The invention of printing has not, perhaps, multiplied books, but only
the copies of them; and if we believe there were six hundred thousand in
the library of Ptolemy, we shall hardly pretend to equal it by any of
ours, nor, perhaps, by all put together; I mean so many originals that
have lived any time, and thereby given testimony to their having been
thought worth preserving. For the scribblers are infinite, that like
mushrooms or flies are born and die in small circles of time; whereas
books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and
esteem of ages through which they have passed.--SIR W. TEMPLE. _Ancient
and Modern Learning._