His two most cherished possessions were a fine copy of the Stultitiae Laus, printed by Froben, which had once been given by William Burton, the historian, to his brother Robert, when the latter was a youngster of twenty; and a first edition of one of Walton’s lives, ’a presentation copy from the author.’  The former was rich with the autographs and marginalia of both brothers, and on the latter a friend of his has already hung a tale, which may or may not be known to the Reader.  In the reverent handling of these treasures, two questions inevitably forced themselves upon me:  where the d——­l Narcissus, an apprentice, with an allowance that would hardly keep most of us in tobacco, had found the money for such indulgences; and how he could find in his heart to sell them again so soon.  A sorrowful interjection, as he closed his bag, explained all:—­

‘Yes!’ he sighed, ’they have cost me thirty pounds, and guess how much I have been offered for them?’

I suggested ten.

‘Five,’ groaned my poor friend.  ’I tried several to get that.  “H’m,” says each one, indifferently turning the most precious in his hand, “this would hardly be any use to me; and this I might have to keep months before I could sell.  That I could make you an offer for; what have you thought of for it?” With a great tugging at your heart, and well-nigh in tears, you name the absurdest minimum.  You had given five; you halve it—­surely you can get that!  But “O no!  I can give nothing like that figure.  In that case it is no use to talk of it.”  In despair you cry, “Well, what will you offer?” with a choking voice.  “Fifteen shillings would be about my figure for it,” answers the fiend, relentless as a machine—­and so on.’

‘I tried pawning them at first,’ he continued, ’because there was hope of getting them back some time that way; but, trudging from shop to shop, with many prayers, “a sovereign for the lot” was all I could get.  Worse than dress-clothes!’ concluded the frank creature.

For Narcissus to be in debt was nothing new:  he had always been so at school, and probably always will be.  Had you reproached him with it in those young self-conscious days of glorious absurdity, he would probably have retorted, with a toss of his vain young head:—­

‘Well, and so was Shelley!’

I ventured to enquire the present difficulty that compelled him to make sacrifice of things so dear.

‘Why, to pay for them, of course,’ was the answer.

And so I first became initiated into the mad method by which Narcissus had such a library about him at twenty-one.  From some unexplained reason, largely, I have little doubt, on account of the charm of his manners, he had the easy credit of those respectable booksellers to whom reference has been made above.  No extravagance seemed to shake their confidence.  I remember calling upon them with him one day some months following that afternoon—­for the