open—not the debate—but the discussion.
Lysand. You wish to know what are the symptoms of the bibliomania?—what are the badges or livery marks, in a library, of the owner of the collection being a bibliomaniac?
Alman. Even so. My question, yesterday evening, was—if I remember well—whether a mere collector of books was necessarily a bibliomaniac?
Lysand. Yes: and to which—if I also recollect rightly—I replied that the symptoms of the disease, and the character of a bibliomaniac, were discoverable in the very books themselves!
Lis. How is this?
Alman & Belin. Do pray let us hear.