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THE MISERIES OF BOOK-LENDING.

FROM THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

MR. EDITOR,

I DO not profess to be one of those who spend the whole, or even the greater part of their time, in reading such works as Mr. Beresford's Miseries of Human Life; and indeed I entirely agree with you, that it is not exactly the kind of work by which a clergyman should be distinguished as an author. If, however, a layman should venture to adopt something of the same style, in filling a sheet on a a very important subject, I hope none of the grave company of Christian Observers, nor you yourself, Mr. Editor, the gravest of the grave, will be disposed to treat him with undue severity. Under this impression, I am emboldened to present to the consideration, and, it may be, the application (which is always the most important point, meaning, by the term, self-application) of your readers, some of the Miseries of Book-Lending. The miseries of bookmaking, and of book-selling, and sometimes of book-buying, are well known, and frequently lamented; but those of book-lending are a source of sufferings perhaps equally severe; and the lamentations excited by them, though not loud, are deep. My character and connections, Mr. Editor, place me very much within the sphere of these complaints; and, I can assure you, that many are the sighs and groans, drawn from the inmost soul of the sufferers, which I have been compelled to hear, with an aching heart, and perhaps, I may add, sympathetick feelings, for long detained, lost, and injured books. I will trespass upon the time and patience of you and your readers, to attend to a few only of the miseries endured upon this interesting subject.

Misery 1. Your friend begs the favour just to borrow a small volume, which you have, and he does not wish to buy himself. After having expected the return of it, at due intervals, for a space of time, which, without calculation, you know to be much beyond a year; and after feeling considerable terrours, lest your emigrated duodecimo should have been naturalized in the library, or family school-room, where it has so long resided; to be reduced, at length, to the delicate and formidable task of constructing a hint at once, so gentle as not to offend, and yet so broad as to bring back your book.

2. The foregoing hint given, but not taken.

3. An acquaintance, not remarkable for the powers of reminis cence, keeps your book time enough to alarm or incommode you. By not merely broad hints, but by explicit and repeated expositions of the state of the case, and of your wishes, you oblige him to recollect that he has in his possession a book which belongs, not to him, but to you; he accordingly returns it, with many apologies for its having slipped his memory. You lend again, and it slips his mem

ory again; and all the consolation that remains to you is, that you find a subject to which you may apply that sweet flowing line,

"Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum."

4. After many inquiries for a book which you had lent, you at last find, that it is lost. The person who borrowed it of you lent it to somebody else, he forgets who.

5. A set of books lent, and returned; one volume missing, for which the borrower apologizes most pathetically; he hopes, however, to find it. His hope is your despair.

6. Your friend, who belongs to the sect of the Thalamists,* loves reading in bed; and your book, besides the various dislocations which it experiences in such an awkward situation, stands an enviable chance of receiving, and at length has the good fortune actually to receive, the whole overcharged contents of the snuffers; and although they are discharged, with the puff of an Eolus, from the open page to the bedside carpet, a wreck is left behind, which, upon the reclosure of the volume, is ground to an impalpable powder; and, by some efforts of the finger to remove it, expanded into a jetty surface of considerable extent.

7. Another friend, who is likewise a borrower, is fond of accompanying his breakfast with reading, and your book comes in for that honour. A piece of hot roll, saturated with liquid butter, makes its transit in a line directly vertical to the expanded pages; and the reader, or eater, or rather both, meaning perhaps to give the book that unction which it does not itself possess, by a gentle pressure causes a few soft drops to distil in the passage; or the alternate apprehension of the oleaginous nutriment, and the necessary evolution of the leaves, produce a beautiful specimen of mottled transparency.

8. Your book, which is embellished with a variety of exquisite plates, is lent to a friend, who has a large family of children. A morn→ ing is appointed for viewing the pictures, and the mother with her family is placed in a semicircle round the table. As the object, in such a state of things, cannot be seen from precisely the same point of view by all, a little urchin, just big enough to do mischief, and not big enough to be under discipline, situated at one of the terminating points of the crescent, and eager to have under his own immediate inspection what all the rest are admiring, caring as little as he understands about the laws of mechanicks, makes a vigorous snatch at the unfolded plate, and attains his object, by getting it just in the situation he wished; but the ponderous quarto is left behind. You become acquainted with the calamity, only to suggest to your mind some grave reflections on the ill effects of the want of domestick discipline, and to put you in the distressing state of doubt felt by the poet,

"Crudelis mater magls, an puer improbus ille ?"

9. A set of splendid volumes, full of beautiful coloured engravings, and 'bound in morocco, sent by the coach to a friend; but packed with such strength and compactness, that they might be thrown over a house without injury; sent back again, by the same

* Christ. Obs. vol. for 1804, p. 408.

conveyance, with a slight, careless covering of brown paper, having travelled in very intimate neighbourhood with a parcel of red herrings, upon whose yielding substance they have been pressed by the superincumbent weight of a lid,well loaded with passengers, that would just shut. The saline moisture has communicated to the precious volumes a hue and a fragrance which they will never lose. An additional comfort in this case is, that it will afford the opportunity of another classical allusion,

"Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem
Testa diu.............”

'Tis a great pity prosody will not permit the var. lect. of imbutus for imbuta, and liber for testa.

But, Mr. Editor, I am too great a friend to the human race, and particularly to my brother bookworms, to state such miseries, without at the same time proposing the best antidotes which occur

to me.

I would accordingly first address myself to the borrowers, who are the offending party, and earnestly recommend it to them, as they value the interests of learning, the peace of learned men, and their own credit, to inculcate upon themselves, with redoubled diligence, the duties of moderation, care and honesty; and particularly to cultivate the faculty of memory; which they will find to be useful in many instances. It were likewise much to be wished, that they would employ one particular day in the year in a careful scrutiny of their library, that they may satisfy themselves whether or not there be any stray volume detained prisoner, for the return of which the owner is sighing or groaning, in hopeless despair. In that case, let it be instantly restored. It would not be amiss, for those who have rather extensive libraries of their own, to make a catalogue of their books; an expedient which, while it answered other important purposes, would assist them in distinguishing their own books from those of other people. And, in this case, with a little alteration of the adage, we may say, "Qui bene distinguit, bene agit.”

To the lenders I would recommend, by way of antidote, to arm themselves with inexhaustible patience, and illimitable resignation. If they will listen to my advice, they will never lend a book without considering it as given; for this reason, they should never, according to my view of things, lend a single volume of a set of books by itself, but insist upon the borrower's taking them all. By this means, the lender extricates himself from the vexatious apprehension of breaking a set, which is as bad, nearly, if not entirely, as losing the whole; and, by putting an object in possession of his friend, which occupies more of the field of view in the eye of his conscience, it is less likely to be overlooked or neglected. Another expedient, which might be adopted with success, is, for the lender, particularly before he commits his volume to a suspicious person, to write his name in it with obtrusive legibility. might, likewise, add a significant motto; such as (for I cannot recollect a classical one) Accipe, lege, redde. I remember having heard the following scriptural one suggested; "The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again."

He

I will conclude with another expedient, of which I must be honest enough to confess I am not the author, and that is, that when your book has been absent an unreasonable length of time, you should, in your turn, borrow of the detainer a book of his of equal or greater value. By this mean, either he will be reminded of his neglect, or you will have a hostage in your possession; besides that, it may give you the opportunity of a neat and inoffensive piece of raillery, when, under colour of confessing your own neglect, you may pleasantly tell your friend that you have kept his Pliny almost as long as he has kept your Homer. This will probably get your Homer out of prison.

Having thus, Mr. Editor, unbosomed myself so freely upon a subject which goes very near my heart, in order to vindicate my own intentions, and to set the minds of those of your readers at rest, who, knowing themselves to be guilty, may suspect a personal design, I beg leave, in the close, to declare, that my aim has not been directed against any individual offender in particular, but, in general, against all; and that it would give me much more pleasure to see all mend, than any single one. Yours, &c.

BENJAMIN BOOKWORM.

ORIGINAL POETRY.

GENTLEMEN,

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ANTHOLOGY.

The following lines, sung at the late funeral of Mr. George Webber, of Cambridge, have the merit of simplicity and pathos. I offer them to you for insertion in the Anthology.

FUNERAL HYMN.

NOW breathe a solemn strain and slow,
While, circling round the palled bier,
Dress'd in the sable weeds of wo,

Each mourner drops the swelling tear.

How did your hearts with fondness dwell
On him for solace and for aid?

Alas, within the grave's dark cell
Now shall your dearest hopes be laid.

That tongue, that should your cares beguile,
Is dumb and motionless in death;
That soul, that beam'd affection's smile,
Fled with the last convulsive breath.

Where now are all those airy dreams
Of future honour, virtue, truth?
Where all those visionary schemes,
That cheat the glowing hopes of youth?

Great God, thy gracious aid impart ;
To thee we raise our suppliant eyes;
Thy grace can sooth the wounded heart,
When every earthly comfort dies.

Though clouds surround thy awful throne,
Yet mercy beams a kindly ray ;
Then let thy sovereign will be done,

And every murmuring thought obey.

AD AEDEM EPISCOPALEM CANTABRIGIENSEM.

Salve, delubrum, salve, tu sancta cathedra,
Turris et aedis, ave!

Ut spectare, fenestras, valvas, et tua tecta
Me laqueata juvat !

5 Mane, struens in turricula luta, garrit hirundo,
Anticipatque diem.

10

Ast ulula adventans, scandit cum Cynthia coelum,
Culmine de queritur.

Quam aestu saepe petivi, quam te rore cadente,
Quam fugiente jubar!

Adveniens, sistens, repetens tunc omnia retro,
Rursus et adveniens :

Multa colore moratus, multa situque figurà
Suspiciensque apicem.

15 Ante, Aquilam fulvam, ac immistam pulvere plaustris Prospicis in plateam.

20

Respuis alta: illam angustam tu sive sinistrâ

Intueare domum :

Sive ad dextram, qua proavi sunt membra reposti
Cespite sub viridi;

Qua passim est obscura, Memento mori, aut, Fugit hora,
Cernere, caeteraque.

Jamdudum at vestrum viduatum antistite coetum est
Fama fuisse suo;

25 Hunc vel et hunc operatum (sorsve aut commoda siquem Praestiterint) cathedrae :

30

Dum prope jam, magis atque magis, subsellia, spreta,

Consenuere situ.

Has tamen O! tales, quae sola levamina possum,

Accipe blanditias.

Forsan et omnium ego, quos, te jam carmine dignor,

Foverit Alma Parens,

Primus, quem vexit non unquam Pegasus, etsi

Undique dicor EQUES.

Ex antro meo.

CANT.

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