the foe.  Imagine the tableau!  Two elderly gentlemen enter hurriedly, paterfamilias receiving, quite unintentionally, the first edition of “Paradise Lost” in the pit of his stomach, his friend narrowly escaping a closer personal acquaintance with a quarto Hamlet than he had ever had before.  Finale:  great outburst of wrath, and rapid retreat of the combatants, many wounded (volumes) being left on the field.

POSTSCRIPTUM.

ALTHOUGH, strictly speaking, the following anecdote does not illustrate any form of real injury to books, it is so racy, and in these days of extravagant biddings so tantalizing, that I must step just outside the strict line of pertinence in order to place it on record, It was sent to me, as a personal experience, by my friend, Mr. George Clulow, a well-known bibliophile, and “Xylographer” to “Ye Sette of ye Odde Volumes.”  The date is 1881.  He writes:—­

“Apropos of the Gainsborough `find,’ of which you tell in `The Enemies of Books,’ I should like to narrate an experience of my own, of some twenty years ago: 

“Late one evening, at my father’s house, I saw a catalogue of a sale of furniture, farm implements and books, which was announced to take place on the following morning at a country rectory in Derbyshire, some four miles from the nearest railway station.

“It was summer time—­the country at its best—­and with the attraction of an old book, I decided on a day’s holiday, and eight o’clock the next morning found me in the train for C——­, and after a variation in my programme, caused by my having walked three miles west before I discovered that my destination was three miles east of the railway station, I arrived at the rectory at noon, and found assembled some thirty or forty of the neighbouring farmers, their wives, men-servants and maid-servants, all seemingly bent on a day’s idling, rather than business.  The sale was announced for noon, but it was an hour later before the auctioneer put in an appearance, and the first operation in which he took part, and in which he invited my assistance, was to make a hearty meal of bread and cheese and beer in the rectory kitchen.  This over, the business of the day began by a sundry collection of pots, pans, and kettles being brought to the competition of the public, followed by some lots of bedding, etc.  The catalogue gave books as the first part of the sale, and, as three o’clock was reached, my patience was gone, and I protested to the auctioneer against his not selling in accordance with his catalogue.  To this he replied that there was not time enough, and that he would sell the books to-morrow!  This was too much for me, and I suggested that he had broken faith with the buyers, and had brought me to C——­ on a false pretence.  This, however, did not seem to disturb his good humour, or to make him unhappy, and his answer was to call `Bill,’ who was acting