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 importance as was Sir Fopling's periwig of old,[187] upon the stage--the hammer is upon the desk!--The company begin to increase and close their ranks; and the din of battle will shortly be heard. Let us keep these seats. Now, tell me who is yonder strange looking gentleman? [Footnote 187: See Warburton's piquant note, in Mr. Bowles's edition of _Pope's Works_, vol. v., p. 116. "This remarkable _periwiy_ [Transcriber's Note: periwig] (says he) usually made its entrance upon the stage in a sedan chair, brought in by two chairmen with infinite approbation of the audience." The _snuff-box_ of Mr. L. has not a less imposing air; and when a high-priced book is balancing between 15_l._ and 20_l._ it is a fearful signal of its reaching an additional sum, if Mr. L. should lay down his hammer, and delve into this said crumple-horned snuff-box!] "'Tis MUSTAPHA, a vender of books. Consuetudine invalescens, ac veluti callum diuturna cogitatione obducens,[188] he comes forth, like an alchemist from his laboratory, with hat and wig 'sprinkled with learned dust,' and deals out his censures with as little ceremony as correctness. It is of no consequence to him by whom positions are advanced, or truth is established; and he hesitates very little about calling Baron Heinecken a Tom fool, or ---- a shameless impostor. If your library were as choice and elegant as Dr. H----'s he would tell you that his own disordered shelves and badly coated books presented an infinitely more precious collection; nor must you be at all surprised at this--for, like Braithwait's Upotomis, 'Though weak in judgment, in opinion strong;' or, like the same author's Meilixos, 'Who deems all wisdom treasur'd in his pate,'