Chapter 30 - Page 2

situated near
the Road, with Maps of the Environs of London, Bath, Brighton, and
Margate." It is dedicated "To the Right Honorable the Earls of
Chesterfield and Leicester, by their Lordships' Most Obliged, Obedient,
and Obsequious Servant, John Gary, 1798." Also a green pamphlet, with a
motto from Virgil, and an intricate coat of arms on the cover, looking
like a diagram of the Labyrinth of Crete, entitled, "A Description of
York, its Antiquities and Public Buildings, particularly the Cathedral;
compiled with great pains from the most authentic records." Also a small
scholastic-looking volume, in a classic vellum binding, and with a
frontispiece bringing together at one view the towers and turrets of
King's College and the magnificent Cathedral of Ely, though
geographically sixteen miles apart, entitled, "The Cambridge Guide: its
Colleges, Halls, Libraries, and Museums, with the Ceremonies of the Town
and University, and some account of Ely Cathedral." Also a pamphlet,
with a japanned sort of cover, stamped with a disorderly
higgledy-piggledy group of pagoda-looking structures, claiming to be an
accurate representation of the "North or Grand Front of Blenheim," and
entitled, "A Description of Blenheim, the Seat of His Grace the Duke of
Marlborough; containing a full account of the Paintings, Tapestry, and
Furniture: a Picturesque Tour of the Gardens and Parks, and a General
Description of the famous China Gallery, 6-c.; with an Essay on
Landscape Gardening: and embellished with a View of the Palace, and a
New and Elegant Plan of the Great Park." And lastly, and to the purpose,
there was a volume called "THE PICTURE OF LIVERPOOL."

It was a curious and remarkable book; and from the many fond
associations connected with it, I should like to immortalize it, if I
could.

But let me get it down from its shrine, and paint it, if I may, from the
life.

As I now linger over the volume, to and fro turning the pages so dear to
my boyhood,--the very pages which, years and years ago, my father turned
over amid the very scenes that are here described; what a soft, pleasing
sadness steals over me, and how I melt into the past and forgotten!

Dear book! I will sell my Shakespeare, and even sacrifice my old quarto
Hogarth, before I will part with you. Yes, I will go to the hammer
myself, ere I send you to be knocked down in the auctioneer's shambles.
I will, my beloved,--old family relic that you are;--till you drop leaf
from leaf, and letter from letter, you shall have a snug shelf
somewhere, though I have no bench for myself.

In size, it is what the booksellers call an 18mo; it is bound in green
morocco, which from my earliest