, purchase it, Lisardo; if
it be only for the sake of reading the spirited introduction prefixed
to it.[355] The author was a man, whoever he may chance to be, of no
mean intellectual powers. But to return.

[Footnote 355: This volume, which has been rather fully
described by me in the edition of More's _Utopia_, vol. ii.,
p. 260, 284--where some specimens of the "Introduction," so
strongly recommended by Lysander, will be found--is also
noticed in the _Athenaeum_, vol. ii., 601; where there is an
excellent analysis of its contents. Here, let me subjoin
only one short specimen: In praise of learning, it is said:
"Wise and learned men are the surest stakes in the hedge of
a nation or city: they are the best conservators of our
liberties: the hinges on which the welfare, peace, and
happiness, hang; the best public good, and only
commonwealth's men. These lucubrations, meeting with a true
and brave mind, can conquer men; and, with the basilisk,
kill envy with a look." Sign. E. 4. rect.]

Where sleep now the relics of DYSON'S Library, which supplied that
_Helluo Librorum_, Richard Smith, with "most of his rarities?"[356] I
would give something pretty considerable to have a correct list--but
more to have an unmolested sight--of this library, in its original
state: if it were merely to be convinced whether or not it contained a
copy of the _first edition of Shakespeare_, of larger dimensions, and
in cleaner condition, than the one in PHILANDER'S Collection!

[Footnote 356: "H. DYSON (says Hearne) a person of a very
strange, prying, and inquisitive genius, in the matter of
books, as may appear from many libraries; there being books,
chiefly in old English, almost in every library, that have
belonged to him, with his name upon them." _Peter Langtoft's
Chronicles_, vol. i., p. xiii. This intelligence Hearne
gleaned from his friend Mr. T. Baker. We are referred by the
former to the _Bibl. R. Smith_, p. 371, alias 401, No.
115, to an article, which confirms what is said of Smith's
"collecting most of his rarities out of the library of H.
Dyson." The article is thus described in Bibl. Smith,
_ibid._; "115 Six several catalogues of all such books,
touching the state ecclesiastical as temporal of the realm
of England, which were published upon several occasions, in
the reigns of K. Henr