 | The works of Washington Irving |  |
A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.
Printed bookes he contemnes, as a novelty of this
latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly;
especially if the cover he all moth-eaten,
and the dust make a parenthesis between every
syllable.
Mico-Cosmographie, 1628.
The squire receives great sympathy
and support, in his antiquated humours,
from the parson, of whom I made some
mention on my former visit to the Hall,
and who acts as a kind of family chaplain.
He has been cherished by the
squire almost constantly since the time
that they were fellow-students at Oxford;
for it is one of the peculiar advantages of
these great universities, that they often
link the poor scholar to the rich patron,
by early and heartfelt ties, that last
through life, without the usual humiliations
of dependence and patronage.
Under the fostering protection of the
squire, therefore, the little parson has
pursued his studies in peace. Having
lived almost entirely among books, and
those, too, old books, he is quite ignorant
of the world, and his mind is as antiquated
as the garden at the Hall, where
the flowers are all arranged in formal
beds, and the yew-trees clipped into urns
and peacocks.
His taste for literary antiqui