The Manchester public free libraries; a history and description, and guide to their contents and use . GORTON THE GORTON BRANCH. 201 against certain common abuses of reading since forthe most part they were of a kind unlikely to becommitted in that place, where there was, we had aright to assume so earnest and genuine a desire ofturning to good account the great and bounteousblessing—for he held it nothing less—which was to beplaced at their disposal. As well, he said, might I warnyou against reading not books, but the backs of books—an odd tendency which was thus described hy a satir
The Manchester public free libraries; a history and description, and guide to their contents and use . GORTON THE GORTON BRANCH. 201 against certain common abuses of reading since forthe most part they were of a kind unlikely to becommitted in that place, where there was, we had aright to assume so earnest and genuine a desire ofturning to good account the great and bounteousblessing—for he held it nothing less—which was to beplaced at their disposal. As well, he said, might I warnyou against reading not books, but the backs of books—an odd tendency which was thus described hy a satiristof the beginning of the sixteenth century, and which itis a comfort to think is now nearly four centuries out ofdate :— Lo ! in lyke wyse of bokys I have store,But fewe I rede, and fewer understande;I folowe not theyr doctryne nor theyr lore ;It is ynough to here a boke in hande;It were to moche to be it such a bandeFor to be bounde to loke within the boke;I am content on the fayre coverynge to loke. Why sholde I stody to hurt my wyt thereby ?Or trouble my mynd with stody excessive,Sythe many ar whiche
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