Lis. I will not fail to pay due attention to so extraordinary and interesting a character—for see, he is going to take his distinguished station in the approaching contest. The hammer of the worthy auctioneer, which I suppose is of as much importance as was Sir Fopling's periwig of old,[187] upon the stage—the hammer is upon the desk!—The company begin to increase and close their ranks; and the din of battle will shortly be heard. Let us keep these seats. Now, tell me who is yonder strange looking gentleman?
[187] See Warburton's piquant note, in Mr. Bowles's edition of Pope's Works, vol. v., p. 116. "This remarkable periwiy (says he) usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan chair, brought in by two chairmen with infinite approbation of the audience." The snuff-box of Mr. L. has not a less imposing air; and when a high-priced book is balancing between 15l. and 20l. it is a fearful signal of its reaching an additional sum, if Mr. L. should lay down his hammer, and delve into this said crumple-horned snuff-box!
"'Tis Mustapha, a vender of books. Consuetudine invalescens, ac veluti callum diuturna cogitatione obducens,[188] he comes forth, like an alchemist from his laboratory, with hat and wig 'sprinkled with learned dust,' and deals out his censures with as little ceremony as correctness. It is of no consequence to him by whom positions are advanced, or truth is established; and he hesitates very little about calling Baron Heinecken a Tom fool, or —— a shameless impostor. If your library were as choice and elegant as Dr. H——'s he would tell you that his own disordered shelves and badly coated books presented an infinitely more precious collection; nor must you be at all surprised at this—for, like Braithwait's Upotomis,
'Though weak in judgment, in opinion strong;'
or, like the same author's Meilixos,
'Who deems all wisdom treasur'd in his pate,'
our book-vender, in the catalogues which he puts forth, shews himself to be 'a great and bold carpenter of words;'[189] overcharging the description of his own volumes with tropes, metaphors, flourishes, and common-place authorities; the latter of which one would think had but recently come under his notice, as they had been already before the public in various less ostentatious forms."
[188] The curious reader may see the entire caustic passage in Spizelius's Infelix Literatus, p. 435.
[189] Coryat's Crudities, vol. i., sign. (b. 5.) edit. 1776.
Phil. Are you then an enemy to booksellers, or to their catalogues when interlaced with bibliographical notices?