'I hope you will favour me by forming a practical judgment on the point,' said his new acquaintance, as he led the way to the upper floor, the doctor marvelling at the extreme courtesy with which he was treated. 'This building,' thought he, 'might belong to the age of chivalry, and my host might be Sir Calidore himself.' But the library brought him back to other days. The walls were covered with books, the upper portion accessible by a gallery, running entirely round the apartment. The books of the lower circle were all classical; those of the upper, English, Italian, and French, with a few volumes in Spanish. The young gentleman took down a Homer, and pointed out to the doctor the passage which, as he leaned over the gate, he had repeated from the _Odyssey_, This accounted to the doctor for the deference shown to him. He saw at once into the Greek sympathy. 'You have a great collection of books,' said the doctor. 'I believe,' said the young gentleman, 'I have all the best books in the languages I cultivate. Home Tooke says: "Greek, Latin, Italian, and French, are unfortunately the usual bounds of an English scholar's acquisition." I think any scholar fortunate whose acquisition extends so far. These languages and our own comprise, I believe, with a few rare exceptions, all the best books in the world. I may add Spanish for the sake of Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon.{1} 1 Mr. Buchanan says that Peacock learned Spanish at an advanced period of life, which ought to have been mentioned in our introductory memoir. Scarcely a Spanish book, however, appears in the catalogue of his library.--G. It was a _dictum_ of Porson, that "Life is too short to learn German ": meaning, I apprehend, not that it is too difficult to be acquired within the ordinary space of life, but that there is nothing in it to compensate for the portion of life bestowed on its acquirement, however little that may be.'{1} 1 Mr. Hayward's French hotel-keeper in Germany had a different, but not less cogent reason for not learning German. 'Whenever a dish attracts attention by the art displayed in its conception or preparation, apart from the material, the artist will commonly be discovered to be French. Many years ago we had the curiosity to inquire at the Hôtel de France, at Dresden, to whom our party were indebted for the enjoyment they had derived from a _suprême de volaille_, and were informed the cook and the master of the hotel were one and the same person: a Frenchman, _ci- devant chef_ of a Russian minister. He had been eighteen years in Germany, but knew not a word of any language but his own. "_A quoi bon, messieurs_" was his reply to our expression of astonishment; "_à quoi bon apprendre la langue d'un peuple qui ne possède pas une cuisine?_" '--_Art of Dining_, pp, 69, 70.