may furnish the printers daily with
more copy than they want. But, remember, when you have once begun
there must be no flagging till the work is finished."

The loyalty of human admiration was never better illustrated than in
Shelton Mackenzie's devotion to Wilson's genius. To Mackenzie we are
indebted for a compilation of the "Noctes Ambrosianae," edited with
such discrimination, such ability, such learning, and such enthusiasm
that, it seems to me, the work must endure as a monument not only to
Wilson's but also to Mackenzie's genius.

I have noticed one peculiarity that distinguishes many admirers of the
Noctes: they seldom care to read anything else; in the Noctes they find
a response to the demand of every mood. It is much the same way with
lovers of Father Prout. Dr. O'Rell divides his adoration between old
Kit North and the sage of Watergrass Hill. To be bitten of either
mania is bad enough; when one is possessed at the same time of a
passion both for the Noctes and for the Reliques hopeless indeed is his
malady! Dr. O'Rell is so deep under the spell of crusty Christopher
and the Corkonian pere that he not only buys every copy of the Noctes
and of the Reliques he comes across, but insists upon giving copies of
these books to everybody in his acquaintance. I have even known him to
prescribe one or the other of these works to patients of his.

I recall that upon one occasion, having lost an Elzevir at a book
auction, I was afflicted with melancholia to such a degree that I had
to take to my bed. Upon my physician's arrival he made, as is his
custom, a careful inquiry into my condition and into the causes
inducing it. Finally, "You are afflicted," said Dr. O'Rell, "with the
megrims, which, fortunately, is at present confined to the region of
the Pacchionian depressions of the sinister parietal. I shall
administer Father Prout's 'Rogueries of Tom Moore' (pronounced More)
and Kit North's debate with the Ettrick Shepherd upon the subject of
sawmon. No other remedy will prove effective."

The treatment did, in fact, avail me, for within forty-eight hours I
was out of bed, and out of the house; and, what is better yet, I picked
up at a bookstall, for a mere song, a first edition of "Special
Providences in New England"!

Never, however, have I wholly ceased to regret the loss of the Elzevir,
for an Elzevir is to me one of the most gladdening sights human eye can
rest upon. In his life of the elder Aldus