Have a care of keeping your books handsome, and well bound, not casting
away overmuch in their gilding or stringing for ostentation sake, like
the prayer-books of girls and gallants, which are carried to church but
for their outsides. Yet for your own use spare them not for noting or
interlining (if they be printed), for it is not likely you mean to be a
gainer by them, when you have done with them: neither suffer them
through negligence to mould and be moth-eaten or want their strings and
covers. King Alphonsus, about to lay the foundation of a castle at
Naples, called for Vitruvius his book of architecture; the book was
brought in very bad case, all dusty and without covers; which the king
observing said, 'He that must cover us all, must not go uncovered
himself'; then commanded the book to be fairly bound and brought unto
him. So say I, suffer them not to lie neglected, who must make you
regarded; and go in torn coats, who must apparel your mind with the
ornaments of knowledge, above the robes and riches of the most
magnificent princes.--H. PEACHAM. _The Compleat Gentleman._