The illustrious progenitors of bookworms were such personages as the venerable Bede, Alfred the Great, and Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury. Friar Roger Bacon was also an intense bookworm. The noble book-spirit by which the lives of the Oxford Athenians are recorded and preserved, is now probably forgotten by the world. The student, however reveres the name of old Anthony à Wood. The remembrance of his researches amidst paper and parchment documents, stored up in chests and desks, and upon which the moth was "feeding sweetly," is perpetuated in bibliography. We follow in imagination his cautious step, and head bowing from premature decay, and solemn air, and sombre visage, with cane under the arm, pacing from library to library, through Gothic quadrangles, or sauntering along the Isis on his way to some neighboring village, where, may be, with some congenial Radcliffe, he would recreate with pipe and pot. While the Bodleian and Ashmolean collections remain, so long will the memory of his laudable exertions continue unimpaired. Anthony à Wood was in person of a large, robust make, tall and thin, and had a sedate and thoughtful look, almost bordering upon a melancholy cast. Beneath a strange garb and coarse exterior, lay all that acuteness of observation and retentiveness of memory, as well as inflexible integrity, which marked his intellectual character. After he had by continual drudging worn out his body, he left this world contentedly, A.D. 1695. In the early part of the seventeenth century, lived that very curious collector of ancient popular little pieces, as well as lover of sacred, secret soul soliloquies, that "melancholy Jaques," yclept Robert Burton. He gave a multitude of books to the Bodleian Library. This original, amusing, and _now popular_ author was an arrant book-hunter--a "devourer of authors." Old Burton's constant companion was, we read, the eccentric "Harry" Hastings, a bibliomaniac, yet also an ardent sportsman. Just alighted from the toils of the chase, Harry Hastings, then in his eightieth year, would partake of a substantial dinner, tipple his tankard of ale dry, take his customary nap, wake up, rub his eyes, and behold the "Anatomy of Melancholy" seated before the fire, his visage buried in an opened folio! A rare old boy must have been this Hastings. He is described as low of stature, but strong and active, of a ruddy complexion, with flaxen hair. His clothes were always of Lincoln green. His house was of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with game. He kept his hounds, and his great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones. He lived to be an hundred, and never lost his eyesight nor used spectacles.