BO()I{HlO

 

1T is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are
easily found; and the best are but records, and
not the things recorded ; and certainly there is di~
lettanteisnl enough, and books that are merely neu-
tral and do nothing for us. In Plato’s Gorgias.
Socrates sayfs: “ The shipmaster walks in a modest
garb near the sea, after bringing his passengers
from flfiginzt or from Pontus ; not thinking he has
done anything extraordinary, and certainly know-
ing that his lnisseiigei-s are the same and in no
respect better than when he took them on board.”
So it is with books, for the most part: they work
no redemption in us. The bookseller might cer-
tainly know that his customers zire i11 no respect
better for the purchase and consumption of his
wares. The volume is dear at a dollar, and after
reading to weariness the lettered backs, we leave
the shop with a sigh, and learn. as I did without
surprise of a surly bank director, that in bank

parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as
rubbish.