Professor Huxley wondered for a long time why the atmosphere of the British Museum should be poisonous while other libraries were free from the poison; a series of experiments convinced him that the presence of poison in the atmosphere was due to the number of profane books in the Museum. He recommended that these poison-engendering volumes be treated once every six months with a bath of cedria, which, as I understand, is a solution of the juices of the cedar tree; this, he said, would purge the mischievous volumes temporarily of their evil propensities and abilities. I do not know whether this remedy is effective, but I remember to have read in Pliny that cedria was used by the ancients to render their manuscripts imperishable. When Cneius Terentius went digging in his estate in the Janiculum he came upon a coffer which contained not only the remains of Numa, the old Roman king, but also the manuscripts of the famous laws which Numa compiled. The king was in some such condition as you might suppose him to be after having been buried several centuries, but the manuscripts were as fresh as new, and their being so is said to have been due to the fact that before their burial they were rubbed with citrus leaves. These so-called books of Numa would perhaps have been preserved unto this day but for the fanaticism of the people who exhumed and read them; they were promptly burned by Quintus Petilius, the praetor, because (as Cassius Hemina explains) they treated of philosophical subjects, or because, as Livy testifies, their doctrines were inimical to the religion then existing. As I have had little to do with profane literature, I know nothing of the habits of such books as Professor Huxley has prescribed an antidote against. Of such books as I have gathered about me and made my constant companions I can say truthfully that a more delectable-flavored lot it were impossible to find. As I walk amongst them, touching first this one and then that, and regarding all with glances of affectionate approval, I fancy that I am walking in a splendid garden, full of charming vistas, wherein parterre after parterre of beautiful flowers is unfolded to my enraptured vision; and surely there never were other odors so delightful as the odors which my books exhale! My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks And fragrance is over it all; For sweet is the smell of my old, old books In their places against the wall. Here is a folio that's grim with age And yellow and green with mould; There's the breath of the sea on every page And the hint of a stanch ship's hold. And here is a treasure from France la belle Exhaleth a faint perfume Of wedded lily and asphodel In a garden of song abloom. And this wee little book of Puritan mien And rude, conspicuous print Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen, Or, may be, of peppermint.