The Doctor with himself decreed
To nod--or, much the same, to read.
He always seemed a wondrous lover
Of painted leaf and Turkey cover,
While no regard at all was had
To sots in homely russet clad,
Concluding he must be within
A calf, that wore without his skin.
But, though his thoughts were fixed to read,
The treatise was not yet decreed:
Uncertain to devote the day
To politics or else to play;
What theme would best his genius suit,
Grave morals or a dull dispute,
Where both contending champions boast
The victory which neither lost;
As chiefs are oft in story read
Each to pursue, when neither fled.
He enters now the shining dome
Where crowded authors sweat for room;
So close a man could hardly say
Which were more fixed, the shelves or they.
* * * * *
To please the eye, the highest space
A set of wooden volumes grace;
Pure timber authors that contain
As much as some that boast a brain;
That Alma Mater never viewed,
Without degrees to writers hewed:
Yet solid thus just emblems show
Of the dull brotherhood below,
Smiling their rivals to survey,
As great and real blocks as they.
Distinguished then in even rows,
Here shines the Verse and there the Prose;
(For, though Britannia fairer looks
United, 'tis not so with books):
The champions of each different art
Had stations all assigned apart,
Fearing the rival chiefs might be
For quarrels still, nor dead agree.
The schoolmen first in long array
Their bulky lumber round display;
Seemed to lament their wretched doom,
And heave for more convenient room;
While doctrine each of weight contains
To crack his shelves as well as brains;
Since all with him were thought to dream,
That flagged before they filled a ream:
His authors wisely taught to prize,
Not for their merit, but their size;
No surer method ever found
Than buying writers by the pound;
For heaven must needs his breast inspire,
That scribbling filled each month a quire,
And claimed a station on his shelves,
Who scorned each sot who fooled in twelves.