The Art of Book-Keeping
Laman Blanchard. From his ‘Poetical Works.’ 1876.
How hard, when those who do not wish
To lend, that’s lose, their books,
Are snared by anglers—folks that fish
With literary hooks;
Who call and take some favorite tome,
But never read it through,—
They thus complete their set at home,
By making one at you.
Behold the bookshelf of a dunce
Who borrows—never lends:
Yon work, in twenty volumes, once
Belonged to twenty friends.
New tales and novels you may shut
From view—’tis all in vain;
They’re gone—and though the leaves are “cut”
They never “come again.”
For pamphlets lent I look around,
For tracts my tears are spilt;
But when they take a book that’s bound,
’Tis surely extra-gilt.
A circulating library
Is mine—my birds are flown;
There’s one odd volume left to be
Like all the rest, a-lone.
I, of my Spenser quite bereft,
Last winter sore was shaken;
Of Lamb I’ve but a quarter left,
Nor could I save my Bacon.
My Hall and Hill were levelled flat,
But Moore was still the cry;
And then, although I threw them Sprat,
They swallowed up my Pye.
O’er everything, however slight,
They seized some airy trammel;
They snatched my Hogg and Fox one night,
And pocketed my Campbell.
And then I saw my Crabbe at last,
Like Hamlet’s, backward go;
And, as my tide was ebbing fast,
Of course I lost my Rowe.
I wondered into what balloon
My books their course had bent;
And yet, with all my marvelling, soon
I found my Marvell went.
My Mallet served to knock me down,
Which makes me thus a talker;
And once, while I was out of town,
My Johnson proved a Walker.
While studying o’er the fire one day
My Hobbes amidst the smoke,
They bore my Colman clean away,
And carried off my Coke.
They picked my Locke, to me far more
Than Bramah’s patent’s worth;
And now my losses I deplore
Without a Home on earth.
If once a book you let them lift,
Another they conceal;
For though I caught them stealing Swift,
As swiftly went my Steele.
Hope is not now upon my shelf,
Where late he stood elated;
But, what is strange, my Pope himself
Is excommunicated.
My little Suckling in the grave
Is sunk to swell the ravage;
And what ’twas Crusoe’s fate to save
’Twas mine to lose—a Savage.
Even Glover’s works I cannot put
My frozen hands upon;
Though ever since I lost my Foote
My Bunyan has been gone.
My Hoyle with Cotton went; oppressed,
My Taylor too must sail;
To save my Goldsmith from arrest,
In vain I offered Bayle.
I Prior sought, but could not see
The Hood so late in front;
And when I turned to hunt for Lee,
Oh! where was my Leigh Hunt.
I tried to laugh, old Care to tickle,
Yet could not Tickell touch;
And then, alas! I missed my Mickle,
And surely mickle’s much.
’Tis quite enough my griefs to feed,
My sorrows to excuse,
To think I cannot read my Reid,
Nor even use my Hughes.
To West, to South, I turn my head,
Exposed alike to odd jeers;
For since my Roger Ascham’s fled,
I ask ’em for my Rogers.
They took my Horne—and Horne Tooke, too,
And thus my treasures flit;
I feel, when I would Hazlitt view,
The flames that it has lit.
My word’s worth little, Wordsworth gone,
If I survive its doom;
How many a bard I doated on
Was swept off—with my Broome.
My classics would not quiet lie,
A thing so fondly hoped;
Like Dr. Primrose, I may cry,
“My Livy has eloped!”
My life is wasting fast away—
I suffer from these shocks;
And though I’ve fixed a lock on Gray,
There’s gray upon my locks.
I’m far from young—am growing pale—
I see my Butter fly;
And when they ask about my ail,
’Tis Burton! I reply.
They still have made me slight returns,
And thus my griefs divide;
For oh! they’ve cured me of my Burns,
And eased my Akenside.
But all I think I shall not say,
Nor let my anger burn;
For as they never found me Gay,
They have not left me Sterne.