Note 403 — The Drawing Room. (continued 4)

This is rather a hasty speech, on the part of Lorenzo. The copious and curious catalogues of those booksellers, Messrs. Constable, Laing, and Blackwood—are a sufficient demonstration that the cause of the Bibliomania flourishes in the city of Edinburgh. Whether they have such desperate bibliomaniacs in Scotland, as we possess in London, and especially of the book-auction species—is a point which I cannot take upon me to decide. Certain it is that the notes of their great poet are not deficient in numerous tempting extracts from rare black-letter tomes; and if his example be not more generally followed than it is, the fault must lie with some scribe or other who counteracts its influence by propagating opinions, and recommending studies, of a different, and less tasteful, cast of character. I am fearful that there are too many politico-economical, metaphysical, and philosophical miasmata, floating in the atmosphere of Scotland's metropolis, to render the climate there just now favourable to the legitimate cause of the Bibliomania.