Mr. Gosse’s book ought not to be read in a fierce, nagging spirit which demands, What is the good of this? or, Who cares for that?  His talk, it must be admitted, is not of masterpieces.  The books he takes down are—­in some instances, at all events—­sad trash.  Smart’s poems, for example, in an edition of 1752, which does not contain the ‘David,’ is not a book which, viewed baldly and by itself, can be honestly described as worth reading.  This remark is not prompted by jealousy, for I have the book myself, and seldom fail to find the list of subscribers interesting, for, among many other famous names, it contains those of ‘Mr. Gray, Peter’s College, Cambridge,’ ’Mr. Samuel Richardson, editor of Clarissa, two books,’ and ’Mr. Voltaire, Historiographer of France.’  There are various Johnsons among the subscribers, but not Samuel, who apparently would liefer pray with Kit Smart than buy his poetry, thereby showing the doctor’s usual piety and good sense.[A]

 [Footnote A:  ’He insisted on people praying with him, and I’d as lief
 pray with Kit Smart as with anyone else.’]

Although the nagging spirit before referred to is to be deprecated, it is sometimes amusing to lose your temper with your own hobby.  If a book-collector ever does this, he longs to silence whole libraries of bad authors. ‘’Tis an inglorious acquist,’ says Joseph Glanvill in his famous Vanity of Dogmatizing—­I quote from the first edition, 1661, though the second is the rarer—­’to have our heads or volumes laden as were Cardinal Campeius his mules, with old and useless luggage.’  ‘’Twas this vain idolizing of authors,’ Glanvill had just before observed, ’which gave birth to that silly vanity of impertinent citations, and inducing authority in things neither requiring nor deserving it.’  In the same strain he proceeds, ’Methinks ’tis a pitiful piece of knowledge that can be learnt from an Index and a poor ambition to be rich in the inventory of another’s Treasure.  To boast a Memory (the most that these pedants can aim at) is but an humble ostentation.  ’Tis better to own a Judgment, though but with a Curta Supellex of coherent notions, than a Memory like a sepulchre furnished with a load of broken and discarnate bones.’  Thus far the fascinating Glanvill, whose mode of putting things is powerful.

There are times when the contemplation of huge libraries wearies, and when even the names of Bindley and Sykes fail to please.  Dr. Johnson’s library sold at Christie’s for L247 9s.  Let those sneer who dare.  It was Johnson, not Bindley, who wrote the Lives of the Poets.