O for a Booke and a shadie nooke, eyther in-a-doore or out;
With the grene leaves whisp'ring overhede, or the Streete cries all about.
Where I maie Reade all at my ease, both of the Newe and Olde;
For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke, is better to me than Golde.
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Source, in full
. Motto in his second-hand book catalogues. Claimed for him by Austin Dobson. Found in Sir John Lubbock's Pleasures of Life and Ireland's Enchiridion, where it is given as an old song. (See Notes and Queries, Nov. 1919, P. 297, for discussion of authorship).