The Library, Andrew Lang [online e book reading txt] 📗

hunt for them, that the following pages are totreat. It is a subject more closely connected with the taste forcuriosities than with art, strictly so called. We are to beoccupied, not so much with literature as with books, not so muchwith criticism as with bibliography, the quaint duenna ofliterature, a study apparently dry, but not without its humours.And here an apology must be made for the frequent allusions andanecdotes derived from French writers. These are as unavoidable,almost, as the use of French terms of the sport in tennis and infencing. In bibliography, in the care for books AS books, theFrench are still the teachers of Europe, as they were in tennis andare in fencing. Thus, Richard de Bury, Chancellor of Edward III.,writes in his "Philobiblon:" "Oh God of Gods in Zion! what a rushingriver of joy gladdens my heart as often as I have a chance of goingto Paris! There the days seem always short; there are the goodlycollections on the delicate fragrant book-shelves." Since Dantew