Page:Zanoni.djvu/17

 INTRODUCTION.

is possible that among my readers there may be a few not unacquainted with an old-book shop, existing some years since in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; I say a few, for certainly there was little enough to attract the many, in those precious volumes which the labour of a life had accumulated on the dusty shelves of my old friend D. There were to be found no popular treatises, no entertaining romances, no histories, no travels, no "Library for the People," no "Amusement for the Million." But there, perhaps, throughout all Europe, the curious might discover the most notable collection, ever amassed by an enthusiast, of the works of Alchemist, Cabalist, and Astrologer. The owner had lavished a fortune in the purchase of unsaleable treasures. But old D did not desire to sell. It absolutely went to his heart when a customer entered his shop; he watched the movements of the presumptuous intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered around him with uneasy vigilance, he frowned, he groaned, when profane hands dislodged his idols from their niches. If it were one of the favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted you, and the price named were not sufficiently enormous, he