Shortly after my arrival at the Hall, I called at the parsonage, in company with Mr. Bracebridge and the general.  The parson had not been seen for several days, which was a matter of some surprise, as he was an almost daily visitor at the Hall.  We found him in his study; a small dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the church-yard, and was overshadowed by a yew-tree.  His chair was surrounded by folios and quartos, piled upon the floor, and his table was covered with books and manuscripts.  The cause of his seclusion was a work which he had recently received, and with which he had retired in rapture from the world, and shut himself up to enjoy a literary honeymoon undisturbed.  Never did boarding-school girl devour the pages of a sentimental novel, or Don Quixote a chivalrous romance, with more intense delight than did the little man banquet on the pages of this delicious work.  It was Dibdin’s Bibliographical Tour; a work calculated to have as intoxicating an effect on the imaginations of literary antiquaries, as the adventures of the heroes of the round table, on all true knights; or the tales of the early American voyagers on the ardent spirits of the age, filling them with dreams of Mexican and Peruvian mines, and of the golden realm of El Dorado.

The good parson had looked forward to this bibliographical expedition as of far greater importance than those to Africa or the North Pole.  With what eagerness had he seized upon the history of the enterprise! with what interest had he followed the redoubtable bibliographer and his graphical squire in their adventurous roamings among Norman castles, and cathedrals, and French libraries, and German convents and universities; penetrating into the prison-houses of vellum manuscripts, and exquisitely illuminated missals, and revealing their beauties to the world!

When the parson had finished a rapturous eulogy on this most curious and entertaining work, he drew forth from a little drawer a manuscript, lately received from a correspondent, which had perplexed him sadly.  It was written in Norman French, in very ancient characters, and so faded and mouldered away as to be almost illegible.  It was apparently an old Norman drinking song, that might have been brought over by one of William the Conqueror’s carousing followers.  The writing was just legible enough to keep a keen antiquity-hunter on a doubtful chase; here and there he would be completely thrown out, and then there would be a few words so plainly written as to put him on the scent again.  In this way he had been led on for a whole day, until he had found himself completely at fault.

The Squire endeavoured to assist him, but was equally baffled.  The old general listened for some time to the discussion, and then asked the parson if he had read Captain Morris’s, or George Stevens’s, or Anacreon Moore’s bacchanalian songs?  On the other replying in the negative, “Oh, then,” said the general, with a sagacious nod, “if you want a drinking song, I can furnish you with the latest collection—­I did not know you had a turn for those kind of things; and I can lend you the Encyclopedia of Wit into the bargain.  I never travel without them; they’re excellent reading at an inn.”