Such speculations would have been alien to the pacific and debonair spirit of Mr. Blades—a man devoid of gall, and ill-equipped for thornier paths of controversy than the definition of a folio or the date of a Caxton. In these he was formidable, not merely from his natural ability, but from his practical acquaintance with the mysteries of printing, an accomplishment rarely possessed by bibliographers. He was able to deal, and willing to receive, hard blows; but his gentle spirit doubtless rejoiced to find in the "Enemies of Books," as he conceived and treated the theme, a subject on which all the world thought as he did. No one, even in this age of rehabilitations, is likely to constitute himself the apologist of mice and book-worms. If a criticism were ventured on Mr. Blades' method, it might be whether, with the exception of these zoological enmities, the various forms of hostility of which he treats should not be grouped under a single head—that of Ignorance. Ignorance misleads the peccant bookbinder, so sternly rebuked by Mr. Blades; ignorance (when it is not hard necessity) exposes books to the decomposing effects of gas; ignorance overlooks the need for ventilation; ignorance appraises a book by its exterior, and sacrifices, it may be the "o'er-dusted gold" of a Caxton, or it may be a work of true genius in a cheap and ordinary edition. Mr. Blades, on the one hand, has rescued Pynsons on their way to the butter-shop; and we, on our part, have redeemed Emily Brontë's last verses—almost the noblest poem ever written by a woman in the English language—from a volume half torn up, because, forsooth, it had little to boast in the way of external appearance. There is another kind of ignorance, which perhaps operates towards the preservation of books—that fond conceit which leads a man to ascribe incredible rarity to a book of which none of his neighbours have heard, or vast antiquity to one no older than his grandfather. Numbers of books, especially in the United States, have owed their preservation to such amiable delusions; but unfortunately their preservation is in most cases a very small benefit.