Books have that strange quality, that being of the frailest and
tenderest matter, they outlast brass, iron and marble; and though their
habitations and walls, by uncivil hands, be many times overthrown; and
they themselves, by foreign force, be turned prisoners, yet do they
often, as their authors, keep their giver's names; seeming rather to
change places and masters than to suffer a full ruin and total wreck.
So, many of the books of Constantinople changed Greece for France and
Italy; and in our time, that famous Library in the Palatinate changed
Heidelberg for the Vatican. And this I think no small duty, nor meaner
gift and retribution, which I render back again to my benefactor's
honest fame, being a greater matter than riches; riches being momentany
and evanishing, scarce possessed by the third heir; fame immortal, and
almost everlasting; by fame riches is often acquired, seldom fame by
riches; except when it is their good hap to fall in the possession of
some generous-minded man. And though a philosopher said of famous men,
disdainfully, that they died two deaths, one in their bodies, another,
long after, in their names, he must confess, that where other men live
but one life, famous men live two.--W. DRUMMOND. _Bibliotheca
Edinburgena Lectori._