biscuit-box and the thin-stemmed wine-glass moderated academic toils.
Gilt-backed books on gilded shelf or table caught the eye,
and as you turned your glance from the luxurious interiors
to the well-shorn lawn in the Quad., with its classic fountain
also gilded by sunbeams, the mental vision saw plainly written
over the whole "The Union of Luxury and Learning."

Surely here, thought I, if anywhere, the old world literature
will be valued and nursed with gracious care; so with a pleasing
sense of the general congruity of all around me, I enquired
for the rooms of the librarian. Nobody seemed to be quite sure
of his name, or upon whom the bibliographical mantle had descended.
His post, it seemed, was honorary and a sinecure, being imposed,
as a rule, upon the youngest "Fellow." No one cared for the appointment,
and as a matter of course the keys of office had but distant acquaintance
with the lock. At last I was rewarded with success, and politely, but
mutely, conducted by the librarian into his kingdom of dust and silence.
The dark portraits of past benefactors looked after us from
their dusty old frames in dim astonishment as we passed,
evidently wondering whether we meant "work"; book-decay--that peculiar
flavour which haunts certain libraries--was heavy in the air, the floor
was dusty, making the sunbeams as we passed bright with atoms; the
shelves were dusty, the "stands" in the middle were thick with dust,
the old leather table in the bow window, and the chairs on either side,
were very dusty. Replying to a question, my conductor thought
there was a manuscript catalogue of the Library somewhere,
but thought, also, that it was not easy to find any books by it,
and he knew not at the minute where to put his hand upon it.
The Library, he said, was of little use now, as the Fellows
had their own books and very seldom required 17th and 18th