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I have often wondered at the extreme fecundity
of the press, and how it came to pass that
so many heads, on which nature seemed to have
inflicted the curse of barrenness, yet teemed
with voluminous productions. As a man, however,
jogs on in life, his objects of wonder daily
diminish, and he is continually finding out some
very simple cause for some great matter of marvel.
Thus it has been my hap, in my peregrinations
about this great metropolis, to blunder
upon a scene which unfolded to me some of the

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mysteries of the book making craft, and at once
put my astonishment on this head at an end.

I was one summer's day loitering through the
great saloons of the British Museum, with that
listlessness with which one is apt to saunter
about a museum in warm weather; sometimes
lolling over the glass cases of minerals, sometimes
studying the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian
mummy, and sometimes trying, with about
equal success, to comprehend the allegorical
paintings on the lofty ceilings. While I was
gazing about in this idle way, my attention was
attracted to a distant door, at the end of a suite
of apartments. It was closed, but every now
and then it would open, and some strange-favoured
being, generally clothed in black, would
steal forth, and glide through the rooms, without
noticing any of the surrounding objects.
There was an air of mystery about this that
piqued my languid curiosity, and I determined
to attempt the passage of that straight, and to
explore the unknown regions that lay beyond.
The door yielded to my hand, with all that

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facility with which the portals of enchanted castles
yield to the adventurous knight errant. I
found myself in a spacious chamber, surrounded
with great cases of venerable books. Above
the cases, and just under the cornice, were arranged
a great number of quaint black looking
portraits of ancient authors. Long tables, with
stands for reading and writing, were placed
about, at which sat many pale, cadaverous personages,
poring intently over dusty volumes,
rummaging among mouldy manuscripts, and
taking copious notes of their contents. The
most hushed stillness reigned through this mysterious
apartment, excepting that you might
hear the racing of pens over sheets of paper,
or, occasionally, the deep sigh of one of these
sages, as he shifted his position to turn over the
page of an old folio; doubtless arising from that
hollowness and flatulency incident to learned
research.

Now and then one of these personages would
write something on a small slip of paper, and
ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear,

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take the paper in profound silence, glide out of
the room, and return shortly loaded with ponderous
tomes, upon which the other would fall,
tooth and nail, with famished voracity. I had
no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a
body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of
occult sciences. The scene called to mind an
eastern tale I had read, of a philosopher who
was shut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom
of a mountain, that only opened once a
year; where he made the spirits of the place
obedient to his commands, to bring him books
of all kinds of dark knowledge, so that at the
end of the year, when the magic portal once
more swung open on its hinges, he issued forth
so versed in forbidden lore, as to be able to soar
above the heads of the multitude, and control
the powers of nature.

My curiosity being now fully aroused, I
whispered to one of the familiars, as he was
about to leave the room, and begged an interpretation
of the strange scene before me. A
few words were sufficient for the purpose. I

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found that these mysterious personages, whom
I had mistaken for magi, were principally authors,
and were in the very act of manufacturing
books. I was, in fact, in the reading room
of the great British Library, an immense collection
of volumes of all ages and languages,
many of which are now forgotten, and most of
which are seldom read. To these sequestered
pools of obsolete literature, therefore, do many
modern authors repair, and draw buckets full
of classic lore, or “pure English, undefiled,”
wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of
thought.

Being now in possession of the secret, I sat
down in a corner, and watched the process of
this book manufactory. I noticed one lean,
bilious looking wight, who sought none but
the most worm-eaten volumes, printed in black
letter. He was evidently constructing some
work of profound erudition, that would be purchased
by every man who wished to be thought
learned, placed upon a conspicuous shelf of his
library, or laid open upon his table; but never

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read. I observed him, now and then, draw a
large fragment of biscuit out of his pocket, and
gnaw; whether it was his dinner, or whether
he was endeavouring to keep off that exhaustion
of the stomach, produced by much pondering
over dry works, I leave to harder students than
myself to determine.

There was one old gentleman in bright coloured
clothes, with a chirping, gossipping, expression
of countenance, who had all the appearance
of an author on good terms with his
bookseller. After considering him attentively,
I recognised in him a diligent getter up of miscellaneous
works, that bustled off well with the
trade. I was curious to see how he manufactured
his wares. He made more stir and show
of business than any of the others; dipping into
various books, fluttering over the leaves of manuscripts,
taking a morsel out of one, a morsel
out of another, “line upon line, precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little.” The
contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous
as those of the witches' cauldron in

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Macbeth. It was here a finger and there a
thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting,
with his own gossip poured in like “baboon's
blood,” to make the medley “slab and good.”

After all, thought I, may not this pilfering
disposition be implanted in authors for wise
purposes; may it not be the way in which providence
has taken care that the seeds of knowledge
and wisdom shall be preserved from age
to age, in spite of the inevitable decay of the
works in which they were first produced. We
see that nature has wisely, though whimsically,
provided for the conveyance of seeds
from clime to clime, in the maws of certain
birds; so that animals, which, in themselves,
are little better than carrion, and apparently the
lawless plunderers of the orchard and the corn
field, are, in fact, nature's carriers to disperse
and perpetuate her blessings. In like manner,
the beauties and fine thoughts of ancient and
obsolete writers, are caught up by these flights
of predatory authors, and cast forth, again to
flourish and bear fruit in a remote and distant

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tract of time. Many of their works, also, undergo
a kind of metempsychosis, and spring up
under new forms. What was formerly a ponderous
history, revives in the shape of a romance—
an old legend changes into a modern
play—and a sober philosophical treatise furnishes
the body for a whole series of bouncing
and sparkling essays. Thus it is in the clearing
of our American woodlands; where we
burn down a forest of stately pines, a progeny
of dwarf oaks start up in their place; and we
never see the prostrate trunk of a tree, mouldering
into soil, but it gives birth to a whole
tribe of fungi.

Let us not, then, lament over the decay and
oblivion into which ancient writers descend;
they do but submit to the great law of nature,
which declares that all sublunary shapes of
matter shall be limited in their duration, but
which decrees also, that their elements shall
never perish. Generation after generation,
both in animal and vegetable life, passes away,
but the vital principle is transmitted to their

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posterity, and the species continues to flourish.
Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having
produced a numerous progeny, in a good
old age they sleep with their fathers, that is to
say, with the authors who preceded them—and
from whom they had stolen.

While I was indulging in these rambling fancies,
I had leaned my head against a pile of
reverend folios. Whether it was owing to the
soporific emanations from these works; or to
the profound quiet of the room; or to the lassitude
arising from much wandering; or to an
unlucky habit of napping at improper times
and places, with which I am grievously afflicted,
so it was, that I fell into a doze. Still,
however, my imagination continued busy, and
indeed the same scene remained before my
mind's eye, only a little changed in some of
the details. I dreamt that the chamber was
still decorated with the portraits of ancient authors,
but that the number was increased. The
long tables had disappeared, and in place of
the sage magi, I beheld a ragged, thread-bare

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throng, such as may be seen plying about that
great repository of cast-off clothes, Monmouth
Street. Whenever they seized upon a book, by
one of those incongruities common to dreams,
methought it turned into a garment of foreign
or antique fashion, with which they proceeded
to equip themselves. I noticed, however, that
no one pretended to clothe himself from any
particular suit, but took a sleeve from one, a
cape from another, a skirt from a third, thus
decking himself out piece-meal, while some of
his original rags would peep out from among
his borrowed finery.

There was a dapper, rosy, well-fed parson,
who I observed ogling several mouldy polemical
writers through an eyeglass. He soon contrived
to slip on the voluminous mantle of one
of the old fathers, and having purloined the
gray beard of another, endeavoured to look exceeding
wise. But the smirking commonplace
of his countenance set at nought all the trappings
of wisdom. One sickly looking gentleman
was busied embroidering a very flimsy

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garment with gold thread drawn out of several
old court dresses of the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Another had trimmed himself magnificently
from an illuminated manuscript, had
stuck a nosegay in his bosom, culled from
“The Paradise of dainty Devices,” and having
put Sir Philip Sidney's hat on one side of his
head, strutted off with an exquisite air of vulgar
elegance. A third, who was but of puny
dimensions, had bolstered himself out bravely
with the spoils from several obscure tracts of
philosophy, so that he had a very imposing
front, but he was lamentably tattered in rear,
and I perceived that he had patched his small
clothes with leaves from a Latin author.

There were some well-dressed gentlemen,
it is true, who only helped themselves to a gem
or so, which sparkled among their own ornaments,
without eclipsing them. Some, too,
only seemed to contemplate the costumes of
the old writers, to imbibe their principles of
taste, and catch their air and spirit; but I
grieve to say, that too many were apt to array

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themselves, from top to toe, in the patchwork
manner I have mentioned. I should not omit
to speak of one genius, of an arrant cockney
demeanour, who had a violent propensity to
the pastoral, but whose rural wanderings had
been confined to the classic haunts of Primrose
Hill, and the solitudes of the Regent's Park.
He had decked himself in wreaths and ribbands
from all the old pastoral poets, and hanging
his head on one side, went about with a
fantastical, lack-a-daisical air, “babbling about
green fields.” But the personage that most
struck my attention, was a pragmatical old gentleman,
in clerical robes, with a remarkably
large and square, but bald head. He entered
the room wheezing and puffing, elbowed his
way through the throng, with a look of sturdy
self-confidence, and having laid hands upon
a thick Greek quarto, clapped it upon his
head, and swept stately away in a formidable
frizzled wig.

In the height of this literary masquerade, a
cry suddenly resounded from every side, of

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“thieves! thieves!” I looked, and lo! the
portraits about the walls became animated!
The old authors thrust out first a head, then
a shoulder, from the canvass, looked down curiously,
for an instant, upon the motley throng,
and then descended, with fury in their eyes, to
claim their rifled property. The scene of scampering
and hubbub that ensued, baffles all description.
The unhappy culprits endeavoured in vain
to escape with their plunder. On one side might
be seen half a dozen old monks, stripping a
modern professor; on another, there was sad devastation
carried into the ranks of modern dramatic
writers. Beaumont and Fletcher, side
by side, raged round the field like Castor and
Pollux, and sturdy Ben Jonson enacted more
wonders than when a volunteer with the army
in Flanders. As to the gossipping compiler of
farragos, mentioned some time since, he had
arrayed himself in as many patches and colours
as Harlequin, and there was as fierce a contention
of claimants about him, as about the dead
body of Patroclus. I was grieved to see many

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men, to whom I had been accustomed to look
up with awe and reverence, fain to steal off
with scarce a rage to cover their nakedness.
Just then my eye was caught by the pragmatical
old gentleman in the Greek grizzled wig,
who was scrambling away in sore affright with
half a score of authors in full cry after him.
They were close upon his haunches; in a
twinkling off went his wig; at every turn some
strip of raiment was peeled off of him, until
in a few moments, from his domineering pomp,
he shrunk into a little, pursy, “chopp'd bald
shot,” and made his exit with only a few tags
and rags fluttering at his back.

There was something so ludicrous in the catastrophe
of this learned Theban, that I burst
into an immoderate fit of laughter, which broke
the whole illusion. The tumult and the scuffle
were at an end. The chamber resumed its
usual appearance. The old authors shrunk
back into their picture frames, and hung in
shadowy solemnity along the walls. In short,
I found myself wide awake in my corner, with

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the whole assemblage of bookworms gazing
at me with astonishment. Nothing of my
dream had been real but my burst of laughter,
a sound never before heard in that grave sanctuary,
and so abhorrent to the ears of wisdom,
as to electrify the fraternity.

The librarian now stepped up to me, and demanded
whether I had a card of admission.
At first I did not comprehend him, but I soon
found that the library was a kind of literary
“preserve,” subject to game laws, and that no
one must presume to hunt there without special
license and permission. In a word, I stood
convicted of being an arrant poacher, and was
glad to make a precipitate retreat, lest I should
have a whole pack of authors let loose upon
me.