ARGUMENT. Books afford Consolation to the troubled Mind, by substituting a lighter kind of Distress for its own.-They are productive of other Advantages:-An Author's hope of being known in distant Times.-Arrangement of the Library.-Size and Form of the Volumes.-The antient Folio, clasped and chained.-Fashion prevalent even in this Place. The Mode of publishing in Numbers, Pamphlets, &c.-Subjects of the different Classes.-Divinity. Controversy.-The Friends of Religion often more dangerous than her Foes.-Sceptical Authors.Reason too much rejected by the former Converts; exclusively relied upon by the latter.-Philosophy ascending through the Scale of Being to Moral Subjects. -Books of Medicine: Their Variety, Variance, and proneness to System: The Evil of this, and the Difficulty it causes :-) -Farewell to this Study.- -Law:The increasing Number of its Volumes.-Supposed happy State of Man without Laws.-Progress of Society. -Historians; their Subjects.Dramatic Authors, Tragic and Comic-Antient Romances.-The Captive Heroine.-Happiness in the perusal of such Books: why. Criticism.-Apprehensions of the Author: Removed by the appearance of the Genius of the Place; whose Reasoning and Admonition conclude the Subject. THE LIBRARY. WHEN the sad Soul, by care and grief opprest, Care blasts the honours of the flow'ry plain; In vain the body breathes a purer air: No storm-tost sailor sighs for slumbering seas, } Thus in the calms of life, we only see But lively gales, and gently-clouded skies, Not Hope herself, with all her flattering art, Those lenient cares, which, with our own combin'd,By mixt sensations ease th' afflicted mind, And steal our grief away, and leave their own behind; A lighter grief! which feeling hearts endure But what strange art, what magic can dispose nor this alone; they give New views to life, and teach us how to live; They soothe the griev'd, the stubborn they chastise, The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone : Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud, Come, child of care; to make thy soul serene, See here the balms that passion's wounds assuage, And round the heart, and o'er the aching head, Blest be the gracious power, who taught mankind, To stamp a lasting image of the mind: Beasts may convey, and tuneful birds may sing But man alone, has skill and power to send, |