BOOK AMATEURS.
It was the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Vallière, who made the following classification:—
A Bibliognoste is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; when and where printed; the presses whence issued; and all the minutiæ of a book.
A Bibliographe is a describer of books and other literary arrangements.
A Bibliomane is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and purse-heavy.
A Bibliophile, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure.
A Bibliotaphe buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in glass cases.
Literariana.
THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS.
“Junius” was the name or signature of a writer who published, at intervals between 1769 and 1772, a series of political papers on the leading questions and men of that day. They appeared in the newspaper called the Public Advertiser, and attracted immense attention, partly from the high position of the characters assailed, (among whom was George III. himself,) and still more from their brilliancy of style, their boldness of tone, and the tremendous severity of the invectives employed in them. The letters are still models of that species of writing,—though it has since risen to such a point of excellence generally as would greatly weaken the force of any similar phenomena if appearing in our day. However, from the monarch to the meanest of his subjects, all men were impressed deeply at the time by the letters of Junius, the mystery attending their authorship adding largely to their influence. It was a mystery at the moment, and remains a puzzle still. Not even the publisher, Woodfall, knew who his correspondent was, or, at least, not certainly. Yet all the world felt the letters to be the work of no common man. Their most remarkable feature, indeed, was the intimate familiarity with high people and official life which they so clearly evinced. “A traitor in the camp!” was the cry of the leading statesmen of the period. Hence it occurred that almost every person of talent and eminence then living fell, or has since fallen, more or less under the suspicion of being Junius. But his own words to Woodfall have as yet proved true:—“It is not in the nature of things that you or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known.” He adds that he never will do so. “I am the sole depository of my secret, and it shall die with me.” If it has not died with him, he at least has gone to the grave without its divulgement by himself. But there may still be circumstantial evidence sufficient to betray him, in despite of all his secretive care.