Though for choice I might call for a Sermon or Song;
And Locker on London, and Sala on Cooks,
'Tom Brown,' and Plotinus, they're all of them Books.

There's Fielding to lap one in currents of mirth;
There's Herrick to sing of a flower or a fay;
Or good Maitre Francoys to bring one to earth,
If Shelley or Coleridge have snatched one away:
There's Muller on Speech, there is Gurney on Spooks,
There is Tylor on Totems, there's all sorts of Books.

There's roaming in regions where every one's been,
Encounters where no one was ever before,
There's 'Leaves' from the Highlands we owe to the Queen,
There's Holly's and Leo's adventures in Kor:
There's Tanner who dwelt with Pawnees and Chinooks,
You can cover a great deal of country in Books.

There are books, highly thought of, that nobody reads,
There is Geusius' dearly delectable tome
Of the Cannibal--he on his neighbour who feeds -
And in blood-red morocco 'tis bound, by Derome;
There's Montaigne here (a Foppens), there's Roberts (on Flukes),
There's Elzevirs, Aldines, and Gryphius' Books.

There's Bunyan, there's Walton, in early editions,
There's many a quarto uncommonly rare;
There's quaint old Quevedo adream with his visions,
There's Johnson the portly, and Burton the spare;
There's Boston of Ettrick, who preached of the 'Crooks