Part 10

They [the Stationers] have so pestered their printing-houses and shops with fruitless volumes that the ancient and renowned authors are almost buried among them as forgotten; and that they have so much work to prefer their termly pamphlets, which they provide to take up the people's money and time, that there is neither of them left to bestow on a profitable book: so they who desire knowledge are still kept ignorant; their ignorance increaseth their affection to vain toys; their affection makes the stationer to increase his provision of such stuff, and at last you shall see nothing to be sold amongst us but Curranto's _Bevis of Southampton_ or such trumpery. The Arts are already almost lost among the writings of mountebank authors. For if any one among us would study Physic, the Mathematics, Poetry, or any of the liberal sciences, they have in their warehouses so many volumes of quack-salving receipts; of false propositions; and of inartificial rhymings (of which last sort they have some of mine there, God forgive me!) that unless we be directed by some artist, we shall spend half our age before we can find those authors which are worth our readings. For what need the stationer be at the charge of printing the labours of him that is master of his art, and will require that respect which his pain deserveth, seeing he can hire for a matter of forty shillings some needy ignoramus to scribble upon the same subject, and by a large promising title, make it as vendible for an impression or two, as though it had the quintessence of all art?--G. WITHER. _The Scholler's Purgatory._

PRINTERS GAIN BY BAD BOOKS

_Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost._ Arius Montanus, in printing the Hebrew Bible, commonly called the Bible of the king of Spain, much wasted himself, and was accused in the court of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, _Pro tantorum laborum praemio vix veniam impetravit_. Likewise Christopher Plantin, by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp, through the unseasonable exactions of the king's officers, sunk and almost ruined his estate. And our worthy English knight, who set forth the golden-mouthed father in a silver print, was a loser by it.

_Whereas foolish pamphlets prove most beneficial to the printers._ When a French printer complained that he was utterly undone by printing a solid serious book of Rabelais concerning physic, Rabelais, to make him recompense, made that his jesting scurrilous work, which repaired the printer's loss with advantage. Such books the world swarms too much with. When one had set out a witless pamphlet, writing _finis_ at the end thereof, another wittily wrote beneath it:

----_Nay there thou liest, my friend, In writing foolish books there is no end._

And surely such scurrilous scandalous papers do more than conceivable mischief. First, their lusciousness puts many palates out of taste, that they can never after relish any solid and wholesome writers; secondly, they cast dirt on the faces of many innocent persons, which dried on by continuance of time can never after be washed off; thirdly, the pamphlets of this age may pass for records with the next, because publicly uncontrolled, and what we laugh at, our children may believe: fourthly, grant the things true they jeer at, yet this music is unlawful in any Christian church, to play upon the sins and miseries of others, the fitter object of the elegies than the satires of all truly religious.--T. FULLER. _The Holy State and the Profane State._

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing anything to print that may corrupt posterity, or poison the minds of men with vice and error! Writers of great talents, who employ their parts in propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are to be looked upon as the pests of society and the enemies of mankind: they leave books behind them, as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an ill will towards their own species, to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of a Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.--J. ADDISON. _Spectator_, 166.

He who has published an injurious book, sins, as it were, in his very grave; corrupts others while he is rotting himself.--R. SOUTH.

BOOKS BAD AND GOOD

A mind unnerved, or indisposed to bear The weight of subjects worthiest of her care, Whatever hopes a change of scene inspires, Must change her nature, or in vain retires. An idler is a watch that wants both hands, As useless if it goes as when it stands, Books therefore, not the scandal of the shelves, In which lewd sensualists print out themselves; Nor those in which the stage gives vice a blow, With what success let modern manners show; Nor his who, for the bane of thousands born, Built God a church, and laughed His word to scorn, Skilful alike to seem devout and just, And stab religion with a sly side-thrust; Nor those of learned philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark; But such as learning without false pretence, The friend of truth, the associate of sound sense, And such as, in the zeal of good design, Strong judgement labouring in the scripture mine, All such as manly and great souls produce, Worthy to live, and of eternal use: Behold in these what leisure hours demand, Amusement and true knowledge hand in hand. Luxury gives the mind a childish cast, And while she polishes, perverts the taste; Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length, one gen'ral cry, Tickle and entertain us, or we die. The loud demand, from year to year the same, Beggars invention and makes fancy lame, Till farce itself, most mournfully jejune, Calls for the kind assistance of a tune; And novels (witness every month's review) Belie their name and offer nothing new. The mind, relaxing into needful sport, Should turn to writers of an abler sort, Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style, Give truth a lustre, and make wisdom smile. Friends (for I cannot stint, as some have done, Too rigid in my view, that name to one; Though one, I grant it, in the generous breast, Will stand advanced a step above the rest: Flowers by that name promiscuously we call, But one, the rose, the regent of them all)-- Friends, not adopted with a school-boy's haste, But chosen with a nice discerning taste, Well-born, well-disciplined, who, placed apart From vulgar minds, have honour much at heart, And, though the world may think the ingredients odd, The love of virtue, and the fear of God! Such friends prevent what else would soon succeed, A temper rustic as the life we lead, And keep the polish of the manners clean, As their's who bustle in the busiest scene; For solitude, however some may rave, Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave, A sepulchre in which the living lie, Where all good qualities grow sick and die.

W. COWPER, _Retirement_.

ON CERTAIN BOOKS

Faith and fixed hope these pages may peruse, And still be faith and hope; but, O ye winds! Blow them far off from all unstable minds, And foolish grasping hands of youth! Ye dews Of heaven! be pleased to rot them where they fall, Lest loitering boys their fancies should abuse, And they get harm by chance, that cannot choose; So be they stained and sodden, each and all! And if, perforce, on dry and gusty days, Upon the breeze some truant leaf should rise, Brittle with many weathers, to the skies, Or flit and dodge about the public ways-- Man's choral shout, or organ's peal of praise Shall shake it into dust, like older lies.

C. TENNYSON TURNER.

'TO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE'

'To the pure all things are pure'; not only meats and drinks, but all kind of knowledge, whether of good or evil; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and conscience be not defiled. For books are as meats and viands are, some of good, some of evil substance; and yet God, in that unapocryphal vision, said without exception, 'Rise, Peter, kill and eat'; leaving the choice to each man's discretion. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or nothing from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unapplicable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate.... If it be true that a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea, or without book, there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool that which being restrained will be no hindrance to his folly.--J. MILTON. _Areopagitica._

LIBERTY AND BAD BOOKS

The men who died to buy us liberty knew that it was better to let in a thousand bad books than shut out one good one. We cannot, then, silence evil books, but we can turn away our eyes from them; we can take care that what we read, and what we let others read, should be good and wholesome.--C. KINGSLEY. _Village Sermons: On Books._

BAD BOOKS AND DEBAUCHED MINDS

Books will perhaps be found, in a less degree than is commonly imagined, the corrupters of the morals of mankind. They form an effective subsidiary to events and the contagion of vicious society: but, taken by themselves, they rarely produce vice and profligacy where virtue existed before. Everything depends upon the spirit in which they are read. He that would extract poison from them, must for the most part come to them with a mind already debauched. The power of books in generating virtue is probably much greater than in generating vice.--W. GODWIN. _The Inquirer: Of Choice in Reading._

VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE

To read my book, the virgin shy May blush, while Brutus standeth by: But when he's gone, read through what's writ, And never stain a cheek for it.

R. HERRICK. _Hesperides._

A WHIMSICAL SURPRISE

I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some cathedral alone, and reading _Candide_.

I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having been once detected--by a familiar damsel--reclined at my ease upon the grass, on Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading--_Pamela_. There was nothing in the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, I could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her taste, she got up, and--went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you shall never get the secret.--C. LAMB. _Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading._

ROMANCES ARE PERNICIOUS

Make careful choice of the books which you read. Let the Holy Scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and next them, the solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the Scriptures: and next those, the credible histories, especially of the Church, and tractates upon inferior sciences and arts: but take heed of the poison of the writings of false teachers, which would corrupt your understandings: and of vain romances, play-books, and false stories, which may bewitch your fantasies and corrupt your hearts.

To a very judicious able reader, who is fit to censure all he reads, there is no great danger in the reading of the Books of any seducers: it doth but show him how little and thin a cloak is used to cover a bad cause. But alas, young soldiers, not used to such wars, are startled at a very sophism, or at a terrible threatening of damnation to dissenters (which every censorious sect can use) or at every confident triumphant boast, or at everything that hath a fair pretence of truth or godliness.... Meddle not therefore with poison, till you better know how to use it, and may do it with less danger; as long as you have no need.

As for play-books, and romances, and idle tales, I have already showed, in my _Book of Self-denial_, how pernicious they are, especially to youth, and to frothy, empty, idle wits, that know not _what a man is_, nor what he hath to do in the world. They are powerful baits of the Devil, to keep more necessary things out of their minds, and better books out of their hands, and to poison the mind so much the more dangerously, as they are read with more delight and pleasure.--R. BAXTER. _Christian Directory._

WHETHER 'TIS LAWFUL TO READ ROMANCES

Though we think then that the reading these Books may be lawful, and have some Convenience too, as to forming the Minds of Persons of Quality; yet we think 'em not all convenient for the Vulgar, because they give 'em extravagant Ideas of Practice, and before they have Judgement to bias their Fancies, and generally make 'em think themselves some King or Queen or other:--One Fool must be Mazares, t'other Artamen; and so for the Women, no less than Queens or Empresses will serve 'em, the Inconveniences of which are afterwards oftentimes sooner observed than remedied. Add to this, the softening of the Mind by Love, which are the greatest subject of these sort of Books, and the fooling away so many Hours and Days and Years, which might be much better employed, and which must be repented of: And upon the whole, we think Young People would do better, either not to read 'em at all, or to use 'em more sparingly than they generally do, when once they set about 'em.--From the _Athenian Mercury_ (1691-7).

THE DANGER OF POETS AND ROMANCES

It is impossible for me, by any words that I can use, to express, to the extent of my thoughts, the danger of suffering young people to form their opinions from the writings of poets and romances. Nine times out of ten, the morality they teach is bad, and must have a bad tendency. Their wit is employed to _ridicule virtue_, as you will almost always find, if you examine the matter to the bottom. The world owes a very large part of its sufferings to tyrants; but what tyrant was there amongst the ancients, whom the poets did not place _amongst the gods_? Can you open an English poet without, in some part or other of his works, finding the grossest flatteries of royal and noble persons? How are young people not to think that the praises bestowed on these persons are just? Dryden, Parnell, Gay, Thomson, in short, what poet have we had, or have we, Pope only excepted, who was not, or is not, a pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the wretched dependant of some part of the Aristocracy? Of the extent of the power of writers in producing mischief to a nation, we have two most striking instances in the cases of Dr. Johnson and Burke.... It is, therefore, the duty of every father, when he puts a book into the hands of his son or daughter, to give the reader a true account of _who_ and _what_ the writer of the book was, or is.--W. COBBETT. _Advice to Young Men and (incidentally) to Young Women in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life._

A DAUGHTER'S FAVOURITE NOVELS

I could make neither head nor tail of it; it was neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring: it was all about my Lord, and Sir Harry, and the Captain.... The people talk such wild gibberish as no folks in their sober senses ever did talk; and the things that happen to them are not like the things that ever happen to me or any of my acquaintance. They are at home one minute, and beyond the sea the next; beggars to-day, and lords to-morrow; waiting-maids in the morning, and duchesses at night.... One would think every man in these books had the bank of England in his escritoire.... In these books (except here and there one, whom they make worse than Satan himself), every man and woman's child of them, are all wise, and witty, and generous, and rich, and handsome, and genteel, and all to the last degree. Nobody is middling, or good in one thing and bad in another, like my live acquaintance; but it is all up to the skies, or down to the dirt. I had rather read _Tom Hickathrift_, or _Jack the Giant Killer_, a thousand times.--HANNAH MORE. _The Two Wealthy Farmers._

'ONLY A NOVEL'

'What are you reading, Miss----?' 'Oh! it's only a novel!' replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. 'It is only _Cecilia_, or _Camilla_, or _Belinda_'; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed; in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit or humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.--JANE AUSTEN. _Northanger Abbey._

NOVELS AS ENGINES OF CIVILIZATION

The listlessness and want of sympathy with which most of the works written expressly for circulation among the labouring classes are read by them, if read at all, arises mainly from this--that the story told, or the lively or friendly style assumed, is _manifestly_ and _palpably_ only a cloak for the instruction intended to be conveyed--a sort of gilding of what they cannot well help fancying must be a pill, when they see so much and such obvious pains taken to wrap it up.... You will find that in the higher and better class of works of fiction and imagination duly circulated, you possess all that you require to strike your grappling-iron into their souls, and chain them, willing followers, to the car of civilization.... The novel, in its best form, I regard as one of the most powerful engines of civilization ever invented.--SIR J. HERSCHEL. _Address to the Subscribers to the Windsor Public Library._

A NOVEL OF HIGH LIFE

Lord Harry has written a novel, A story of elegant life; No stuff about love in a hovel, No sketch of a commoner's wife: No trash, such as pathos and passion, Fine feelings, expression, and wit; But all about people of fashion, Come look at his caps--how they fit!

O Radcliffe! thou once wert the charmer Of girls who sat reading all night; Thy heroes were striplings in armour, Thy heroines damsels in white. But past are thy terrible touches, Our lips in derision we curl, Unless we are told how a Duchess Conversed with her cousin the Earl.

We now have each dialogue quite full Of titles--'I give you my word, My lady, you're looking delightful'; 'O dear, do you think so, my lord!' 'You've heard of the marquis's marriage, The bride with her jewels new set, Four horses, new travelling carriage, And _déjeuner à la fourchette_?'

_Haut Ton_ finds her privacy broken, We trace all her ins and her outs; The very small talk that is spoken By very great people at routs. At Tenby Miss Jinks asks the loan of The book from the innkeeper's wife, And reads till she dreams she is one of The leaders of elegant life.

T. H. BAYLY.

LADY CONSTANCE ... guanoed her mind by reading French novels.--B. DISRAELI, EARL OF BEACONSFIELD. _Tancred._

NOVELS ARE SWEETS

Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them--almost all women;--a vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Why, one of the most learned physicians in England said to me only yesterday, 'I have just read _So-and-So_ for the second time' (naming one of Jones's exquisite fictions). Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers; as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers.--W. M. THACKERAY. _Roundabout Papers: On a Lazy Idle Boy._

EVERY MAN HIS DUE

As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth, a bee gathers wax and honey out of many flowers, and makes a new bundle of all,

_Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant_,

I have laboriously collected this cento out of various authors, and that _sine injuria_: I have wronged no authors, but given every man his own; which Hierom so much commends in Nepotian; he stole not whole verses, pages, tracts, as some do nowadays, concealing their authors' names; but still said this was Cyprian's, that Lactantius, that Hilarius, so said Minutius Felix, so Victorinus, thus far Arnobius: I cite and quote mine authors (which, howsoever some illiterate scribblers account pedantical, as a cloak of ignorance, and opposite to their affected fine style, I must and will use) _sumpsi, non surripui_; and what Varro, lib. 6 de re rust., speaks of bees, _minime maleficae, nullius opus vellicantes faciunt deterius_, I can say of myself. Whom have I injured? The matter is theirs most part and yet mine: _apparet unde sumptum sit_ (which Seneca approves); _aliud tamen, quam unde sumptum sit, apparet_; which nature doth with the aliment of our bodies, incorporate, digest, assimilate, I do _concoquere quod hausi_, dispose of what I take: I make them pay tribute, to set out this my Macaronican: the method only is mine own. I must usurp that of _Wecker e Ter. nihil dictum quod non dictum prius: methodus sola artificem ostendit_: we can say nothing but what hath been said, the composition and method is ours only, and shows a scholar. Oribasius, Aëtius, Avicenna, have all out of Galen, but to their own method, _diverso stylo, non diversa fide_. Our poets steal from Homer; he spews, saith Aelian, they lick it up. Divines use Austin's words _verbatim_ still, and our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best,

--donec quid grandius aetas Postera, sorsque ferat melior.

R. BURTON. _The Anatomy of Melancholy._

PLAGIARIE

He [King Charles I, in his _Eikon Basilike_] borrows David's Psalmes, as he charges the Assembly of Divines in his twentieth Discourse, _To have set forth old Catechisms and confessions of faith new drest_. Had he borrowed David's heart, it had been much the holier theft. For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good Authors is accounted Plagiarie. However, this was more tolerable than Pamela's prayer, stolen out of Sir Philip.--J. MILTON. _Eikonoklastes._

TRANSPLANTATION

I number not my borrowings, but I weigh them. And if I would have made their number to prevail, I would have had twice as many. They are all, or almost all, of so famous and ancient names, that methinks they sufficiently name themselves without me. If in reasons, comparisons, and arguments, I transplant any into my soil, or confound them with mine own, I purposely conceal the author, thereby to bridle the rashness of these hasty censures that are so headlong cast upon all manner of compositions, namely, young writings of men yet living.... I will have them to give Plutarch a bob upon mine own lips, and vex themselves in wronging Seneca in me.--MONTAIGNE.

BOOK-MAKERS AND PLAGIARISTS