If that severe doom of Synesius be true,--"It is a greater
offence to steal dead men's labor, than their clothes,"--what
shall become of most writers?
BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY.
I HAVE often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and
how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to
have inflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with
voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the
journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is
continually finding out some very simple cause for some great
matter of marvel. Thus have I chanced, in my peregrinations about
this great metropolis, to blunder upon a scene which unfolded to
me some of the mysteries of the book-making craft, and at once
put an end to my astonishment.
I was one summer's day loitering through the great saloons of the
British Museum, with that listlessness with which one is apt to
saunter about a museum in warm weather; sometimes lolling over
the glass cases of minerals, sometimes studying the hieroglyphics
on an Egyptian mummy, and some times trying, with nearly equal
success, to comprehend the allegorical paintings on the lofty
ceilings. Whilst I was gazing about in this idle way, my
attention was attracted to a distant door, at the end of a suite
of apartments.
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