f those recondite mysteries of his, which we may have occasion farther
to reveal. This bibliographical hero was librarian to the most
magnificent of book-collectors, the Duke de la Valliere. The Abbe Rive
was a strong but ungovernable brute, rabid, surly, but _tres-mordant_.
His master, whom I have discovered to have been the partner of the cur's
tricks, would often pat him; and when the _bibliognostes_, and the
_bibliomanes_ were in the heat of contest, let his "bull-dog" loose
among them, as the duke affectionately called his librarian. The
"bull-dog" of bibliography appears, too, to have had the taste and
appetite of the tiger of politics, but he hardly lived to join the
festival of the guillotine. I judge of this by an expression he used to
one complaining of his parish priest, whom he advised to give "une messe
dans son ventre!" He had tried to exhaust his genius in _La Chasse aux
Bibliographes et aux Antiquaires mal avises_, and acted Cain with his
brothers! All Europe was to receive from him new ideas concerning books
and manuscripts. Yet all his mighty promises fumed away in projects; and
though he appeared for ever correcting the blunders of others, this
French Ritson left enough of his own to afford them a choice of revenge.
His style of criticism was perfectly _Ritsonian_. He describes one of
his rivals as _l'insolent et tres-insense auteur de l'Almanach de
Gotha_, on the simple subject of the origin of playing-cards!

The Abbe Rive was one of those men of letters, of whom there are not a
few who pass all their lives in preparations. Dr. Dibdin, since the
above was written, has witnessed the confusion of the mind and the
gigantic industry of our _bibliognoste_, which consisted of many trunks
full of _memoranda_. The description will show the reader to what hard
hunting these book-hunters voluntarily doom themselves, with little hope
of obtaining fame! "In one trunk were about _six thousand_ notices of
MSS. of all ages. In another were wedged about _twelve thousand_
descriptions of books in all languages, except those of French and
Italian; sometimes with critical notes. In a third trunk was a bundle of
papers relating to the _History of the Troubadours_. In a fourth was a
collection of memoranda and literary sketches connected with the
invention of arts and sciences, with pieces exclusively bibliographical.
A fifth trunk contained between _two_ and _three thousand_ cards,
written upon each side, respecting a c