the bottom; usually it is furnished with signatures and catch-words,
also with a register to discover whether the book be complete. The
Mahometans place the name of God at the beginning of all their books.
The word _book_ is derived from the Saxon _boc_, which comes from the
northern _buech_, of _buechans_, a beech, or _service-tree_, on the
bark of which our ancestors used to write. A very large estate was
given for one on Cosmography by king Alfred. About the year 1400, they
were sold from 10_l_. to 30_l_. a piece. The first printed one was
the Vulgate edition of the Bible, 1462; the second was _Cicero de
Officiis_, 1466. Leo I. ordered 200,000 to be burnt at Constantinople.
In the suppressed monasteries of France, in 1790, there were found
4,104,412 volumes; nearly one-half were on theology. The end of the
book, now denoted by _finis_, was anciently marked with a <, called
_coronis_, and the whole frequently washed with an oil drawn from
cedar, or citron chips strewed between the leaves, to preserve it from
rotting.

Thus far books; now for the _bookworms_. Anthony Magliabecchi, the
notorious bookworm, was born at Florence in 1633; his passion for
reading induced him to employ every moment of his time in improving
his mind. By means of an astonishing memory and incessant application,
he became more conversant with literary history than any man of his
time, and was appointed librarian to the grand duke of Tuscany. He has
been called a living library. He was a man of a most forbidding and
savage aspect, and exceedingly negligent of his person. He refused to
be waited upon, and rarely took off his clothes to go to bed. His
dinner was commonly three hard eggs, with a draught of water. He had a
small window in his door, through which he could see all those who
approached him; and if he did not wish for their company, he would not
admit them. He spent some hours in each day at the palace library; but