the natural enthusiasm of a Frenchman tempered by the graver emotions of a
native of the Netherlands.

This distinguished Bibliographer (of whom, somewhat more in a future
epistle) has now continued nearly forty years in his present situation; and
when infirmity, or other causes, shall compel him to quit it, France will
never replace him by one possessing more appropriate talents! He doats upon
the objects committed to his trust. He lives almost entirely among his dear
books ... either on the first floor or on the ground floor: for when the
hour of departure, two o'clock, arrives, M. Van Praet betakes him to the
quieter book realms below--where, surrounded by _Grolier, De Thou_, and
_Diane de Poictiers_, copies, he disports him till his dinner hour of four
or five--and 'as the evening shades prevail,' away hies he to his favourite
'_Theatre des Italiens_,' and the scientific treat of Italian music. This I
know, however--and this I will say--in regard to the amiable and excellent
gentleman under description--that, if I were King of France, Mons. Van
Praet should be desired to sit in a roomy, morocco-bottomed, mahogany arm
chair--not to stir therefrom--but to issue out his edicts, for the delivery
of books, to the several athletic myrmidons under his command. Of course
there must be occasional exceptions to this rigid, but upon the whole
salutary, "Ordonnance du Roy." Indeed I have reason to mention a most
flattering exception to it--in my own favour: for M. Van Praet would come
into the second room, (just mentioned) and with his own hands supply me
with half a score volumes at a time--of such as I wished to examine. But,
generally speaking, this worthy and obliging creature is too lavish of his
own personal exertions. He knows, to be sure, all the bye-passes, and
abrupt ascents and descents; and if he be out of sight--in a moment,
through some secret aperture, he returns as quickly through another equally
unseen passage. Upon an average, I set his bibliomaniacal peregrinations
down at the rate of a full French league per day. It is the absence of all
pretension and quackery--the quiet, unobtrusive manner in which he opens
his well-charged battery of information upon you--but, more than all, the
glorious honours which are due to him, for having assisted to rescue the
book treasures of the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres from destruction,
during the horrors of the Revolution--that cannot fail to secure to him the
esteem of the