eal
A coat of paint--a colorable dress,
To look like calf or vellum and conceal
Its nakedness.

"And, gilt and lettered with the author's name,
Whatever is most excellent and rare
Shall be, or seem to be ('tis all the same),
Assembled there."

The work was done, the simulated hoards
Of wit and wisdom round the chamber stood,
In binding some; and some, of course, in _boards_
Where all were wood.

From bulky folios down to slender twelves
The choicest tomes, in many an even row
Displayed their lettered backs upon the shelves,
A goodly show.

With such a stock as seemingly surpassed
The best collections ever formed in Spain,
What wonder if the owner grew at last
Supremely vain?

What wonder, as he paced from shelf to shelf
And conned their titles, that the squire began,
Despite his ignorance, to think himself
A learned man?

Let every amateur, who merely looks
To backs and binding, take the hint, and sell
His costly library--_for painted books
Would serve as well_.

Poetry means more to us and we get more enjoyment from reading it
when we understand some of the difficulties that the poet has in
writing it and can recognize those things which make it poetry in
form.

For instance, you will notice in the poem which we have just read
that every stanza has four lines; that, in printing, the first and
third lines begin close to the margin, while the second and fourth
lines begin a little farther in on the page--that is, they are
_indented_. Now if you will look at the ends of the lines you will
see that the words with which the first and third lines terminate
are in rhyme, and that the words with which the second and fourth
lines terminate are in rhyme. In other words, the indentation at
beginning of lines in poetry calls attention to the rhymes.

It is true throughout _The Country Squire_ that every pair of lines
taken alternately ends in rhymes which are perfect or nearly so.
Now a perfect rhyme is one in which the two rhyming syllables are
both accented, the vowel sound and the consonants which follow the
vowels are identical, and the sounds preceding the vowel are
different. For instance, the word