it was excused as excessive fervour
carrying the enthusiast off his feet. When Hazlewood's treasures--for he
was a collector in his way--were brought to the hammer, the scraps and
odds and ends it contained were found classified in groups under such
headings as these--Garlands of Gravity, Poverty's Pot Pourri, Wallat of
Wit, Beggar's Balderdash, Octagonal Olio, Zany's Zodiac, Noddy's
Nuncheon, Mumper's Medley, Quaffing Quavers to Quip Queristers,
Tramper's Twattle, or Treasure and Tinsel from the Tewksbury Tank, and
the like. He edited reprints of some rare books--that is to say, he saw
them accurately reprinted letter by letter. Of these one has a name
which--risking due castigation if I betray gross ignorance by the
supposition--I think he must certainly have himself bestowed on it, as
it excels the most outrageous pranks of the alliterative age. It is
called, "Green-Room Gossip; or, Gravity Gallinipt; A Gallimaufry got up
to guile Gymnastical and Gyneocratic Governments; Gathered and Garnished
by Gridiron Gabble, Gent., Godson to Mother Goose."

The name of Joseph Hazlewood sounds well; it is gentleman-like, and its
owner might have passed it into such friendly commemoration as that of
Bliss, Cracherode, Heber, Sykes, Utterson, Townley, Markland, Hawtrey,
and others generally understood to be gentlemen, and, in virtue of their
bookish propensities, scholars. He might even, for the sake of his
reprints, have been thought an "able editor," had it not been for his
unfortunate efforts to chronicle the doings of the club he had got
into.[69] His History, in manuscript, was sold with his other treasures
after his death, and was purchased by the proprietor of the Athenaeum,
where fragments of it were printed some fifteen years ago, along with
editorial comments, greatly to the amusement, if not to the edification,
of the public.

[Footnote 69: A voice from the other side of the Atlantic reveals the
portentous nature of the machinery with which Mr Hazlewood conducted his
editorial labours. The following is taken from the book on the Private
Libraries of New York, already so freely quoted:--

"A unique book of unusual interest to the bibliophile in this department
is the copy of Ancient and Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy,
edited by Joseph Hazlewood, 2 vols. 4to, London, 1815. This is
Hazlewood's own copy, and it is enriched and decorated by him in the
most extravagant style of the bibliomaniac school in which