Bibliosophia Author:James Beresford Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: field of page, though the former may be so inquisitive as to pore through every furrow, this formidable difficulty turns out to be a bug-bear,as I am a little a... more »shamed of having been at ihe pains of shewing. But I have too long ventured my foot within these hallowed precincts: I make my prostration, and retire. I Have now presented the offering of a zealous admirer, though a feeble Panegyrist, to the noble Body of Book-Collectors. One other tribute, tending to the still higher advancement of their fame and felicity, remains. May the Idea which fills my imagination but be fostered into prosperous reality, and the self-applauding " vixi!" will never have been more exultingly pronounced, than by him who was inspired to conceive it! Perfect originality in any project for general, or particular benefit, it is now, perhaps, too late in the long history of man, to hope with reason. In the great object with which I now teem, I am, in part, forestalled. To the F active, and enlightened spirit of the present times, we are already indebted for four literary " Institutions."I am ready with Proposals for a fifth ; an Institution, for Young Book-collectors, whom, in their combined capacity, I would call The Col- Lectoriat.The scite, and dimensions, of the future Edifice, are points which it would be obviously needless to bring into view, until it be seen whether the great object to which they would have reference, shall be encouraged by the Parlies concerned in it. I, at present, restrict myself to the literary ends of my speculation; and these are, generally, that there be erected a Seminary, or College, for the instruction of those youths, who were blessed by Nature with the requisite rage for book-collecting, but cursed by fortune with the denial of fit opportunities ...« less