index of a folio edition of Seneca in Latin, a
large part of a volume of La Bruyere's 'Maxims' in French, and several
pages of 'Cecilia.' He had done no other mischief whatever."

Spare your wit, Sir, or Madam! Why should _you_ laugh, and apply the
sting in Mr. Egan's story to the case of "Yours Truly"?

* * * * *

I scarcely know a greater pleasure than to be allowed for a whole day to
spend the hours unmolested in my friend's library. So much _privilege_
abounds there, I call it _Urbanity Hall_. It is a plain, modestly
appointed apartment, overlooking a broad sheet of water; and I can see,
from where I like to sit and read, the sail-boats go tilting by, and
glancing across the bay. Sometimes, when a rainy day sets in, I run down
to my friend's house, and ask leave to browse about the library,--not
so much for the sake of reading, as for the intense enjoyment I have in
turning over the books that have a personal history as it were. Many of
them once belonged to authors whose libraries have been dispersed. My
friend has enriched her editions with autographic notes of those fine
spirits who wrote the books which illumine her shelves, so that one is
constantly coming upon some fresh treasure in the way of a literary
curiosity. I am apt to discover something new every time I take down a
folio or a miniature volume. As I ramble on from shelf to shelf,

"Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,"

and the hours often slip by into the afternoon, and glide noiselessly
into twilight, before dinner-time is remembered. Drifting about only a
few days ago, I came by accident upon a magic quarto, shabby enough
in its exterior, with one of the covers hanging by the eyelids, and
otherwise sadly battered, to the great disfigurement of its external
aspect. I did not remember even to have seen it in the library before,
(it turned out to be a new comer,) and was about to pass it by with an
unkind thought as to its pauper condition, when it occurred to me, as
the lettering was obliterated from the back, I might as well open to the
title-page and learn the name at least of the tattered stranger. And I
was amply rewarded for the attention. It turned out to be "The Novels
and Tales of the Renowned John Boccacio, The first Refiner of Italian
Prose: containing A Hundred Curious Novels, by Seven Honorable Ladies
and Three Noble Gentlemen, Framed in Ten Days." It was printed in London
in 1684, "for Awnsham