After paying our compliments to the Robin Hood garlands, to Scott, to Kirkpatrick Sharpe, to Ritson, to Buchan, to Motherwell, to Laing, to Christie, to Jamieson, and to the other famous lovers and compilers of balladry, we fell to discoursing of French song and of the service that Francis Mahony performed for English-speaking humanity when he exploited in his inimitable style those lyrics of the French and the Italian people which are now ours as much as they are anybody else’s.

Dear old Beranger! what wonder that Prout loved him, and what wonder that we all love him?  I have thirty odd editions of his works, and I would walk farther to pick up a volume of his lyrics than I would walk to secure any other book, excepting of course a Horace.  Beranger and I are old cronies.  I have for the great master a particularly tender feeling, and all on account of Fanchonette.

But there—­you know nothing of Fanchonette, because I have not told you of her.  She, too, should have been a book instead of the dainty, coquettish Gallic maiden that she was.

IX

BOOKSELLERS AND PRINTERS, OLD AND NEW

Judge Methuen tells me that he fears what I have said about my bookseller will create the impression that I am unkindly disposed toward the bookselling craft.  For the last fifty years I have had uninterrupted dealings with booksellers, and none knows better than the booksellers themselves that I particularly admire them as a class.  Visitors to my home have noticed that upon my walls are hung noble portraits of Caxton, Wynkin de Worde, Richard Pynson, John Wygthe, Rayne Wolfe, John Daye, Jacob Tonson, Richard Johnes, John Dunton, and other famous old printers and booksellers.

I have, too, a large collection of portraits of modern booksellers, including a pen-and-ink sketch of Quaritch, a line engraving of Rimell, and a very excellent etching of my dear friend, the late Henry Stevens.  One of the portraits is a unique, for I had it painted myself, and I have never permitted any copy to be made of it; it is of my bookseller, and it represents him in the garb of a fisherman, holding his rod and reel in one hand and the copy of the ``Compleat Angler’’ in the other.

Mr. Curwen speaks of booksellers as being ``singularly thrifty, able, industrious, and persevering—­in some few cases singularly venturesome, liberal, and kind-hearted.’’ My own observation and experience have taught me that as a class booksellers are exceptionally intelligent, ranking with printers in respect to the variety and extent of their learning.

They have, however, this distinct advantage over the printers—­they are not brought in contact with the manifold temptations to intemperance and profligacy which environ the votaries of the art preservative of arts.  Horace Smith has said that ``were there no readers there certainly would be no writers; clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends upon the existence of readers:  and, of course, since the cause must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before writers.  Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers there could be no readers; so it would appear that writers must be antecedent to readers.’’