Whilst I am proud of calling myself master of many rare and curious tomes, on the other hand, I must confess, that many works of what are entitled the British Classic Authors are not to be found upon my shelves. I do not possess a single volume of Sterne's works, looking upon him as a disgrace to his cloth, and a hypocritical whiner concerning a sensibility which his life testified that he was far from really feeling; nor do I think that there is enough Attic salt in his writings to preserve his grossnesses from being offensive. For the same reason I have not a complete copy of Swift. Of those selections from the works of popular authors commonly styled their “Beauties,” I have not, I think, half a dozen volumes; and I have very few of the works of the minor poets, being somewhat of Horace's opinion concerning middling poets. But such as it is, my little stock of books is dear to me, and I purpose in the present paper to say something of a few of the volumes. That quarto standing in the corner of one of the lower shelves, which time has deprived of half its cover and the greater part of a frontispiece representing the Council of Trent, is a work published in the year 1692, and entitled the “_Young Student's Library_, containing extracts and abridgements of the most valuable books published in England, and in the foreign journals, from the year sixty-five to this time; to which is added, a new essay upon All Sorts of Learning, wherein the use of the Sciences is distinctly treated on—by the Athenian Society. Also, a large Alphabetical Table, comprehending the contents of this volume, and of all the Athenian Mercuries and Supplements, &c. Printed in the year 1691. London: printed for John Dunton, at the Raven in the Poultry.” This may be looked upon as one of the oldest specimens of the periodical review. The essay upon All Sorts of Learning, is divided into sections treating of Divinity, History, Philosophy, Law, Physic and Surgery, Arithmetic, Poetry, Painting, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, &c. &c.—each section followed by a copious list of the most approved works upon the subject more particularly treated of. An arrangement somewhat similar to that of the subjects above enumerated, appears to have been followed in the Young Student's Library, which opens with reviews of the works of Dr. Lightfoot, Dr. Barrow, and Bishop Usher. Near the beginning of the volume, is a notice {653} of a work published in Rotterdam, and entitled “The Accomplishment of Prophecies, or the Deliverance of the Church Near at Hand,” by a Mr. Jurieu, the first sentences of which will give us an idea of the paucity of readers one hundred and fifty years ago compared with their number at present. “_This work has made such a noise, that there are two thousand copies disposed of in four or five months,_ and yet there are but a very few gone into France, which would have taken off a great many if it were suffered that it