own copy) also UPON VELLUM!  The Virgils, Ovids, Plinies ... and, above all, the Bibles—­But I check myself; in order to conduct you regularly through the apartments, ere you sit down with me before each volume which I may open.  In this second-room are two small tables, rarely occupied, but at one or the other of which I was stationed (by the kind offices of M. Van Praet) for fourteen days—­with almost every thing that was exquisite and rare, in the old book-way, behind and before me.  Let us however gradually move onwards.  You pass into the third room.  Here is the grand rendezvous of readers.  Six circular or rather oval tables, each capable of accommodating twelve students, and each generally occupied by the full number, strike your eye in a very pleasing manner, in the centre of this apparently interminable vista of printed volumes.

But I must call your particular attention to the foreground of this magical book-view.  To the left of this third room, on entering, you observe a well-dressed Gentleman (of somewhat shorter stature than the author of this description) busied behind a table; taking down and putting up volumes:  inscribing names, and numbers, and titles, in a large folio volume; giving orders on all sides; and putting several pairs of legs into motion in consequence of those orders—­while his own are perhaps the least spared of any.  This gentleman is no less a personage than the celebrated Monsieur VAN PRAET; one of the chief librarians in the department of the printed books.  His aspect is mild and pleasant; while his smart attire frequently forms a striking contrast to habiliments and personal appearances of a very different, and less conciliating description, by which he is surrounded.[16] M. Van Praet must be now approaching his sixtieth year; but his age sits bravely upon him—­for his step is rapid and firm, and his physiognomical expression indicative of a much less protracted period of existence.[17] He is a Fleming by birth; and, even in shewing his first Eustathius, or first Pliny, UPON VELLUM, you may observe the natural enthusiasm of a Frenchman tempered by the graver emotions of a native of the Netherlands.

This distinguished Bibliographer (of whom, somewhat more in a future epistle) has now continued nearly forty years in his present situation; and when infirmity, or other causes, shall compel him to quit it, France will never replace him by one possessing more appropriate talents!  He doats upon the objects committed to his trust.  He lives almost entirely among his dear books ... either on the first floor or on the ground floor:  for when the hour of departure, two o’clock, arrives, M. Van Praet betakes him to the quieter book realms below—­where, surrounded by Grolier, De Thou, and Diane de Poictiers, copies, he disports him till his dinner hour of four or five—­and ‘as the evening shades prevail,’ away hies he to his favourite ‘Theatre des Italiens,’