Yet, why should sons of science
These puny rankling reptiles dread?
'Tis but to let their books be read,
And bid the worms defiance."
J. DORASTON.
A most destructive Enemy of books has been the bookworm.
I say "has been," because, fortunately, his ravages in all civilised
countries have been greatly restricted during the last fifty years.
This is due partly to the increased reverence for antiquity which has
been universally developed--more still to the feeling of cupidity,
which has caused all owners to take care of volumes which year
by year have become more valuable--and, to some considerable extent,
to the falling off in the production of edible books.
The monks, who were the chief makers as well as the custodians of books,
through the long ages we call "dark," because so little is known of them,
had no fear of the bookworm before their eyes, for, ravenous as he is
and was, he loves not parchment, and at that time paper was not.
Whether at a still earlier period he attacked the papyrus, the paper of
the Egyptians, I know not--probably he did, as it was a purely vegetable
substance; and if so, it is quite possible that the worm of to-day,
in such evil repute with us, is the lineal descendant of ravenous ancestors
who plagued the sacred Priests of On in the time of Joseph's Pharaoh,
by destroying their title deeds and their books of Science.
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