knowledge makes a multiplication of books; this makes authorship a regular profession. "In proportion "In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary." Citizen of the World.

The first regular hack writer, was Gervase Markham, who wrote (much although not wisely,) upon horsemanship and other subjects, during the reigns of James and Charles. (There were also Greene and Peacham)

"He had a filled tongue, furnished with termes of arte,

Not arte of schoole; but courtiers' schoolerie." SPENSER. Hallam describes Hobbes, " as our first uniformly, careful, and correct writer," he died 1679.

But "literature," which has been described as "the sovereign mistress of all the arts," could not be permitted to sail on a smooth, unruffled surface. It had even now become infested with tricks and knaveries. A set of literary pedlars went about the country with some worthless pamphlets, headed with an epistle dedicatory, into which they inserted all the names of the county into which they travelled; extracting from each in return, a present of three or four angels. Dekkar.

When the civil wars commenced, and diurnals (newspapers) were in much request, the writers not only sold themselves to one or the other party, but even to individuals, whose deeds they exclusively trumpeted. Life of Colonel Hamilton.

Pepy thus describes Muddiman: "I found him a good scholar, an arch-rogue; and, though he writes new books for the parliament, yet he declares, that he did it only to get money, and did talk very basely of them."

Thus "all is fair in politics;" if not then as now, openly acknowledged, was covertly acted upon.

ADOPTED SONS.-Connected with the literature of this period, there was an amiable custom of adopting sons; almost all the extraordinary men adopted sons, at which there were tremendous convivial ceremonies, as much so, as if they were making a free-mason. Charles Cotton, the poet and fly fisher, was an adopted son of Isaac Walton. Mr. Backhouse adopted Elias Ashmole, (the founder of the Ashmolian Library, at Oxford,) "because he had communicated many secrets to him."

Ben Jonson adopted twelve or fourteen, and though that was a large family, he had the consolation to know they were all dutiful.

For "worse than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child."

The spirit of this talented order is entirely gone; it arisen

from these men, finding other congenial spirits similar to their own. There was in Rome, and other nations, a custom of adopting others, by which those sons became part of a person's family, and were entitled to enjoy the wealth, or other privileges of their new sires.

This English one had nothing to do with this. "It had nothing to do with earth, nor its base metals;" it was of the most refined description; bound up with the height of confidence and friendship. And it is much to be regretted it is lost; and, alas! not to be revived in this mercantile age. How pleasing must it have been for a man of eminence, to have introduced his friend to an old acquaintance, as his adopted son?

If the talented men of this extensive Union had such an amiable custom, who is there who would not feel pride, and it would be an honourable pride, to be thus introduced? If Professor Silliman, for instance, introduced a gentleman to another professor, as his adopted son, how many noble associations would be therein combined? character, talents, genius; in fact, it tells, in the most concise and amiable language, that "he is a man of my kidney," and that "a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind."

"Not name nor brotherhood is all in all with me;
I call that brotherhood where souls agree."

And though honour, thus acquired, is but a reflected, a borrowed light; no more to be compared to the brilliant sun, which thus warms you into notice, than the nightly moon: yet there is a glory surrounding you, while you thus sail down the stream of time with those "nobles of nature."

"Whose honours with increase of ages grow,
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow."

LIBRARIES.

"Books instruct, and wound not." MORE'S CATHOLICI.
Literature is a map, by which we may survey the sense of mankind.

An edition of the Bible of 600 copies, in the reign of Henry VIII., took three years to sell off; a strong proof of there being but few readers. The Bible was translated into Welch, 1586.

As printing paper was scarce and dear, Oliver Cromwell allowed the paper for Walton's "Polyglot Bible" to be imported

of

duty free; it was began 1653, completed 1657. The quantity paper of all sorts made in 1713, in England, was estimated at only 800,000 reams.

Illuminated ornamented books were in much repute from the sixth to the seventeenth century. A monk was employed thirty years in the monastery of St. Audeon, on one missal; it was finished, 1682.

ENGRAVERS.-The invention of wood cuts, in the fifteenth century, superseded this art, and diminished the importance of transcribing them.

I have said little about embellishing English books, in the first vol., which has confessedly borne away the honours from all Europe. So little was done in this art, previously to the seventeenth century, that George Vertue begins his catalogue of engravers from the year 1600; but a few facts, and the names of some of the artists who engraved both on wood and copper, are worthy of some notice. There were engravers as early as printers. Caxton's "Golden Legend," published 1483, has many cuts dispersed through the body of the work. The earliest English copper plate engraver, known by name, is Thomas Geminus, who executed the plates for a medical book, about the end of Henry VIII.'s reign. Before the end of the sixteenth century, the English engravers had attained sufficient reputation to be engaged in foreign countries. Some of the plates for Abraham Ortellius's "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum," published at Antwerp, 1570, were executed by T. Geminus, and Humfrey Lluyd. Ortelius speaks in high terms of the English engravers; and, besides the abovementioned, has recorded the names of Antony Jenkinson, who flourished in 1562, and Robert Leeth. "Engraving," observes Walpole, "was in no contemptible condition in England, when we had professors worthy of being employed to adorn Flemish editions. Flanders was, at that time, a capital theatre of arts and learning." Ralph Aggas, is famous for his views and plans, and to Christopher Saxton, we are indebted for the first publication of county maps. George Hoefnagle, Theodore de la Brie, and Elstracke, are the most celebrated foreigners who flourished in England during the same period.

Early in the seventeenth century, Crispin Pass settled in England, and executed numerous plates; there were several of this name, family, and style; one Simon Pass was the master of John Payne, whose works merit distinction on the score of art.

The transcendent talents of Vandyke, could not fail to call forth artists to multiply and extend his works by the engraver.

Robert de Voerst, and Luke Vostermans, established themselves in England, and are both well known by their admirable transcripts of his works. These engravers appear to have been the first who executed historical works in England.

In the year 1637, England became the adopted country of the indefatigable and ill-used Winceslaus Hollar; he was a native of Prague, and bred to the law. Shortly before the civil war, he was introduced into the service of the royal family, and employed as drawing-master to Prince Charles. Hollar's prosperity was fatally affected by the downfall of the royal cause. The Earl of Arundel, his early patron, was compelled to take refuge abroad; and Hollar, after suffering greatly from the fortune of war, made his escape from a prison, and joined his patron at Antwerp. After the death of the earl, in 1646, he remained in obscurity till 1652, when he returned to England, and occupied himself, during several years, upon plates for various books, among which were the illustrations of Dugdale's works. (At the time Dugdale's " History and Antiquities of Warwickshire" was published, 1636, the art of wood engraving was so low, no artist could be found to execute the cuts, nor did it revive till the time of Bewick;) but he was so miserably paid, that he could never succeed in raising himself from a state of absolute indigence; he seems to have been a "child of misery, baptized in tears." The engravings of this industrious artist, according to Vertue's catalogue, amount to the incredible number of 2384, many of which, moreover, are from his own drawings. His maps, plans, views, churches, and monuments, a rich mine of information and delight to the English antiquary and topographer, are no less than 840, and his portraits, 355. Some of his views are very large: his great view of London is on seven sheets, and extends two yards and a half in length. In panoramic views of this kind he excelled; but Hollar had but little of the painter's feeling: and praise is chiefly due to him as a draughtsman and antiquary, and for the scrupulous fidelity with which he rendered the objects before him. engravings of muffs has never been equalled as a representation of fur, and his shells from the Arundelian collection are no less perfect.

His

In 1654, came over Peter Lombart, a native of Paris, and remained until after the restoration. He engraved after Vandyke. It is related of this artist, that he erased the features from his plate of Charles I. on horseback, in order to insert that of Oliver Cromwell, and replaced the kings at the restoration. The first English catalogue of books was made by Andrew Maunsel, a bookseller of eminence, in Lothbury, London, 1595. In the year 1632, a Franciscan monk, S. Gerard, dedicated

his work "La grand voyage des Hurons," &c. "to our Saviour." And in the year 1776, the pious Edwards dedicated a work on Natural History "to the Almighty."

The hireing out of books to read, began with plays. At the end of the "Thracian Wonder," 1661, is an advertisement, "If any gentleman please to repair to my house aforesaid, near Temple bar, they may be furnished with all manner of histories; English or French romances, or poetry, which are to be sold, or read, for a reasonable consideration."

The first circulating library was by Allen Ramsay, in Edinburgh, 1725. In London, by Batho, in the Strand, in 1740.

The Gentleman's Magazine informs us, that "three centuries ago, public libraries, like inns, were comparatively rare, and the traveller or student repaired to the collection, or table of a friend, to claim the able hospitality which, at the present day, from the prodigiously increased movement of the body and mind, would entail rather an inconvenient charge on the entertainer." I expect the oldest inscription to a library is at Thebes. It was called an (6 office for diseases of the soul."

Our forefathers used to exhibit the leaves, and not the backs, of their books, they were anxious to exhibit the silken strings, and gold or silver clasps. Bishop Earl, describing the character of a young gentleman at the university, says: "His study has handsome shelves, his books neat silk strings, which he shows to his father's man, and he is loath to untye, or take them down for fear of misplacing them." Earl's Microcosmography.

The art of ornamenting the exterior, was carried to a great and lavish extent; jewels, as well as the precious metals, were employed to evince their splendour. Peacham advises, "have a care of keeping your books handsome and well bound, not casting away over much in their gilding and stringing for ostentation sake; like the prayer books of girles and gallants, which are carried to church for their outsides." Compleat Gentleman. Portraits were frequently introduced in the initials, especially by those celebrated printers, Jugge and Day; the latter printer was patronized by Archbishop Parker: many printers of eminence very often had their names in ingenious rebusses.

The first abridgment of the statutes in English, was printed by Rastell, about 1517.

In later periods, when public reading rooms were instituted, from an old cut, now in the British museum, the books were not arranged on the side walls, but were on a shelf, with a chain to each book, so you lifted it up and read it standing, as on a sort of counter..