stained, distorted volumes, often without covers, often in single leaves,
carefully tended and dry-nursed. Washing, sizing, pressing,
and binding effected wonders, and no one who to-day looks upon
the attractive little alcove in the Guildhall Library labelled
and sees the rows
of handsomely-lettered backs, could imagine that not long ago this,
the most curious portion of the City's literary collections,
was in a state when a five-pound note would have seemed more than
full value for the lot.



CHAPTER II.

WATER.

NEXT to Fire we must rank Water in its two forms, liquid and vapour,
as the greatest destroyer of books. Thousands of volumes
have been actually drowned at Sea, and no more heard of them
than of the Sailors to whose charge they were committed.
D'Israeli narrates that, about the year 1700, Heer Hudde,
an opulent burgomaster of Middleburgh, travelled for 30 years
disguised as a mandarin, throughout the length and breadth
of the Celestial Empire. Everywhere he collected books,
and his extensive literary treasures were at length safely
shipped for transmission to Europe, but, to the irreparable loss
of his native country, they never reached their destination,
the vessel having foundered in a storm.

In 1785 died the famous Maffei Pinelli, whose library was celebrated