What lovely companions books are. What glorious friends they make. How kindly they speak to us and tell us what they think. We read gruff Tom Carlyle, and pause at his estimate of Cromwell, and hunt through the histories of England to see what Smollett and Hume have to say about the same grim protector. We run through a few pages of Taine and discover how grandly he criticises the masters of English literature, but after all we go back fondly to our own Arnold, and read what he has to tell us before we quite make up our mind that the clever Frenchman is right. We sit at the feet of Holmes and read a chapter or two of his matchless Autocrat, and then with our mind full of the delicious sweets, we get down our copy of Hunt and after skimming a page or two of his "Seer," dip into the crisp and sparkling pages of Hazlitt's _Round Table_. Ah, yes! the fire may take all else we have if it will only leave us our books. True, a man, as the bard hath it-- "May live without books--what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope--what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love--what is passion but pining? But where is the man who can live without dining?" But after all the mind craves as much for food of its kind, as the stomach does for meats and bread. Though in St. John we had no public library, there were very many private collections of books in the city. Some of them were very large and well-selected. Dr. Wm. Bayard's collection, not one volume of which was saved, was beyond all question the fullest and ripest medical library in the Dominion. It was the accumulation of many years. The collection was begun by his father and added to largely by the Doctor himself. Some rare medical works, rich in plates, costing as high as £30 sterling each, were to be found here, besides books covering the whole range of medical thought and practice. The English classics, exhibiting the very cream of letters, and some fine specimens of modern literature filled acceptably the doctors shelves. Not a volume was saved. Indeed a photograph album was the only article rescued from the burning house. Mr. James R. Ruel, the Collector of Customs had a fine library, rich in theology and literature of the higher class. Controversial works, books of science, and the whole range of British Poetry, ever found a welcome on Mr. Ruel's library table. In the departments of History and Geography this library was especially rich and full, and every work of character about the Reformation in England could here be consulted. Mr. Ruel's reading in this department was extensive, and he made writings of this kind his especial study. His whole collection, rare and costly as it was, and representing the labour of many years, perished before a hand could be raised in its defence. Mr. B. Lester Peters's library showed great care and culture in its selection. It too was very complete in History, Biography, Belles-lettres and Theology. Mr. Peters's fine