foot; and Philemon and Lysander
acknowledged that Dr. Johnson himself could never have so much enjoyed
the beverage which was now before them.

If it should here be asked, by the critical reader, why our society is
not described as being more congenial, by the presence of those "whom
man was born to please," the answer is at once simple and
true--Lorenzo was a bachelor; and his sisters, knowing how long and
desperate would be our discussion upon the black letter and white
letter, had retreated, in the morning, to spend the day with Lisardo's
mother--whither ---- ---- had been invited to join them.

The harper had now ceased. The tea-things were moved away; when we
narrowed our circle, and, two of us upon the sofa, and three upon
chairs, entreated Lysander to resume his narrative; who, after
"clearing his pipes (like Sir Roger de Coverley) with a loud hem or
two," thus proceeded.

"I think we left off," said Lysander, "with seating HENRY THE EIGHTH
upon the throne of England. It will be as well, therefore, to say
something of this monarch's pretensions to scholarship and love of
books. Although I will not rake together every species of abuse which
has been vented against him by one Anthony Gilbie,[291] yet Henry must
be severely censured, in the estimation of the most candid inquirer,
for that gross indifference which he evinced to the real interests of
literature, in calmly suffering the libraries of convents and
monasteries to be pillaged by the crafty and rapacious. He was
bibliomaniac enough to have a few copies of his own work, in defence
of the Roman Catholic exposition of the Sacrament, struck off UPON
VELLUM:[292] but when he quarrelled with the Roman pontiff about his
divorce from Queen Catharine, in order to marry Anne Boleyn,[293] he
sounded the tocsin for the eventful destruction of all monastic
libraries: and although he had sent Leland, under an express
commission, to make a due examination of them, as well as a
statistical survey of the realm, yet, being frustrated in the
forementioned darling object, he cared for nothing about books,
whether _upon vellum_ or _large paper_. But had we not better speak of
the book ravages, during the reformation, in their proper place?"

[Footnote 291: "In the time (saith he) of King HENRIE THE
EIGHT, when by Tindall, Frith, Bilney, and other his
faithful seruantes, God called England to dresse his
vineyarde, many promise ful faire, whome I coulde