"THE LIBRARY", by GEORGE CRABBE




THE ARGUMENT. {1}



Books afford Consolation to the troubled Mind by substituting a
lighter kind of Distress for its own--They are productive of other
Advantages--An Author's Hope of being known in distant times--
Arrangement of the Library--Size and Form of the Volumes--The
ancient Folio, clasped and chained--Fashion prevalent even in this
Place--The Mode of publishing in Numbers, Pamphlets &c.--Subjects of
the different Classes--Divinity--Controversy--The Friends of
Religion often more dangerous than her Foes--Sceptical Authors--
Reason too much rejected by the former Converts; exclusively relied
upon by the latter--Philosophy ascending through the Scale of Being
to Moral Subjects--Books of Medicine: their Variety, Variance, and
Proneness to System: the Evil of this, and the Difficulty it
causes--Farewell to this Study--Law: the increasing Number of its
Volumes--Supposed happy State of Man without Laws--Progress of
Society--Historians: their Subjects--Dramatic Authors, Tragic and
Comic--Ancient Romances--The Captive Heroine--Happiness in the
perusal of such Books: why--Criticism--Apprehensions of the Author:
removed by the Appearance of the Genius of the Place; whose
Reasoning and Admonition conclude the subject.

When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd,