Part 13

The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize. Nor is the public altogether to blame on this account. Most even of those who have really a great enjoyment in reading are in the same state, with respect to a book, in which a man who has never given particular attention to the art of painting is with respect to a picture. Every man who has the least sensibility or imagination derives a certain pleasure from pictures. Yet a man of the highest and finest intellect might, unless he had formed his taste by contemplating the best pictures, be easily persuaded by a knot of connoisseurs that the worst daub in Somerset House was a miracle of art.

Just such is the manner in which nine readers out of ten judge of a book. They are ashamed to dislike what men who speak as having authority declare to be good.--LORD MACAULAY. _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems._

TASTE IN LITERATURE AND ART

I know many persons who have the purest taste in literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which puzzles me not a little; but I have never known any one with false taste in books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of literature, and live on a little rocky island of your own, with a spring and a lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of your library to you: every several mind needs different books; but there are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Dante, Shakespeare, and Spenser, as much as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right and left of them for purposes of perpetual study.--J. RUSKIN. _The Elements of Drawing._

'There is no book so bad,' said the bachelor, 'but something good may be found in it.'--CERVANTES.

THE FILIAL PIETY OF BOOKS

Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems to savour less of absolute instinct, and which may be so well reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their books. These children may most truly be called the riches of their father, and many of them have with true filial piety fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the affection but the interest of the author may be highly injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings his book to an untimely end.

Lastly, the slanderer of a book is, in truth, the slanderer of the author ... neither can any one give the names of sad stuff, horrid nonsense, &c., to a book, without calling the author a blockhead; which, though in a moral sense it is a preferable appellation to that of villain, is, perhaps, rather more injurious to his worldly interest.--H. FIELDING. _Tom Jones._

THE MOTE AND THE BEAM

To complain in print of the multitude of books seems to me a self-accusing vanity, whilst the querulous reprehenders add to the cause of complaint and transgress themselves in that which they seem to wish amended. 'Tis true, the births of the press are numerous, nor is there less variety in the humours and fancies of perusers, and while the number of the one exceeds not the diversity of the other some will not think that too much which others judge superfluous. The genius of one approves what another disregardeth. And were nothing to pass the press but what were suited to the universal gusto, farewell, typography!... I seek no applause from the disgrace of others, nor will I, huckster-like, discredit any man's ware to recommend mine own. I am not angry that there are so many books already (bating only the anomalies of impiety and irreligion), nor will I plead the necessity of publishing mine from feigned importunities.--J. GLANVILL. _The Vanity of Dogmatizing._

The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in, anyhow.--O. W. HOLMES. _The Poet at the Breakfast-Table._

CENSORSHIP

Popish books teach and inform; what we know, we know much out of them. The fathers, church story, school-men, all may pass for popish books; and if you take away them, what learning will you leave? Besides, who must be judge? The customer or the waiter? If he disallows a book it must not be brought into the kingdom; then Lord have mercy upon all scholars! These puritan preachers, if they have anything good, they have it out of popish books, though they will not acknowledge it, for fear of displeasing the people. He is a poor divine that cannot sever the good from the bad.--J. SELDEN. _Table Talk_.

THE IMPRIMATUR

Learning hath of late years met with an obstruction in many places which suppresses it from flourishing or increasing, in spite of all its other helps, and that is the inquisition upon the press, which prohibits any book from coming forth without an imprimatur; an old relic of popery, only necessary for the concealing of such defects of government which of right ought to be discovered and amended.--C. BLOUNT. _A Just Vindication of Learning_, 1693.

A GREAT BOOK IS A GREAT EVIL

[Greek: Méga biblíon méga kakón]

A man who publishes his works in a volume has an infinite advantage over one who communicates his writings to the world in loose tracts and single pieces. We do not expect to meet with anything in a bulky volume till after some heavy preamble, and several words of course, to prepare the reader for what follows: nay, authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes, as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer. This gave occasion to the famous Greek proverb which I have chosen for my motto, _That a great book is a great evil_....

An essay writer must practise in the chemical method and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops. Were all books reduced thus to their quintessence, many a bulky author would make his appearance in a penny-paper: there would be scarce such a thing in nature as a folio: the works of an age would be contained on a few shelves, not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated....

When knowledge, instead of being bound up in books, and kept in libraries and retirements, is thus obtruded upon the public; when it is canvassed in every assembly, and exposed upon every table; I cannot forbear reflecting upon that passage in the Proverbs, 'Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets.'--J. ADDISON. _Spectator_, 124.

A LITTLE BOOK THE MOST EXCELLENT

For books we shall generally find that the most excellent in any art or science have been still the smallest and most compendious; and this not without ground, for it is an argument that the author was a master of what he wrote, and had a clear notion and a full comprehension of the subject before him. For the reason of things lies in a little compass, if the mind could at any time be so happy as to light upon it. Most of the writings and discourses in the world are but illustration and rhetoric, which signifies as much as nothing to a mind eager in pursuit after the causes and philosophical truth of things.... The truth is, there could be no such thing as art or science, could not the mind of man gather the general natures of things out of the heap of numberless particulars, and then bind them up into such short aphorisms or propositions, that so they may be made portable to the memory, and thereby become ready and at hand for the judgement to apply and make use of as there shall be occasion.--R. SOUTH. _Sermon against long extempore prayers._

There are many books written by many men, from which two truths only are discoverable by the readers; namely, that the writers thereof wanted two things,--principle and preferment.--C. C. COLTON. _Lacon._

BOOKS WITH ONE IDEA IN THEM

An amusing catalogue might be made of books which contain but one good passage. They would be a sort of single-speech Hamiltons; if Balaam's palfrey might not be thought a more apt counterpart to them. Killigrew's play of the Parson's Wedding, which in length of massy dullness exceeds many books, is remarkable for one little spark of liveliness. The languishing fine lady of the piece exclaims most characteristically, upon coming in tired with walking: 'I am glad I am come home, for I'm e'en as weary with this walking. For God's sake, whereabouts does the pleasure of walking lie? I swear I have often sought it till I was weary, and yet I could ne'er find it.'--Charron on Wisdom, a cumbrous piece of formality, which Pope's eulogium lately betrayed me into the perusal of, has one splendid passage, page 138, (I think) English translation. It contrasts the open honours with which we invest the sword, as the means of putting man out of the world, with the concealing and retiring circumstances that accompany his introduction into it. It is a piece of gorgeous and happy eloquence.--What could Pope mean by that line,--'sage Montaigne, or more sage Charron?' Montaigne is an immense treasure-house of observation, anticipating all the discoveries of succeeding essayists. You cannot dip in him without being struck with the aphorism, that there is nothing new under the sun. All the writers on common life since him have done nothing but echo him. You cannot open him without detecting a _Spectator_ or starting a _Rambler_; besides that his own character pervades the whole, and binds it sweetly together. Charron is a mere piece of formality, scholastic dry bones, without sinew or living flesh.--C. LAMB. _Table Talk._

BOOKS OF ONE THOUGHT

Few books have more than one thought: the generality indeed have not quite so many. The more ingenious authors of the former seem to think that, if they once get their candle lighted, it will burn on for ever. Yet even a candle gives a sorry, melancholy light unless it has a brother beside it, to shine on it and keep it cheerful. For lights and thoughts are social and sportive: they delight in playing with and into each other. One can hardly conceive a duller state of existence than sitting at whist with three dummies: and yet many of our prime philosophers have seldom done anything else.--A. W. and J. C. HARE. _Guesses at Truth._

INDUCTIVE CRITICISM

A heedy reader shall often discover in other men's compositions perfections far differing from the author's meaning, and such as haply he never dreamed of, and illustrateth them with richer senses and more excellent constructions.--MONTAIGNE.

READING BETWEEN LINES

In hours of high mental activity we sometimes do the book too much honour, reading out of it better things than the author wrote,--reading, as we say, between the lines. You have had the like experience in conversation: the wit was in what you heard, not in what the speakers said. Our best thought came from others. We heard in their words a deeper sense than the speakers put into them, and could express ourselves in other people's phrases to finer purpose than they knew.--R. W. EMERSON. _Quotation and Originality._

PURPLE PATCHES

There are some fine passages, I am told, in that book.

Are there? Then beware of them. Fine passages are mostly _culs de sac_. For in books also does one see

Rich windows that exclude the light And passages that lead to nothing.

A. W. and J. C. HARE. _Guesses at Truth._

There's more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject. We do but inter-glose ourselves. All swarmeth with commentaries; of authors there is great penury.--MONTAIGNE.

THE ROYAL ROAD

ERASMUS. I am told there is a certain compendious art, that will help a man to accomplish himself with all the liberal sciences by a very little labour.

DESIDERIUS. What is that you talk of? Did you ever see the book?

ERASMUS. I did see it, and that was all, having nobody to instruct me in the use of it.

DESIDERIUS. What was the subject of the book?

ERASMUS. It treated of various forms of dragons, lions, leopards; and various circles, and words written in them, some in Greek, some in Latin, and some in Hebrew and other barbarous languages.

DESIDERIUS. Pray, in how many days' time did the title-page promise you the knowledge of the arts and sciences?

ERASMUS. In fourteen.

DESIDERIUS. In truth, a very noble promise. But did you ever know anybody that has become learned by that notable art?

ERASMUS. No.

DESIDERIUS. No, nor nobody ever did, or ever will, till we can see an alchemist grow rich.

ERASMUS. Why, is there no such art then? I wish with all my heart there was.

DESIDERIUS. Perhaps you do, because you would not be at the pains which are required to become learned.

ERASMUS. You are right.

DESIDERIUS. It seemed meet to the Divine Being that the common riches, gold, jewels, silver, palaces, and kingdoms should be bestowed on the slothful and undeserving; but the true riches, and such as are properly our own, must be gotten by labour.

ERASMUS. _Colloquies: The Notable Art._

READERS AND WRITERS

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason;--they made no such demand on those who wrote them. Those works therefore are the most valuable, that set our thinking faculties in the fullest operation.--C. C. COLTON. _Lacon._

STUDIES

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar: they perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend: _Abeunt studia in mores_; nay, there is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises; bowling is good for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head and the like; so if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find difference, let him study the schoolmen, for they are _Cymini sectores_. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.--F. BACON, LORD VERULAM. _Essays._

HOW TO SPEND OUR DAYS

After some while meditation, I walk up to my masters and companions, my books: and, sitting down amongst them, with the best contentment, I dare not reach forth my hand to salute any of them till I have first looked up to heaven, and craved favour of Him to whom all my studies are duly referred, without whom I can neither profit nor labour. After this, out of no over-great variety, I call forth those which may best fit my occasions; wherein I am not too scrupulous of age: sometimes I put myself to school, to one of those ancients, whom the Church hath honoured with the name of Fathers, whose volumes I confess not to open without a secret reverence of their holiness and gravity: sometimes to those latter doctors, which want nothing but age to make them classical: always to God's Book. That day is lost whereof some hours are not improved in those divine monuments: others I turn over out of choice; these out of duty.--JOSEPH HALL. (Letter to Lord Denny.)

THE CHOICE OF BOOKS

In study there must be an expulsive virtue to shun all that is erroneous; and there is no science but is full of such stuff, which by direction of tutor and choice of good books must be excerned. Do not confound yourself with multiplicity of authors; two is enough upon any science, provided they be plenary and orthodox; _Philosophy_ should be your substantial food, _Poetry_ your banqueting stuff; _Philosophy_ hath more of reality in it than any Knowledge, the _Philosopher_ can fathom the deep, measure mountains, reach the stars with a staff, and bless heaven with a girdle.

But among these Studies you must not forget the _unicum necessarium_; on Sundays and Holidays let _Divinity_ be the sole object of your speculation, in comparison whereof all other knowledge is but cobweb-learning.--J. HOWELL. _Familiar Letters._

CHEWING THE CUD

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again they will not give us strength and nourishment.... The memory may be stored, but the judgement is little better, and the stock of knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found in books is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly deduced from the principles it is pretended to be built on.... The mind is backward in itself to be at the pains to trace every argument to its original, and to see upon what basis it stands, and how firmly; but yet it is this that gives so much the advantage to one man more than another in reading. The mind should, by severe rules, be tied down to this at first uneasy task; use and exercise will give it facility. So that those who are accustomed to it, readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, take a view of the argument, and presently, in most cases, see where it bottoms. Those who have got this faculty, one may say, have got the true key of books, and the clue to lead them through the mizmaze of variety of opinions and authors to truth and certainty. This young beginners should be entered in, and showed the use of, that they might profit by their reading.... This way of thinking on and profiting by what we read will be a clog and rub to any one only in the beginning; when custom and exercise has made it familiar, it will be dispatched in most occasions, without resting or interruption in the course of our reading.--J. LOCKE. _Conduct of the Understanding._

THE SUFFICIENCY OF HOMER

Read Homer once, and you can read no more; For all books else appear so mean, so poor, Verse will seem prose, but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the books you need.

J. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. _Essay on Poetry._

HOMER AND VIRGIL

Be Homer's works your study and delight, Read them by day, and meditate by night; Thence form your judgement, thence your maxims bring, And trace the Muses upward to their spring. Still with itself compared, his text peruse; And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse. When first young Maro in his boundless mind A work to outlast immortal Rome designed, Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law, And but from Nature's fountains scorned to draw: But when to examine every part he came, Nature and Homer were, he found, the same. Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design; And rules as strict his laboured work confine, As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line. Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem: To copy nature is to copy them.

A. POPE. _Essay on Criticism._

READ WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Read boldly, and unprejudiced peruse Each favourite modern, e'en each ancient Muse. With all the comic salt and tragic rage, The great stupendous genius of our stage, Boast of our island, pride of humankind, Had faults to which the boxes are not blind; His frailties are to every gossip known, Yet Milton's pedantries not shock the town. Ne'er be the dupe of names, however high, For some outlive good parts, some misapply. Each elegant _Spectator_ you admire, But must you therefore swear by Cato's fire? Masks for the court, and oft a clumsy jest Disgraced the Muse that wrought the _Alchemist_. 'But to the ancients'--Faith! I am not clear, For all the smooth round type of Elzevir, That every work which lasts in prose or song Two thousand years deserves to last so long: For--not to mention some eternal blades Known only now in academic shades, (Those sacred groves where raptured spirits stray, And in word-hunting waste the livelong day) Ancients whom none but curious critics scan,-- Do read Messala's praises if you can. Ah! who but feels the sweet contagious smart While soft Tibullus pours his tender heart? With him the Loves and Muses melt in tears, But not a word of some hexameters! 'You grow so squeamish and so devilish dry You'll call Lucretius vapid next.' Not I: Some find him tedious, others think him lame, But if he lags his subject is to blame. Rough weary roads through barren wilds he tried, Yet still he marches with true Roman pride; Sometimes a meteor, gorgeous, rapid, bright, He streams athwart the philosophic night. Find you in Horace no insipid odes?-- He dared to tell us Homer sometimes nods; And but for such a critic's hardy skill Homer might slumber unsuspected still.

J. ARMSTRONG. _Taste._

READING ACCORDING TO INCLINATION

He [Dr. Johnson] said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. He added, 'what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.' He told us, he read Fielding's _Amelia_ through without stopping. He said, 'If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it, to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.'