ns are courted,
and considered as almost oracular. You will find that he will take his
old station, commanding the right or left wing of the auctioneer; and
that he will enliven, by the gaiety and shrewdness of his remarks, the
circle that more immediately surrounds him. Some there are who will
not bid 'till Lepidus bids; and who surrender all discretion and
opinion of their own to his universal book-knowledge. The consequence
is that Lepidus can, with difficulty, make purchases for his own
library; and a thousand dexterous and happy manoeuvres are of
necessity obliged to be practised by him, whenever a rare or curious
book turns up. How many fine collections has this sagacious
bibliomaniac seen disposed of! Like Nestor, who preaches about the
fine fellows he remembered in his youth, Lepidus (although barely yet
in his grand climacteric!) will depicture, with moving eloquence, the
numerous precious volumes of far-famed collectors, which he has seen,
like Macbeth's witches,

"Come like shadows, so depart!"

[Footnote 186: Tenni cultu, victuque contentus, quidquid ei
pecuniae superaret in omnigenae eruditionis libros comparandos
erogabat, selectissimamque voluminum multitudinem ea mente
adquisivit, ut aliquando posset publicae utilitati--dicari,
_Praef. Bibl. Magliab. a Fossio_, p. x.]

And when any particular class of books, now highly coveted, but
formerly little esteemed, comes under the hammer, and produces a large
sum,--ah then! 'tis pleasant to hear Lepidus exclaim--

O mihi praeteritos referat si Jupiter annos!

Justly respectable as are his scholarship and good sense, he is not
what you may call a _fashionable_ collector; for old chronicles and
romances are most rigidly discarded from his library. Talk to him of
Hoffmen, Schoettgenius, Rosenmuller, and Michaelis, and he will listen
courteously to your conversation; but when you expatiate, however
learnedly and rapturously, upon Froissart and Prince Arthur, he will
tell you that he has a heart of stone upon the subject; and that even
a clean uncut copy of an original impression of each, by Verard or by
Caxton, would not bring a single tear of sympathetic transport in his
eyes.

LIS. I will not fail to pay due attention to so extraordinary and
interesting a character--for see, he is going to take his
distinguished station in the approaching contest. The hammer of the
worthy auctioneer, which I suppose is of as much importan