And now, my good friend, suppose I furnish you with an outline of the worthy head-librarian himself?  A.A.  BARBIER has perhaps not long “turned the corner” of his fiftieth year.  Peradventure he may be fifty three.[114] In stature, he is above the middle height, but not very tall.  In form, he is robust; and his countenance expressive of great conciliatoriness and benignity.  There is a dash of the “old school” about the attire of M. Barbier, which I am Goth enough to admire:  while his ardour of conversation, and rapidity of utterance, relieved by frequent and expressive smiles, make his society, equally agreeable and instructive.  He is a literary bibliographer to the very back bone; and talks of what he has done, and of what he purposes to do, with a “gaiete de coeur” which is quite delightful.  He is now engaged in an Examen Critique et Complement des Dictionnaires Historiques les plus repandus;[115] while his Dictionnaire des Auteurs Anonymes et Pseudonymes, in 4 vols. 8vo., and his Bibliotheque d’un Homme de gout,” in five similar volumes, have already placed him in the foremost rank of French bibliographers.  Such is his attention to the duties of his situation, as Librarian, that from one year’s end to the other, with the exception of Sundays, he has no holiday.  His home-occupations, after the hours of public employment (from twelve to four) are over, are not less unintermitting—­in the pursuits of literary bibliography.

It was at this home, that M. Barbier shewed me, in his library, some of the fruits of his long and vigorously pursued “travail.”  He possesses Mercier Saint Leger’s own copy of his intended third edition of the Supplement to Marchand’s History of Printing.  It is, in short, the second edition, covered with ms. notes in the hand-writing of Mercier himself.[117] He also possesses (but as the property of the Royal Library) the same eminent bibliographer’s copy of the Bibliotheque Francaise De La Croix du Maine, in six volumes, covered in like manner with ms. notes by the same hand.  To a man of M. Barbier’s keen literary appetite, this latter must prove an inexhaustible feast.  I was shewn, in this same well-garnished, but unostentatious collection, GOUJET’S own catalogue of his own library.  It is in six folio volumes; well written; with a ruled frame work round each page, and an ornamental frontispiece to the first volume.  Every book in the catalogue has a note subjoined; and the index is at once full and complete.[118] M. Barbier has rather a high notion, and with justice, of Goujet:  observing to me, that five volumes, out of the ten of the last edition of Moreri’s Dictionary—­which were edited by Goujet—­as well as his Bibliotheque Francaise, in eighteen duodecimo volumes—­entitled him to the lasting gratitude of posterity.  On my remarking that the want of an index, to this latter work, was a great drawback to the use which might be derived from it, M.B. readily coincided with me—­and hoped that a projected new edition would remedy this defect.  M.B. also told me that Goujet was the editor of the Dictionnaire de Richelet, of 1758, in three folio volumes—­which had escaped my recollection.