tograph annotations on the first folio Shakespeare,
the offence would not only have been pardoned but applauded, greatly to
the pecuniary benefit of any one so fortunate as to discover the
treasure. But it would be highly dangerous for ordinary people to found
on such an immunity. I remember being once shown by an indignant
collector a set of utterly and hopelessly destroyed copies of rare
tracts connected with the religious disputes of Queen Elizabeth's day,
each inlaid and separately bound in a thin volume in the finest morocco,
with the title lengthways along the back. These had been lent to a
gentleman who deemed himself a distinguished poet, and he thought proper
to write on the margin the sensations caused within him by the perusal
of some of the more striking passages, certifying the genuineness of his
autograph by his signature at full length in a bold distinct hand. He,
worthy man, deemed that he was adding greatly to the value of the
rarities; but had he beheld the owner's face on occasion of the
discovery, he would have been undeceived.

There are in Dr Wynne's book descriptions, not only of libraries
according to their kind, but according to their stage of growth, from
those which, as the work of a generation or two, have reached from ten
to fifteen thousand, to the collections still in their youth, such as Mr
Lorimer Graham's of five thousand volumes, rich in early editions of
British poetry, and doubtless, by this time, still richer, since its
owner was lately here collecting early works on the literature of
Scotland, and other memorials of the land of his fathers. Certainly,
however, the most interesting of the whole is the library of the Rev. Dr
Magoon, "an eminent and popular divine of the Baptist Church." He
entered on active life as an operative bricklayer. There are, it
appears, wall-plates extant, and not a few, built by his hands, and it
was only by saving the earnings these brought to him that he could
obtain an education. When an English mechanic finds out that he has a
call to the ministry, we can easily figure the grim ignorant fanatical
ranter that comes forth as the result. If haply he is able to read, his
library will be a few lean sheepskin-clad volumes, such as Boston's
Crook in the Lot, Fisher's Marrow of Modern Divinity, Brooks's Apples of
Gold, Bolton's Saint's Enriching Examination, and Halyburton's Great
Concern. The bricklayer, however, was endowed with the heavenly gift of
the high