How we winked, and yearned, and imagined we saw a corner of the all-precious sheets, to no purpose! The feelings were not very pleasant, it is true; but then as long as they were confined to others, they would of course only add to our satisfaction.--J. H. LEIGH HUNT. _Wedded to Books._ THE ART OF BOOK-KEEPING How hard, when those who do not wish To lend, that's lose, their books, Are snared by anglers--folks that fish With literary hooks; Who call and take some favourite tome, But never read it through;-- They thus complete their set at home, By making one at you. Behold the bookshelf of a dunce Who borrows--never lends: Yon work, in twenty volumes, once Belonged to twenty friends. New tales and novels you may shut From view--'tis all in vain; They're gone--and though the leaves are 'cut' They never 'come again'. For pamphlets lent I look around, For tracts my tears are spilt; But when they take a book that's bound, 'Tis surely extra-guilt. A circulating library Is mine--my birds are flown; There's one odd volume left to be Like all the rest, a-lone. I, of my Spenser quite bereft, Last winter sore was shaken; Of Lamb I've but a quarter left, Nor could I save my Bacon. My Hall and Hill were levelled flat, But Moore was still the cry; And then, although I threw them Sprat, They swallowed up my Pye. O'er everything, however slight, They seized some airy trammel; They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night, And pocketed my Campbell. And then I saw my Crabbe at last, Like Hamlet's, backward go; And as my tide was ebbing fast, Of course I lost my Rowe. I wondered into what balloon My books their course had bent; And yet, with all my marvelling, soon I found my Marvell went. My Mallet served to knock me down, Which makes me thus a talker; And once, while I was out of town, My Johnson proved a Walker. While studying o'er the fire one day My Hobbes amidst the smoke, They bore my Colman clean away, And carried off my Coke. They picked my Locke, to me far more Than Bramah's patent's worth; And now my losses I deplore Without a Home on earth. If once a book you let them lift, Another they conceal; For though I caught them stealing Swift, As swiftly went my Steele. Hope is not now upon my shelf, Where late he stood elated; But, what is strange, my Pope himself Is excommunicated. My little Suckling in the grave Is sunk, to swell the ravage; And what 'twas Crusoe's fate to save 'Twas mine to lose--a Savage. Even Glover's works I cannot put My frozen hands upon; Though ever since I lost my Foote My Bunyan has been gone.