Silent companions of the lonely hour,
    Friends, who can alter or forsake. 
  Who for inconstant roving have no power,
    And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take.
To My Books.  MRS. C. NORTON.

Some books are drenched sands,
On which a great soul’s wealth lies all in heaps,
Like a wrecked argosy.
A Life Drama.  ALEX.  SMITH.

                            Worthy books
  Are not companions—­they are solitudes: 
  We lose ourselves in them and all our cares.
Festus:  Sc.  A Village Feast.  Evening.  P.J.  BAILEY.

’Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print;
A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in ’t.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.  LORD BYRON.

Golden volumes! richest treasures,
Objects of delicious pleasures! 
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hands in rapture seize! 
Brilliant wits and musing sages,
Lights who beamed through many ages! 
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achieved,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived!
Curiosities of Literature.  Libraries.  I. DISRAELI.

           That place that does contain
  My books, the best companions, is to me
  A glorious court, where hourly I converse
  With the old sages and philosophers.
The Elder Brother, Act i. Sc. 2. 
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

BORROWING.

Who goeth a-borrowing,
Goeth a-sorrowing.
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.  June’s Abstract.  T. TUSSER.

  Neither a borrower nor a lender be: 
  For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
  And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

  It is a very good world to live in,
  To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
  But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man’s own,
  It is the very worst world that ever was known.
Attributed to EARL OF ROCHESTER.

BOY.

  O lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son! 
  My life, my joy, my food, my all the world! 
  My widow-comfort, and my sorrow’s cure!
King John, Act iii. Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

  A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,
  And mischief-making monkey from his birth.
Don Juan, Canto I.  LORD BYRON.

  A little bench of heedless bishops here,
  And there a chancellor in embryo.
The Schoolmistress.  W. SHENSTONE.

Look here upon thy brother Geffrey’s face;
These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his: 
This little abstract doth contain that large
Which died in Geffrey:  and the hand of time
Shall draw this brief unto as large a volume.
King John, Act ii.  Sc 1.  SHAKESPEARE.