We commonly see the book that at Christmas lieth bound on the
stationer's stall, at Easter to be broken in the Haberdasher's shop,
which sith it is the order of proceeding, I am content this winter to
have my doings read for a toy, that in summer they may be ready for
trash. It is not strange when as the greatest wonder lasteth but nine
days, that a new work should not endure but three months. Gentlemen use
books, as gentlewomen handle their flowers, who in the morning stick
them in their heads, and at night straw them at their heels. Cherries be
fulsome when they be through ripe, because they be plenty, and books be
stale when they be printed, in that they be common. In my mind Printers
and Tailors are bound chiefly to pray for gentlemen, the one hath so
many fantasies to print, the other such divers fashions to make, that
the pressing iron of the one is never out of the fire, nor the printing
press of the other any time lieth still. But a fashion is but a day's
wearing, and a book but an hour's reading, which seeing it is so, I am
of a shoemaker's mind, who careth not so the shoe hold the plucking on,
nor I, so my labours last the running over. He that cometh in print
because he would be known, is like the fool that cometh into the market
because he would be seen.--J. LYLY. _Euphues._