DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND READING

    to mind to entertain ones self  of anoty and breeding may be mucural sprouts of his own.

    -- Lord Foppington in the Relapse.

    AN ingenious acquaintance of my o sally of   off reading altogeto t improvement of y. At t on t confess t I dedicate no inconsiderable portion of my time to ots. I dream aions. I love to lose myself in ot  sit and think for me.

    I esbury is not too genteel for me, nor Jonatoo lo s allow for such.

    In talogue of books ories, Pocket Books, Draugtered at tific treatises, Almanacks, Statutes at Large; tson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and, generally, all t;no gentlemans library s :quot; tories of Flavius Josep learned Je any tars for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding.

    I confess t it moves my spleen to see ts, usurpers of true sruders into tuary, ting out timate occupants. to reac is some kind-ed play-book, t quot;seem its leaves,quot; to come bolt upon a ion Essay. to expect a Steele, or a Farquo viement of blockropolitanas) set out in an array of Russia, or Morocco,  good leatably re-clote Paracelsus o look like ors, but I long to strip to erans in their spoils.

    to be strong-backed and neat-bound is tum of a volume. Magnificence comes after. t can be afforded, is not to be lavisely. I  dress a set of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. tume. A Son (unless t editions), it o trick out in gay apparel. tinction. terior of trange to say, raises no s emotions, no tickling sense of property in t (I maintain it) a little torn, and dogs-eared. iful to a genuine lover of reading are t appearance, nay, t forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old quot;Circulating Libraryquot; tom Jones, or Vicar of akefield!  urned over t! -- of tress, er oil, running far into midnigco steep  ting contents!  less soiled?  better condition could o see them in?

    In some respects tter a book is, t demands from binding. Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and all t class of perpetually self-reproductive volumes -- Great Natures Stereotypes -- , because o be quot;eterne.quot; But  t perishes,

    e kno orch

    t can its lig; --

    sucance, as tle, by  is ricly durable, to honour and keep safe such a jewel.

    Not only rare volumes of tion, ed; but old editions of ers, sucaylor, Milton in s, yet t, and are talked of  endenizened tional , so as to become stock books -- it is good to possess tly covers. I do not care for a First Folio of Sions of Roonson,  notes, and es, o text; and  pretending to any supposable emulation , are so mucter ty of feeling rymen about ions of ,  tumbled about and rary, I cannot read Beaumont and Fletc in Folio. tavo editions are painful to look at. I  editions of t, I s so t knoomy of Melanc need  fantastic old great man, to expose t of t faso modern censure? ioner could dream of Burton ever becoming popular ? -- tc do ratford co let e- lively fased, to to ic testimony s and parcels of  of . By ----, if I ice of peace for arator and sexton fast in tocks, for a pair of meddling sacrilegious varlets.

    I t t trouble-tombs.

    S fantastical, if I confess, t ts sound ser, and o to mine, at least -- t of Milton or of S may be, t tter are more staled and rung upon in common discourse. test names, and  Marloon, Drummond of hornden, and Cowley.

    Mucient minutes, before te ready, opgap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes sermons ?

    Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon  o wens, s, and purged ears.

    inter evenings -- t out -- le Sers. At sucempest, or ers tale --

    ts you cannot avoid reading aloud -- to yourself, or (as it co some single person listening. More t degenerates into an audience.

    Books of quick interest, t s, are for to glide over only. It  do to read t. I could never listen to even tter kind of modern novels  extreme irksomeness.

    A ne, is intolerable. In some of t is tom (to save so mucime) for one of t sco commence upon times, or te its entire contents aloud pro bono publico. itage of lungs and elocution, t is singularly vapid. In barbers s up, and spell out a paragrapes as some discovery. Anotion. So tire journal transpires at lengt t no one in travel tents of a whole paper.

    Nee curiosity. No one ever lays one do a feeling of disappointment.

    an eternal time t gentleman in black, at Nandus, keeps ter ba incessantly, quot;t;

    Coming in to an inn at nig can be more deligo find lying in t, left time out of mind by t -- tory Magazine, s amusing tete-d-tete picturesquot; -- t; quot;ting Platonic and t; -- and suciquated scandal? ould you exc -- at t time, and in t place -- for a better book?

    Poor tobin,  regret it so mucier kinds of reading -- t, or Comus, o   pamp.

    I s care to be caughedral alone, and reading Candide.

    I do not remember a more ed -- by a familiar damsel -- reclined at my ease upon to make a man seriously as t as sed ermined to read in company, I could   finding to aste, s up, and --  ale casuist, I leave it to to conjecture, y of t t.

    I am not muco out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I knearian minister, reet ), beten and eleven in tudying a volume of Lardner. I oo rain of abstraction beyond my reaco admire acts. An illiterate encounter ers knot, or a bread basket, o fliger of, and  me  to ts.

    treet-readers, e  affection -- try, le learning at talls -- ting envious looks at turing tenderly, page after page, expecting every moment , and yet unable to deny tification, t;snatc; Martin B----, in ts, got to purc under no circumstances of isfaction c poetess of our day  in touc anzas.

    I sah eager eye

    Open a book upon a stall,

    And read, as  all;

    all-man did espy,

    Soon to the boy I heard him call,

    quot;You, Sir, you never buy a book,

    t look.quot;

    th a sigh

    augo read,

    the old churls books he should have had no need.

    Of sufferings the poor have many,

    he rich annoy:

    I soon perceivd another boy,

    had any

    Food, for t day at least -- enjoy

    t of cold meat in a tavern larder.

    t I, is surely harder,

    t a penny,

    Bey-dressed meat:

    No .