"Books are spectacles with which to read nature. They teach us to understand and feel what we see, to decipher and syllable the hieroglyphics of the senses." "-DRYDEN.

"Those dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns."

From books they receive most of their culture; and by them are disciplined in youth, stimulated in manhood, and solaced in age. "When I am reading a book," said Swift, "whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive or talking to

me." Such is the feeling of every student who appreciates the author he reads.

"There are those who desire a book as a living companion of the mind; and to such, a good work is society to his loneliness-a balm to his troubles-a friend to the friendlesswealth to the poor, and, moreover, can keep the mind in action, though the body dies. It was Plato who went to play when he was elected to the consulship, but the evening before he died, he read. Mind lives by mind as it has been developed and preserved; and man, by this medium, has shown himself in action like an angel, in words like a god. Take this from him and he is nothing."*

"In books we have friends for every mood-comforters for every sorrow; a glorious company of immortals, scattering their sweet influences on the worn and beaten paths of our daily life. Shapes that haunt thought's wilderness' are around us, in toil, and suffering, and joy: mitigating labor, soothing care, giving a keener relish to delight; touching the heroic string in our nature with a noble sentiment; kindling our hearts, lifting our imaginations, and hovering alike over the couch of health and the sick pillow, to bless and cheer, and animate and console."

Book-making, once a science, acquired by long laborious toil, has, by the appliances of modern machinery, become a mercantile pursuit of almost unlimited extent. In olden times, the stylus and parchment were the mechanical essentials of a book, and years were often devoted to its production; now, by the magic of metal type and the steam-press, volumes are multiplied almost by the hour. Formerly, a book, both as to its mind and mechanism, was the sole work of the monk or scribe; now, there is a division of labor-the author writes it, the steam-press prints it, and the publisher is its purveyor to the public.

* Henry Giles.

By this expedient, the universal diffusion of knowledge has been promoted, and each department of the labor been rendered more perfect. But for this, the light of learning would not have been reflected from the luminous page, while the Cimmerean gloom of the "dark ages" would have still cast deep shadows over the nations.

"The PEN and the PRESS, bless'd alliance! combined
To soften the heart and enlighten the mind;
For that to the treasures of knowledge gave birth,
And this sent them forth to the ends of the earth;
Their battles for truth were triumphant, indeed,
And the rod of the tyrant was snapped like a reed.
They were made to exalt us, to teach us, to bless,

Those invincible brothers-the PEN and the PRESS."*

A book has been curiously defined, "brain preserved in ink," and when there is plenty of the fruit, it is a conserve to tempt the most capricious palate. In ancient times, books. were written on the bark of trees; hence the Latin word liber, from which we derive our English term "library." "Book" is from the Saxon, "boc," a beech-tree.

A tablet made from the main body of a tree was called codex or caudex. Scipio Maffeï distinguishes square and round books. by the terms codex and liber, respectively. It is doubtful whether barks or stones were first written on; although the Decalogue, the first writing of which we have any authentic account, was on the latter. The leaves of plants were long used for writing on-chiefly those of the palm, papyrus,† tiles, &c. Leather, and goat-skins were used by the Egyptians. Plates of

J. C. Prince.

The invention of parchment is ascribed to Eumenes, who reigned more than two thousand years ago. He was the founder of an extensive library, into which the new manufacture was largely introduced. Parchment volumes were commonly rolled on a round stick, with a ball at each end, and the composition began at the centre. These were called volumes, and the outsides were inscribed just as we now letter books,

copper and lead were also used in the East. According to Josephus, the children of Seth wrote their inventions in Astronomy, &c., on stone pillars. Hesiod's works were first written on tables of lead-Solon's laws on wooden planks. The wood was sometimes covered with wax, so that the writing could be easily effaced. Pliny thinks that writing on lead succeeded that on barks.

The term "volume" is from volvo, to roll, the earlier manuscripts being in the form of a scroll or roll.

The Chinese manufacture paper of linen, the fibres of the young bamboo-of the mulberry; the envelope of the silkworm-of a native tree called chu or ko-chu-but especially of cotton. They were in possession of the art long before it was known in Europe; and, as Mecca was a sort of depot for the fabrics of China, it is by some very reasonably supposed, that the paper was brought from that country. Whatever might have been its origin, the art was undoubtedly employed and improved by the Arabs, who, in their career of conquest, carried it into Spain, about the beginning of the tenth century. Other accounts ascribe the invention of cotton paper to Greece; indeed, not only its origin, but the various improvements in its manufacture, and the different substitutions of new materials have long been the subject of controversy.

Cotton paper was called charta bombycina: it was very white and strong, but not equal to that in which linen is a constituent.

With regard to linen paper, authorities differ widely. By some accounts, its manufacture was not introduced into Europe until the latter part of the fourteenth century, a mill having

The Greek MSS., in Herculaneum, consist of papyrus, rolled, charred, and matted together by the fire, and are about nine inches long, and one, two, or three inches in diameter, each being a volume or separate treatise.

Cotton and silk paper were in use at an early period, but linen rags were not used till A. D. 1200. This invention has been placed earlier by some good authorities, but it would appear that they have confounded the cotton with the linen paper. The first paper-mill was erected in England, towards the end of the sixteenth century.