"
"My good friend," rejoined I, "had you been left to the
circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have been
no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well
stricken in years: very few of your contemporaries can be at
present in existence, and those few owe their longevity to being
immured like yourself in old libraries; which, suffer me to add,
instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and
gratefully have compared to those infirmaries attached to
religious establishments for the benefit of the old and decrepit,
and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often
endure to an amazingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your
contemporaries as if in circulation. Where do we meet with their
works?. What do we hear of Robert Grosteste of Lincoln? No one
could have toiled harder than he for immortality. He is said to
have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a
pyramid of books to perpetuate his name: but, alas! the pyramid
has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in
various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the
antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the
historian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He
declined two bishoprics that he might shut himself up and write
for posterity; but posterity never inquires after his labors.
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