The Library

From the opening

Books afford Consolation to the troubled Mind by substituting a lighter kind of Distress for its own--They are productive of other Advantages--An Author's Hope of being known in distant times-- Arrangement of the Library--Size and Form of the Volumes--The ancient Folio, clasped and chained--Fashion prevalent even in this Place--The Mode of publishing in Numbers, Pamphlets &c.--Subjects of the different Classes--Divinity--Controversy--The Friends of Religion often more dangerous than her Foes--Sceptical Authors-- Reason too much rejected by the former Converts; exclusively relied upon by the latter--Philosophy ascending through the Scale of Being to Moral Subjects--Books of Medicine: their Variety, Variance, and Proneness to System: the Evil of this, and the Difficulty it causes--Farewell to this Study--Law: the increasing Number of its Volumes--Supposed happy State of Man without Laws--Progress of Society--Historians: their Subjects--Dramatic Authors, Tragic and Comic--Ancient Romances--The Captive Heroine--Happiness in the perusal of such Books: why--Criticism--Apprehensions of the Author: removed by the Appearance of the Genius of the Place; whose Reasoning and Admonition conclude the subject.

When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd, Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest; When every object that appears in view Partakes her gloom and seems dejected too; Where shall affliction from itself retire? Where fade away and placidly expire? Alas! we fly to silent scenes in vain; Care blasts the honours of the flow'ry plain: Care veils in clouds the sun's meridian beam, Sighs through the grove, and murmurs in the stream; For when the soul is labouring in despair, In vain the body breathes a purer air: No storm-tost sailor sighs for slumbering seas,- He dreads the tempest, but invokes the breeze; On the smooth mirror of the deep resides Reflected woe, and o'er unruffled tides The ghost of every former danger glides. Thus, in the calms of life, we only see A steadier image of our misery; But lively gales and gently clouded skies Disperse the sad reflections as they rise; And busy thoughts and little cares avail To ease the mind, when rest and reason fail.

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