his favourite theme, he kindles up, and at times is even eloquent. No
fox-hunter, recounting his last day's sport, could be more animated than
I have seen the worthy parson, when relating his search after a curious
document, which he had traced from library to library, until he fairly
unearthed it in the dusty chapter-house of a cathedral. When, too, he
describes some venerable manuscript, with its rich illuminations, its
thick creamy vellum, its glossy ink, and the odour of the cloisters that
seemed to exhale from it he rivals the enthusiasm of a Parisian epicure,
expatiating on the merits of a Perigord pie, or a _Pâté de Strasbourg_.

His brain seems absolutely haunted with love-sick dreams about gorgeous
old works in "silk linings, triple gold bands, and tinted leather,
locked up in wire cases, and secured from the vulgar hands of the mere
reader;" and, to continue the happy expression of an ingenious writer,
"dazzling one's eyes, like eastern beauties peering through their
jealousies."

He has a great desire, however, to read such works in the old libraries
and chapter-houses to which they belong; for he thinks a black-letter
volume reads best in one of those venerable chambers where the light
struggles through dusty lancet windows and painted glass; and that it
loses half its zest if taken away from the neighbourhood of the
quaintly carved oaken book-case and Gothic reading-desk. At his
suggestion, the squire has had the library furnished in this antique
taste, and several of the windows glazed with painted glass, that they
may throw a properly tempered light upon the pages of their favourite
old authors.

The parson, I am told, has been for some time meditating a commentary on
Strutt, Brand, and Douce, in which he means to detect them in sundry