have made their resentment plausible, if they had quarrelled with any gentleman, who, remarking on their total inattention to such isolated merit in a crowned head, and that crown too worn by their liege Lord, had designated them as blockheads, and held cheap the learned lumber they imported from Alma Mater; since such ill digested crudities had clarified their wits no better? The irritated tone this document evinces, seems not a little aggravated by a consideration which they were too stultified by their animosity towards the Claimant and all abettors to attend to.—In what volume of the Bodlean or the Shelves of Ashmole, &c., where, if their love of books had been equal to that of the peripatetic Apellicon[1] could they have found a parallel to the
- ↑ A wealthy citizen of Athens who expended vast sums in the purchase of books, particularly the works of philosophers and, among others, he procured the original manuscripts of Aristotle. He is said, however, to have been more anxious to possess volumes of systems than to understand them: and, which is much worse, he is accused of not having had recourse to the most reputable means to stock his shelves, if money would not serve his turn.—The literary appetite of this antient casually brings to recollection a modern whose name escapes us, whose singular custom it was, at his studies, to lie on the floor, and have the books he wanted around him, within reach: so that, with reference to an animal less particular in its habits, he might be said to wallow in learning. Experience shows however, (we advance it with diffidence) that books though they nay powerfully stimulate literary ambition, will neither remedy a deficient capacity, nor square with the inclination of those who have engaged apartments in the Castle of Indo-
