ually bring into
disgrace and contempt what are called _Circulating
Libraries_--vehicles, too often, of insufferable nonsense,
and irremediable mischief!]

PHIL. You are right. These Institutions are of recent growth, but of
general utility. They are a sort of _intellectual Hospitals_--according
to your mode of treating the Bibliomania. Yet I dare venture to affirm
that the _News-Paper Room_ is always better attended than the
_Library_!

LYSAND. Let us have no sarcasms. I will now give you the _fifth_ and
last probable means of cure of the Bibliomania; and that is _the Study
of Bibliography_.[467]

[Footnote 467: "UNNE [Transcriber's Note: UNE] BONNE
BIBLIOGRAPHIE," says Marchand, "soit generale soit
particuliere, soit profane soit ecclesiastique, soit
nationale, provinciale, ou locale, soit simplement
personelle, en un mot de quelque autre genre que ce puisse
etre, n'est pas un ouvrage aussi facile que beaucoup de gens
se le pourroient imaginer; mais, elles ne doivent neanmoins
nullement prevenir contre celle-ci. Telle qu'elle est, elle
ne laisse pas d'etre bonne, utile, et digne d'etre
recherchee par les amateurs de l'Histoire Litteraire."
_Diction. Historique_, vol. i. p. 109.

Peignot, in his _Dictionnaire de Bibliologie_, vol. i. 50,
has given a very pompous account of what ought to be the
talents and duties of a bibliographer. It would be difficult
indeed to find such qualifications, as he describes, united
in one person! De Bure, in the eighth volume of his
_Bibliographie Instructive_, has prefixed a "Discourse upon
the Science of Bibliography, and the Duties of a
Bibliographer," which is worth consulting: but I know of
nothing which better describes, in few words, such a
character, than the following: "In eo sit multijuga
materiarum librorumque notitia, ut saltem potiores eligat et
inquirat: fida et sedula apud exteras gentes procuratio, ut
eos arcessat; summa patientia ut rare venalis expectet;
peculium semper praesens et paratum, ne, si quando occurrunt,
emendi, occasio intercidat: prudens denique auri argentique
contemptus, ut pecuniis sponte careat quae in bibliothecam
formandam et nutriendam sunt insumendae. Si forte vir
literatus eo felicitatis pervenit ut talem thesaurum
coacervaverit, nec solus illo invidiose fruatur, sed usam
c