Alas, that Marcus Varro lives
And is a potent factor yet!
Alas, that still his practice gives
Good men occasion for regret!
To yonder bookstall, pri'thee, go,
And by the "missing" prints and plates
And frontispieces you shall know
He lives, and "extra-illustrates"!

In justice to the Judge and to myself I should say that neither of us
wholly approves the sentiment which the poem I have quoted implies. We
regard Grangerism as one of the unfortunate stages in bibliomania; it
is a period which seldom covers more than five years, although Dr.
O'Rell has met with one case in his practice that has lasted ten years
and still gives no symptom of abating in virulence.

Humanity invariably condones the pranks of youth on the broad and
charitable grounds that "boys will be boys"; so we bibliomaniacs are
prone to wink at the follies of the Grangerite, for we know that he
will know better by and by and will heartily repent of the mischief he
has done. We know the power of books so well that we know that no man
can have to do with books that presently he does not love them. He may
at first endure them; then he may come only to pity them; anon, as
surely as the morrow's sun riseth, he shall embrace and love those
precious things.

So we say that we would put no curb upon any man, it being better that
many books should be destroyed, if ultimately by that destruction a
penitent and loyal soul be added to the roster of bibliomaniacs.
There is more joy over one Grangerite that repenteth than over ninety
and nine just men that need no repentance.

And we have a similar feeling toward such of our number as for the
nonce become imbued with a passion for any of the other little fads
which bibliomaniac flesh is heir to. All the soldiers in an army
cannot be foot, or horse, or captains, or majors, or generals, or
artillery, or ensigns, or drummers, or buglers. Each one has his place
to fill and his part to do, and the consequence is a concinnate whole.
Bibliomania is beautiful as an entirety, as a symmetrical blending of a
multitude of component parts, and he is indeed disloyal to the cause
who, through envy or shortsightedness or ignorance, argues to the
discredit of angling, or Napoleonana, or balladry, or Indians, or
Burns, or Americana, or any other branch or phase of bibliomania; for
each of these things accomplishes a noble purpose in that each
contributes to the glory of the great com