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The Auction Room.

CHARACTER OF ORLANDO.
OF ANCIENT PRICES OF BOOKS, AND BOOK-BINDING.
BOOK AUCTION BIBLIOMANIACS.

EVER, surely, did two mortals set off upon any expedition with greater glee and alacrity than did Lisardo and Philemon for the sale, by auction, of Gonzalvo's bibliographical library. The great pains which Lysander had taken in enumerating the various foreign and domestic writers upon Bibliography, with his occasionally animated eulogies upon some favourite author had quite inflamed the sanguine mind of Lisardo; who had already, in anticipation, fancied himself in possession of every book which he had heard described. Like Homer's high-bred courser, who

—ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost—