cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis
between every syllable.

MICO-COSMOGRAPHIE, 1628.


The squire receives great sympathy and support in his antiquated humours
from the parson, of whom I made some mention on my former visit to the
Hall, and who acts as a kind of family chaplain. He has been cherished
by the squire almost constantly since the time that they were
fellow-students at Oxford; for it is one of the peculiar advantages of
these great universities that they often link the poor scholar to the
rich patron, by early and heartfelt ties, that last through life,
without the usual humiliations of dependence and patronage. Under the
fostering protection of the squire, therefore, the little parson has
pursued his studies in peace. Having lived almost entirely among books,
and those, too, old books, he is quite ignorant of the world, and his
mind is as antiquated as the garden at the Hall, where the flowers are
all arranged in formal beds, and the yew-trees clipped into urns and
peacocks.

His taste for literary antiquities was first imbibed in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford; where, when a student, he passed many an hour
foraging among the old manuscripts. He has since, at different times,
visited most of the curious libraries in England, and has ransacked many
of the cathedrals. With all his quaint and curious learning, he has
nothing of arrogance or pedantry; but that unaffected earnestness and
guileless simplicity which seem to belong to the literary antiquary.

He is a dark, mouldy little man, and rather dry in his manner: yet, on