N. Well!--what strange animals are you bibliomaniacs. Have we any
other symptom to notice? Yes, I think Lysander made mention of an
_eighth_; called a passion for THE BLACK-LETTER. Can any eyes be so
jaundiced as to prefer volumes printed in this crabbed, rough, and
dismal manner?

LOREN. Treason--downright treason! Lisardo shall draw up a bill of
indictment against you, and Lysander shall be your judge.

BELIN. My case would then be desperate; and execution must necessarily
follow.

LIS. I shall be better able to form an opinion of the expediency of
such a measure after Lysander has given us his definition of this
eighth and last symptom. Proceed, my friend.

LYSAND. Of all symptoms of the Bibliomania, this _eighth_ symptom is
at present the most powerful and prevailing. Whether it was imported
into this country, from Holland, by the subtlety of Schelhorn[454] (a
knowing writer upon rare and curious books) may be a point worthy of
consideration. But whatever be its origin, certain is that books
printed in the =black-letter=, are now coveted with an eagerness unknown
to our collectors in the last century. If the spirits of West,
Ratcliffe, Farmer, and Brand, have as yet held any intercourse with
each other, in that place "from whose bourne no traveller returns,"
which must be the surprise of the three former, on being told, by the
latter, of the prices given for some of the books at the sale of his
library!

[Footnote 454: His words are as follows: "Ipsa typorum
ruditas, ipsa illa atra crassaque literarum facies _belle
tangit sensus_," _&c._ Was ever the black-letter more
eloquently described: see his _Amoentates [Transcriber's
Note: Amoenitates] Literariae_, vol. i., p. 5. But for the
last time, let us listen to the concluding symptomatic
stanza of an "aspirant;"

EIGHTH MAXIM.

Who dreams the _Type_ should please us all,
That's not too thin, and not too tall,
Nor much awry, nor over small,
And, if but ROMAN, asks no better--
May die in darkness:--I, for one,
Disdain to tell the barb'rous Hun
That Persians but adore the sun
Till taught to know _our_ God--=Black-Letter=.

_Bibliosophia_: p. vii.

However cruel may be the notes of one poet, it seems pretty
clear that the glorious subject, or bibliomaniacal symptom,
of which we are treating, excited number