give hints on rat-catching, but the amateur must not forget that
these animals have a passion for bindings.

The book-collector must avoid gas, which deposits a filthy coat of
oil that catches dust. Mr. Blades found that three jets of gas in a
small room soon reduced the leather on his book-shelves to a powder
of the consistency of snuff, and made the backs of books come away
in his hand. Shaded lamps give the best and most suitable light for
the library. As to the risks which books run at the hands of the
owner himself, we surely need not repeat the advice of Richard de
Bury. Living in an age when tubs (if not unknown as M. Michelet
declares) were far from being common, the old collector inveighed
against the dirty hands of readers, and against their habit of
marking their place in a book with filthy straws, or setting down a
beer pot in the middle of the volume to keep the pages open. But
the amateur, however refined himself, must beware of men who love
not fly leaves neither regard margins, but write notes over the
latter, and light their pipes with the former. After seeing the
wreck of a book which these persons have been busy with, one
appreciates the fine Greek hyperbole. The Greeks did not speak of
"thumbing" but of "walking up and down" on a volume ([Greek text]).
To such fellows it matters not that they make a book dirty and
greasy, cutting the pages with their fingers, and holding the boards
over the fire till they crack. All these slatternly practices,
though they destroy a book as surely as the flames of Caesar's
soldiers at Alexandria, seem fine manly acts to the grobians who use
them. What says Jules Janin, who has written "Contre l'indifference
des Philistins," "il faut a l'homme sage et studieux un tome
honorable et digne de sa louange." The amateur, and all decent men,
will beware of lending books to such rude workers; and this