and which may be so well
reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their
books. These children may most truly be called the riches of
their father, and many of them have with true filial piety
fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the
affection but the interest of the author may be highly
injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings
his book to an untimely end.--FIELDING, _Tom Jones_.

We whom the world is pleased to honour with the title of
modern authors should never have been able to compass our
great design of everlasting remembrance and never-dying fame
if our endeavours had not been so highly serviceable to the
general good of mankind.--SWIFT, _Tale of a Tub_.

A good library always makes me melancholy, where the best
author is as much squeezed and as obscure as a porter at a
coronation.--SWIFT.

In my youth I never entered a great library but my
predominant feeling was one of pain and disturbance of
mind--not much unlike that which drew tears from Xerxes on
viewing his immense army, and reflecting that in one hundred
years not one soul would remain alive. To me, with respect
to books, the same effect would be brought about by my own
death. Here, said I, are one hundred thousand books, the
worst of them capable of giving me some instruction and
pleasure; and before I can have had time to extract the
honey from one-twentieth of this hive in all likelihood I
shall be summoned away.--DE QUINCEY, _Letter to a young
man_.

A man may be judged by his library.--BENTHAM.

I ever look upon a library with the reverence of a
temple.--EVELYN, _to Wotton_.

'Father, I should like to learn to make gold.' 'And what
would'st thou do if thou could'st make it?' 'Why, I would
build a great house and fill it with books.'--SOUTHEY,
_Doctor_.

What would you have more? A wife? That is none of the
indispensable requisites of life. Books? That is one of
them, and I have more than I can use.--DAVID HUME, _Burton's
'Life_.'

Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the
lottery! What is that to opening a box of books? The joy
upon lifting up the cover must be something like that which
we shall feel when Peter the porter opens the door upstairs,
and says,