The parson had not been
seen for several days, which was a matter of some surprise, as he was
an almost daily visitor at the Hall. We found him in his study; a
small dusky chamber, lighted by a lattice window that looked into the
church-yard, and was overshadowed by a yew-tree. His chair was
surrounded by folios and quartos, piled upon the floor, and his table
was covered with books and manuscripts. The cause of his seclusion was
a work which he had recently received, and with which he had retired
in rapture from the world, and shut himself up to enjoy a literary
honeymoon undisturbed. Never did boarding-school girl devour the pages
of a sentimental novel, or Don Quixote a chivalrous romance, with more
intense delight than did the little man banquet on the pages of this
delicious work. It was Dibdin's Bibliographical Tour; a work
calculated to have as intoxicating an effect on the imaginations of
literary antiquaries, as the adventures of the heroes of the round
table, on all true knights; or the tales of the early American
voyagers on the ardent spirits of the age, filling them with dreams of
Mexican and Peruvian mines, and of the golden realm of El Dorado.
The good parson had looked forward to this bibliographical expedition
as of far greater importance than those to Africa or the North Pole.
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