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And as for me, though than I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that ther is game noon,
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seldome on the holy day.

Save, certeynly, when that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farwel my boke, and my devocion.

CHAUCER-Legende of Goode Women. Prologue. L. 29.

Its

It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful appetite.

COLERIDGE-Literary Remains. Prospectus of Lectures.

5

Books should, not Business, entertain the Light; And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night. COWLEY-Of Myself.

6

Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.

CRABBE- The Borough. Letter XXIV.
Schools. L. 402.

7

The monument of vanished mindes.
SIR

WM. DAVENANT Gondibert. Bk. II.
Canto V.

Give me a book that does my soul embrace
And makes simplicity a grace-
Language freely flowing, thoughts as free-
Such pleasing books more taketh me
Than all the modern works of art
That please mine eyes and not my heart.
MARGARET DENBO. Suggested by

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.

BEN JONSON-Silent Woman. Act I. Sc. 1.

9

Books should to one of these four ends conduce,
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
SIR JOHN DENHAM-Of Prudence.

10

He ate and drank the precious words,

His spirit grew robust;

He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.

He danced along the dingy days,

And this bequest of wings

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We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.

EMERSON-Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.

1

The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.

JOHN FERRIAR-Bibliomania.

2

Now cheaply bought, for thrice their weight in gold.

JOHN FERRIAR-Bibliomania.

3

How pure the joy when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold.

JOHN FERRIAR-Bibliomania.

4

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the Printers have lost.

FULLER-Holy and the Profane State. Of Books.

5

Some Books are onely cursorily to be tasted of. FULLER-Holy and the Profane State. Of Books. (See also BACON)

6

Books are necessary to correct the vices of the polite; but those vices are ever changing, and the antidote should be changed accordingly -should still be new.

GOLDSMITH-Citizen of the World. Letter LXXII.

7

In proportion as society refines, new books must ever become more necessary.

GOLDSMITH-Citizen of the World. Letter LXXII.

8

I armed her against the censures of the world; showed her that books were sweet unreproaching companions to the miserable, and that if they could not bring us to enjoy life, they would at least teach us to endure it.

GOLDSMITH-Vicar of Wakefield. Ch. XXII.

9

I have ever gained the most profit, and the most pleasure also, from the books which have made me think the most: and, when the difficulties have once been overcome, these are the books which have struck the deepest root, not only in my memory and understanding, but likewise in my affections.

J. C. AND A. W. HARE-Guesses at Truth. P. 458.

10

"Thou art a plant sprung up to wither never, But, like a laurell, to grow green forever. HERRICK-Hesperides. To His Booke.

11

The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow.

HOLMES-The Poet at the Breakfast-Table. XI

12

Dear little child, this little book

Is less a primer than a key

To sunder gates where wonder waits
Your "Open Sesame!"

RUPERT HUGHES-With a First Reader.

13

Medicine for the soul.

Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes. Diodorus Siculus. I. 49. 3.

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Everywhere I have sought rest and found it not except sitting apart in a nook with a little book.

Written in an autograph copy of THOMAS À. KEMPIS'S De Imitatione, according to CORNELIUS A. LAPIDE (Cornelius van den Steen), a Flemish Jesuit of the 17th century, who says he saw this inscription. At Zwoll is a picture of à Kempis with this inscription, the last clause being "in angello cum libello"-in a little nook with a little book. In angellis et libellis in little nooks (cells) and little books. Given in KING-Classical Quotations as being taken from the preface of De Imitatione.

23

(See also WILSON)

Every age hath its book. Koran. Ch. XIII.

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O for a Booke and a shadie nooke, eyther in-adoore or out;

With the grene leaves whisp'ring overhede,
or the Streete cries all about.
Where I maie Reade all at my ease,

both of the Newe and Olde;

For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke, is better to me than Golde.

JOHN WILSON. Motto in his second-hand book catalogues. Claimed for him by AUSTIN DOBSON. Found in SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S Pleasures of Life and IRELAND's Enchiridion, where it is given as an old song. (See Notes and Queries, Nov. 1919, P. 297, for discussion of authorship.)

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