which is now everywhere employed by the profession as a
diagnostic where the presence of the germs of bibliomania (in

other words, bacilli librorum) is suspected.
I once got this learnedscientist to inject a milligram of the

lymph into the femoral artery of Miss Susan's cat. Within an
hour the precocious beast surreptitiously entered my library for

the first time in her life, and ate the covers of my pet edition
of Rabelais. This demonstrated to Dr. O'Rell's satisfaction the

efficacy of his diagnostic, and it proved to Judge Methuen's
satisfaction what the Judge has always maintained--viz., that

Rabelais was an old rat.
XII

THE PLEASURES OF EXTRA-ILLUSTRATION
Very many years ago we became convinced-- Judge Methuen and I

did-- that there was nothing new in the world. I think it was
while we were in London and while we were deep in the many fads

of bibliomania that we arrived at this important conclusion.
We had been pursuing with enthusiasm the exciting delights of

extra-illustration, a practice sometimes known as Grangerism; the
friends of the practice call it by the former name, the enemies

by the latter. We were engaged at extra-illustrating Boswell's
life of Johnson, and had already got together somewhat more than

eleven thousand prints when we ran against a snag, an obstacle we
never could surmount. We agreed that our work would be

incomplete, and therefore vain, unless we secured a picture of
the book with which the great lexicographer knocked down Osborne,

the bookseller at Gray's Inn Gate.
Unhappily we were wholly in the dark as to what the title of that

book was, and, although we ransacked the British Museum and even
appealed to the learned Frognall Dibdin, we could not get a clew

to the identity of the volume. To be wholly frank with you, I
will say that both the Judge and I had wearied of the occupation;

moreover, it involved great expense, since we were content with
nothing but India proofs (those before letters preferred). So we

were glad of this excuse for abandoning the practice.
While we were contemplating a gracefulretreat the Judge happened

to discover in the ``Natural History'' of Pliny a passage which
proved to our satisfaction that, so far from being a new or a

modern thing, the extra-illustration of books was of exceptional
antiquity. It seems that Atticus, the friend of Cicero, wrote a

book on the subject of portraits and portrait-painting, in the
course of which treatise he mentions that Marcus Varro

``conceived the very liberal idea of inserting, by some means or
another, in his numerous volumes, the portraits of several

hundred individuals, as he could not bear the idea that all
traces of their features should be lost or that the lapse of

centuries should get the better of mankind.''
``Thus,'' says Pliny, ``was he the inventor of a benefit to his

fellow-men that might have been envied by the gods themselves;
for not only did he confer immortality upon the originals of

these portraits, but he transmitted these portraits to all parts
of the earth, so that everywhere it might be possible for them to

be present, and for each to occupy his niche.''
Now, Pliny is not the only one who has contributed to the

immortalization of Marcus Varro. I have had among, my papers for
thirty years the verses which Judge Methuen dashed off (for poets

invariably dash off their poetry), and they are such pleasant
verses that I don't mind letting the world see them.

MARCUS VARRO
Marcus Varro went up and down

The places where old books were sold;
He ransacked all the shops in town

For pictures new and pictures old.
He gave the folk of earth no peace;

Snooping around by day and night,
He plied the trade in Rome and Greece

Of an insatiate Grangerite.
``Pictures!'' was evermore his cry--

``Pictures of old or recent date,''
And pictures only would he buy

Wherewith to ``extra-illustrate.''
Full many a tome of ancient type

And many a manuscript he took,
For nary purpose but to swipe

Their pictures for some other book.
While Marcus Varro plied his fad

There was not in the shops of Greece
A book or pamphlet to be had

That was not minus frontispiece.
Nor did he hesitate to ply

His baleful practices at home;
It was not possible to buy

A perfect book in all of Rome!
What must the other folk have done--

Who, glancing o'er the books they bought,
Came soon and suddenly upon

The vandalism Varro wrought!
How must their cheeks have flamed with red--

How did their hearts with choler beat!
We can imagine what they said--

We can imagine, not repeat!
Where are the books that Varro made--

The pride of dilettante Rome--
With divers portraitures inlaid

Swiped from so many another tome?
The worms devoured them long ago--

O wretched worms! ye should have fed
Not on the books ``extended'' so,

But on old Varro's flesh instead!
Alas, that Marcus Varro lives

And is a potentfactor yet!
Alas, that still his practice gives

Good men occasion for regret!
To yonder bookstall, pri'thee, go,

And by the ``missing'' prints and plates
And frontispieces you shall know

He lives, and ``extra-illustrates''!
In justice to the Judge and to myself I should say that neither

of us wholly approves the sentiment which the poem I have quoted
implies. We regard Grangerism as one of the unfortunate stages

in bibliomania; it is a period which seldom covers more than five
years, although Dr. O'Rell has met with one case in his practice

that has lasted ten years and still gives no symptom of abating
in virulence.

Humanity invariably condones the pranks of youth on the broad and
charitable grounds that ``boys will be boys''; so we

bibliomaniacs are prone to wink at the follies of the Grangerite,
for we know that he will know better by and by and will heartily

repent of the mischief he has done. We know the power of books
so well that we know that no man can have to do with books that

presently he does not love them. He may at first endure them;
then he may come only to pity them; anon, as surely as the

morrow's sun riseth, he shall embrace and love those precious
things.

So we say that we would put no curb upon any man, it being better
that many books should be destroyed, if ultimately by that