I will begin, by designating the high and dignified passion in question
by its true name--BIBLIOSOPHIA,--which I would define--_an appetite for_
COLLECTING _Books_--carefully distinguished from, wholly unconnected
with, nay, absolutely repugnant to, all idea of READING them.
Observe, then, with merited admiration, the several points of
superiority, which distinguish the _Collector_, when brought into fair
and close comparison with the _Student_. As
First; the said _Collector_ proceeds straight forward to his object, and
(with one only exception which will hereafter be shown) under the most
rational hopes of accomplishing it. There is but a certain, and limited,
number of books to which he and his inquisitive fraternity have agreed
to consecrate the epithet 'curious'; and all of these--with the
requisite allowance of cash, cunning, luck, patience, and time--he is
within the 'potentiality' of drawing, sooner or later, within his
clutches:--whereas the _Student_, granting him the wealth of a brewer,
the cunning of a horse-dealer, the luck of a fool, the patience of Jerry
Sneak, and the longevity of the Wandering Jew, can never hope even to
_taste_ an hundredth part of the volumes which he meditates to devour.
In the next place, the treasures of the _Collector_, when once he has
submitted to the pleasing toil of procuring them, are his own;--his own,
I mean, in the single sense in which he is desirous so to call them; for
he leaves them in the safe custody of his shelves, until the arrival of
that proud moment, when he shall be dared by an envious rival, to prove
that the title-page of some forgotten (and thence remembered) volume, is
perfect--or properly imperfect; or that it enjoys the reputation of
having been printed, long before the Art had approached towards any
tolerable degree of improvement; or, that it possesses some one, or
more, of those curious advantages, upon which a fitter occasion for
expatiating will present itself by and by:--and now, how stands the
point of _possession_, with the _Student_?--unprosperously indeed!--for
besides that, as already observed, he can never possibly possess, in
_his_ sense of that expression, more than a wretched modicum of his
coveted treasures, he is doomed to a very precarious property even in
those which he may have actually hoarded; inasmuch as they are entrusted
to the care of that most treacherous of all librarians,
_Memory_,--which, at all times, and of necessity, treats the Student's
collections, as the professed Collector, occasionally, and by choice
only, is tempted to treat _his_,--by casting out a great part of them
for want of room.... 'Let us now be told no more,' of the superiority of
the _Student_ over the _Collector_.--J. BERESFORD. _Bibliosophia._