undred prints_ for the
illustration of the 20th, 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th
verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis! The illustrated copy
of Mr. Fox's Historical work, mentioned in the first edition
of this work, p. 63, is now in the possession of Lord
Mountjoy. The similar copy of Walter Scott's edition of
Dryden's works, which has upwards of 650 portraits, is yet
in the possession of Mr. Miller, the bookseller.]

Granger's work seems to have sounded the tocsin for a general rummage
after, and plunder of, old prints. Venerable philosophers, and veteran
heroes, who had long reposed in unmolested dignity within the
magnificent folio volumes which recorded their achievements, were
instantly dragged forth from their peaceful abodes, to be inlaid by
the side of some clumsy modern engraving, within an _Illustrated
Granger_!

Nor did the madness stop here. Illustration was the order of the day;
and _Shakspeare_[434] and _Clarendon_ became the next objects of its
attack. From these it has glanced off, in a variety of directions, to
adorn the pages of humbler wights; and the passion, or rather this
symptom of the Bibliomania, yet rages with undiminished force. If
judiciously treated, it is, of all the symptoms, the least liable to
mischief. To possess a series of well-executed portraits of
illustrious men, at different periods of their lives, from blooming
boyhood to phlegmatic old age, is sufficiently amusing; but to possess
_every_ portrait, _bad_, _indifferent_, and _unlike_, betrays such a
dangerous and alarming symptom as to render the case almost incurable!

[Footnote 434: Lysander would not have run on in this
declamatory strain, if it had been _his_ good fortune, as it
has been _mine_, to witness the extraordinary copy of an
ILLUSTRATED SHAKSPEARE in the possession of Earl Spencer;
which owes its magic to the perseverance and taste of the
Dowager Lady Lucan, mother to the present Countess Spencer.
For sixteen years did this accomplished Lady pursue the
pleasurable toil of illustration; having commenced it in her
50th, and finished it in her 66th year. Whatever of taste,
beauty, and judgment in decoration--by means of portraits,
landscapes, houses, and tombs--flowers, birds, insects,
heraldic ornaments, and devices,--could dress our immortal
bard in a yet more fascinating form, has been accomplished
by the noble