sworn under, let us say, ten thousand pounds. Literature first. To divers
worn copies of _Virgil_, _Tacitus_, _Juvenal_, and _Ovid_, Cæsar's
_Commentaries_, and _Catullus_; to ditto ditto of _Homer_, _Lucian_,
_Aristophanes_, _Balzac_, _Anacreon_, Bacon's _Essays_, and Moore's
_Melodies_; to Dwight's _Theology_--uncut copy, Heine's _Poems_--very much
thumbed, _Saint Simon_--very ragged, two volumes of _Les Causes Célèbres_,
Tone's _Memoirs_, and Beranger's _Songs_; to Cuvier's _Comparative
Anatomy_, Shroeder on _Shakespeare_, Newman's _Apology_, Archbold's
_Criminal Law_ and _Songs of the Nation_; to Colenso, East's _Cases for
the Crown_, Carte's _Ormonde_, and _Pickwick_. But why go on? Let us call
it the small but well-selected library of a distressed gentleman, whose
cultivated mind is reflected in the marginal notes with which these volumes
abound. Will any gentleman say, "£10 for the lot"? Why the very criticisms
are worth--I mean to a man of literary tastes--five times the amount. No
offer at £10? Who is it that says "five"? I trust my ears have deceived me.
You repeat the insulting proposal? Well, sir, on your own head be it! Mr.
Atlee's library--or the Atlee collection is better--was yesterday disposed
of to a well-known collector of rare books, and, if we are rightly
informed, for a mere fraction of its value. Never mind, sir, I bear you no
ill-will! I was irritable, and to show you my honest animus in the matter,
I beg to present you in addition with this, a handsomely-bound and gilt
copy of a sermon by the Reverend Isaac Atlee, on the opening of the new
meeting-house in Coleraine--a discourse that cost my father some sleepless
nights, though I have heard the effect on the congregation was dissimilar.

'The pictures are few. Cardinal Cullen, I believe, is Kearney's; at all
events, he is the worse for being made a target for pistol firing, and the
archiepiscopal nose has been sorely damaged. Two views of Killarney in
the weather of the period--that means July, and raining in torrents--and
consequently the scene, for aught discoverable, might be the Gaboon.