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VIEW 
 
 THE PLEASURES ARISING FROM 
 
 A 
 
 LOVE OF BOOKS 
 
 to a 
 
 THE REV. EDWARD MANGIN, M. A. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 AUTHOR OF SCHOOL 
 
 The Life of Malesherbcs, from the French ; Odditie* and Outltnei; 
 George the Third, a Novel; an Essay on Light Reading; $. 
 
 " Sweet rills of thought that cheer the conscious soul ;" 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 PRINTED FOR LONGMAW, HDRST, RBES, ORME, AND BHOWME, 
 
 PATERNOSTER-ROW; AND JOHN urHAM y BAJT. 
 
 J8U. 
 
^ A 
 \V 
 
 ^ 
 
 PRINflTED J3? G*B AI*D*SON^ MARKET-PLACE, BATH. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following Letters are selected froia 
 several which were addressed, at different 
 opportunities, to a Ladjr, whose proper pride 
 induced her to request that the Author, when 
 writing to her, would compliment her so far 
 as to suppose her capable of relishing subjects 
 
 of rather a higher order than the state of the 
 
 A2 
 
 IDrfl 
 
IT PREFACE. 
 
 weather and the markets ; or the misdemeanors,, 
 quarrels and rash marriages of his neighbours. 
 
 It was accordingly and very gladly 
 resolved that a considerable portion of each 
 sheet, during their subsequent correspondence^ 
 should be dedicated by him to a light and 
 familiar inquiry into some of the numerous 
 Pleasures communicated by Books to the Lovers 
 of Reading; and this, not only to meet the 
 wishes of the person for whose immediate 
 peruial the Letters were designed, but likewise 
 to convey, through her, a few suggestions to a 
 circle of youthful friends, in whose bappines* 
 the parties are interested. 
 
PREFACE. T 
 
 The writer thinks that men are not 
 sufficiently solicitous to do justice, either in 
 their letters, or general behaviour, to the 
 importance of the female character ; and is of 
 
 opinion that it would become them more to 
 
 \ 
 adopt what the poet says was the gallant and 
 
 elevated sentiment of the aboriginal Briton, who 
 
 " Deem'd some effluence of th> omnistient mind 
 In Woman's beauteous image lay inshrin'd," 
 
 than to treat females as demi-fools and play- 
 things, as creatures of foibles, and passions, and 
 prejudices, formed for no otjier end than to be 
 ndurcd, pitied and forgiven I 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 While they confess themselves indebted 
 to women, as they certainly are, for whatever 
 renders existence desirable ; while they admit 
 that without their soft and skilful guardianship 
 in early life, neither the frame nor the faculties 
 of man could advance to maturity, and that 
 destitute of their presence, the load of being 
 would afterwards prove a burden too galling to 
 be borne, they should also endeavour to evince 
 their gratitude, by doing every tiling in their 
 power to remind the sex of their value in 
 society, and of the veneration to which they 
 are entitled. 
 
PREFACE. YU 
 
 With the hope of extending still farther 
 tuch amusement as these Letters might be 
 thought likely to afford, and such utility as 
 they were intended to promote, they are now 
 collected, and, freed from what was irrelevant, 
 very respectfully offered to the public, and 
 especially to the female world. 
 
 Bath, January, 1814. 
 
VIEW, &e. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 " Studies such as these are the aliment of the 
 
 young, and the delight of the old ; they embellish prosperity, 
 and afford us a refuge and consolation in adversity ; at home 
 they give UB pleasure, and are no impediment to us abroad; 
 they accompany us to our chambers, they travel along with 
 us, and attend us in retirement." 
 
 DEAR E 
 
 JL HE above is a free translation 
 of a passage from the works of one of 
 the ablest and most accomplished men 
 
that ever lived; aud who, assured] y, felt 
 in all their force, the truth and beauty 
 of his own observation. 
 
 In thus proclaiming the pure and 
 varied enjoyments springing from a love 
 of letters, Cicero not only alludes to 
 literature in general, but to studies of 
 a much more abstruse and exalted de- 
 scription than any thing within the 
 limits of my present design; in the 
 prosecution of which it is, by no means 
 my intention to involve either you or 
 myself in the mazes of abstract and 
 scientific inquiry: I presume, however, 
 that the object of a salutary and inno- 
 cent amusement for both of us, may be 
 
sufficiently attained by a survey of some 
 of the many advantages arising from a 
 judicious use of BOOKS: by an attempt 
 to show that they are endowed with 
 power 
 
 " The cold desponding breast of sloth to warm, 
 
 The flame of industry and genius fan; 
 
 And emulation's noble rage alarm, 
 
 And the long hours of toil and solitude to charm.'* 
 
 That they are to man, under almost 
 every circumstance of life, a source of 
 EXQUISITE PLEASURE, that they enlarge 
 his capacity for happiness, and diminish 
 his portion of misery; and that the 
 author of an agreeable and guiltless 
 volume, is most justly intitled to 
 
 B2 
 
rank high among the friends of hu- 
 man lund. 
 
 The orator in his beautiful encomium 
 on literature, is so far from exaggerat- 
 ing, that, on the contrary, he might 
 verj safely have carried his praises of 
 its efficacy to a greater extent, anc! 
 averred that BOOKS may be applied so 
 as not only to mitigate the ills and in- 
 crease the pleasures of this life, but to 
 be of essential service in fitting the mind 
 for its IMMORTAL Destiny; and that 
 in youth and old age; in prosperity^ and 
 adversity; in the still hour of domestic re- 
 tirement, and in our intercourse with 
 society; during foreign travel^ or in the 
 
seclusion of rural shades , they who have 
 encouraged in themselves A TASTE FOR 
 BOOKS, may well be envied by those 
 who have no such resource. 
 
 Henceforward my letters to you, dear 
 E. shall be devoted to a free, and pro- 
 bably a very im methodical dissertation 
 on some English books in common use; 
 such as lie between the two literary ex- 
 tremes; and it is to be hoped that mat- 
 ter sufficient for our purpose may be 
 found, without encroaching on either 
 i lie Pnncipia^ or th$ memoirs of Jack 
 the Giant-killer. 
 
 My main design is to discuss the sub- 
 ject Of READING-PLEASURES, and show 
 
how great are the obligations of society 
 to authors in general; yet as this can 
 hardly be done without also adverting 
 to what may be termed our ^-obliga- 
 tions to the same pains-taking class of 
 citizens, censure (implied at least) will 
 mingle with approbation : but an effort 
 shall be made to avoid the former as 
 much as possible, and to administer the 
 latter on every fair opportunity with a 
 liberal hand. 
 
7 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 JLN a small work on Light-Read- 
 
 O 
 
 ing, and its influence upon taste and 
 morals, published some years ago, I took 
 occasion to observe that Novels, in the 
 usual acceptation of that word, form a 
 species of reading which prevents the 
 admirers of these compositions from 
 relishing books of any other kind: the 
 fact is incontrovertible; such works in 
 general, either find a bad taste in the 
 reader, or make one. But, it unfor- 
 tunately happens that they, for whose 
 benefit the remark has been made, are 
 the only persons who question its truth ; 
 
and it would be as difficult to bring 
 conviction home to the mind of a tho- 
 nmglt-paced Novel-Reader, on this point, 
 as it would be to persuade the enlight- 
 ened and tasteful to approve of the 
 circulating trash of Leadenhall-Street, 
 and throw aside the delightful volumes 
 of the virtuous and the learned. 
 
 To the first named, I apprehend that 
 the requisite proofs, if adduced, would 
 not be intelligible; to others they are 
 needless; but a sense of duty to my- 
 self, and a wish to be perfectly under- 
 stood by you in my outset, urge me to 
 .say something upon this subject. A 
 rul remark, however, on the nature 
 
of these attractive books, will here suf- 
 fice; that and other friends of 
 
 ours who are deeply read in their con- 
 tents, may (through you) have one more 
 opportunity of re-considering the char- 
 ges already brought against their fa- 
 vorites; and that some of them, whose 
 literary hearts are still at their own dis- 
 //osa/,may not be left altogether without 
 
 a warning. 
 
 It will be admitted that Books are 
 sources of pleasure to their readers, 
 either as they afford instruction from the 
 matter they contain, the manner in which 
 this is conveyed to the reader, or both. 
 1/ut it would be very difficult to dis- 
 
10 
 
 cover these qualities, separate or united, 
 in what are commonly called Novels : 
 in the adventures of imaginary beings, 
 involved in various improbable difficul- 
 ties, falsely insinuated to be due result 
 of the passion of Love. There are many 
 persons who will dispute the fairness of 
 this definition; because there are many 
 who have as inadequate notions of Love, 
 as they have of human character; but 
 their erroneous ideas might be corrected 
 by a very easy and a very pleasurable 
 process: the cure of minds thus dis- 
 tempered would probably be best effect- 
 ed by the perusal of History, and of 
 the real memoirs of mz/men and women* 
 
II 
 
 taken up immediately after they have 
 read one of their beloved novels. A 
 want of truth, wilful or involuntary is, 
 no doubt, discoverable in the stories 
 of nations and individuals; but on the 
 whole, truth will be faund in such, 
 more frequently than falsehood; and 
 the reader who occasionally ventures to 
 rely on Lord Clarendon, or the Due de 
 Sully, has at least the double gratifica- 
 tion of believing and doubting; while 
 the woes, and mysteries, and wonders, 
 and sorrows of the circulating library 
 must be received with unqualified as- 
 sent, or totally rejected. 
 
 But even allowing that the historian 
 
12 
 
 and the novel-maker were intitled to 
 full and equal credence for the transac- 
 tions they relate, may it not be asked 
 if there is not almost as much enter- 
 taining reflection excited by the labors 
 of the former as of the latter? By fan- 
 cying ourselves, for instance, in White- 
 hall, at the concluding scene of the 
 life of Charles; imagining the lofty 
 scaffold, surrounded by mute and hor- 
 ror-stricken multitudes; the spectral 
 form of the masked executioner, the 
 glitter of the fatal axe, and the un- 
 happy king bending with manly com- 
 posure to the block, as can be derived 
 from believing that Clarabellissima de 
 
13 
 
 Bergenopzoom is actually sitting under 
 torrents of rain on the Cliff at Brighton, 
 dressed partly a la Belisaire, with a 
 Wellington hat on her head, lemon-kid 
 slippers on her feet, and a volume of 
 Little's Poems in her hand, while the 
 monks of a neighbouring abbey are 
 chaunting vespers? There are argu- 
 ments which might be brought forward 
 to show that history contains as much 
 instruction and amusement as novels; 
 but the above illustration has been se- 
 lected, in the hope that from its sim- 
 plicity and conciseness it is more likely 
 
 to be remembered by to whom 
 
 I request you will communicate it. 
 
LETTER HI. 
 
 the Essay on Light- 
 Reading was first published, various 
 observations were made upon the work 
 b y Reviewers, and in the letters, and con- 
 versations of private persons: these 
 w r ere, in most instances, favorable to 
 the motives by which I was influenced in 
 writing the Essay, though my periodical 
 censors are not quite of one mind as to 
 the ability shown in the performance: 
 some observing that the work displays 
 great ingenuity and good sense, and 
 others that, however well intended, 
 it is lamentably silly and absurd. 
 
15 
 
 Among the number of friendly critics 
 on the occasion, an individual of no 
 ordinary reputation for taste and ta- 
 lents, condescended to give his senti- 
 ments in a letter to an acquaintance, 
 with such serious politeness and so 
 much delicacy, that a reply became 
 necessary to prevent the usual interpre- 
 tation to which silence is liable. As I 
 conceive my defence to have been a 
 good one, and as the subject in question 
 is connected with part of my present 
 design, I shall here repeat the substance 
 of what I then delivered in vindication 
 of myself, and of the opinions I had 
 advanced respecting the poetry of Swift 
 
16 
 
 and Pope, and the novels of Fielding 
 and Smollett. 
 
 The first observation in the letter re- 
 ferred to is " that all language which 
 would be indecent in conversation is 
 not for that reason alone unfit to be 
 read in the closet, if it has no tendency 
 to inflame the passions, and especially 
 if its object be to excite the love of 
 what is good by contrasting it with the 
 most disgusting exhibitions of its op- 
 posite bad." But, to this 1 answer, 
 that indecency is likely to influence the 
 passions of all except such as are habi- 
 tuated to its operation: and surely a 
 pure mind would shrink from clandestine 
 
IT 
 
 familiarity with topics which could 
 not, without a blush, be introduced 
 into conversation : besides, it is in the 
 twilight of the closet, and not in the 
 broad day of social intercourse, that the 
 young mind imbibes the poison which 
 taints it. The test is to be found in 
 the answer to a very plain demand: 
 does there live a father so immodest, 
 so lost to every just, or, every selfish 
 consideration, as to read Pope's " Epis- 
 tle from Eloisa, parts of his Rape of 
 the Lock, or Swift's Lady's dressing- 
 room, &c. to his daughter! 
 
 " Good" says the writer of the tetter, 
 " is recommended by its contrast of 
 
18 
 
 evil." The fact is exceedingly doubtful; 
 but it is beyond all doubt that Pope 
 and Swift, in the above-mentioned 
 effusions, had no intention whatever 
 of promoting the cause of virtue and 
 decency by the force of contrast. 
 
 It is indeed true that all the writings 
 of these eminent men were not de- 
 signed for the edification of the young; 
 and it is equally true that edification 
 was unfortunately very seldom the ob- 
 ject of either Swift or Pope. 
 
 Their works are afterwards denied to 
 be properly classed with Light Reading: 
 in this stricture there is an apparent 
 over-sight; the Essay speaks only of 
 
19 
 
 some of their poems as unfit to be 
 placed in youthful hands : the lan- 
 guage of censure might, however, have 
 been fairly extended to much of the 
 prose writings of the witty Dean ; but 
 the design of the Essay here was to 
 prove that it was possible for an au- 
 thor to be poetical without being im- 
 moral. The noble strains of Milton, 
 of Thomson, of Goldsmith, and of 
 Cowper, put this possibility out of 
 dispute. 
 
 I am asked, " Why combat what all 
 mankind are united in defending? 
 My answer is already given: the ex- 
 periment suggested would make any 
 
go 
 
 virtuous father tremble; and shall a 
 man excuse in another what in his own 
 case he would scorn to do ? It surely 
 cannot be true that the enlightened of 
 these countries are of my accomplished 
 opponent's opinion, and leagued to 
 defend all the writings of Swift and 
 Pope; but if they were, their sentiments 
 (from the weight such sentiments must 
 have,) should be the more rigidly ex- 
 amined, and their partiality proved to 
 be well founded. 
 
 It is scarcely worth asking whether 
 Swift wrote some of his compositions 
 to mend, or to expose, his fellow-crea- 
 tures? Cut admitting, in the extreme 
 
a 
 
 of charity, that his object was to make 
 them better by indecent exhibitions 
 of their vices and frailties, this design 
 may have been his reason, but cannot 
 be allowed as \nsexcuse; and, indeed, 
 while he lashes us, we can hardly avoid 
 thinking* that he despairs of our refor- 
 mation, and inflicts his stripes like one 
 who rather wishes to punish than to 
 improve us. 
 
 As to the poems of Swift and Pope 
 not being justly classed with Light * 
 Reading, as intimated; they come, I 
 apprehend, under that head as reason- 
 ably as the novels of Fielding and 
 Smollett : to arraign all the delinquents 
 
22 
 
 Sn the two capacities of novel-writing 
 and poetry was impracticable ; and in 
 the last-named exercise of the human 
 faculties, two capital criminals were 
 required, who, for abilities and po- 
 pularity might be compared with the 
 authors of Tom Jones and Roderick 
 Random. 
 
 Thus much was requisite on the above 
 topic, not only in behalf of myself, but 
 as preparatory to the object of my 
 future letters ; in which it is my re- 
 solution to speak of several authors of 
 celebrity, with the same freedom used 
 in the Essay ; and instead of searching 
 for authorities and illustrations among 
 
writers known only to the few, and bj 
 them more talked of than known, I 
 shall generally select such as may be 
 termed popular, whose labors are to be 
 found on almost every book-shelf, and 
 most of whose names are in every 
 mouth; and before 1 conclude, I have 
 little doubt of being able to accumulate 
 a great deal of applicable matter in 
 support of my assertion, that some of 
 the books in ordinary use, properly 
 employed, afford the genuine medicine 
 of the soul, and greatly contribute to 
 " gladden life," and extract the venom 
 from its worst evils. On these I shall 
 dwell ; and pass by such as are of an 
 
t 
 
 opposite kind ; of which it may be 
 enough here to say, that they are cal- 
 culated to corrupt both the taste and 
 the heart, to incapacitate those whom 
 they pervert, from exerting the facul- 
 ties they possess, incline them to esteem 
 their existence a burden not a blessing, 
 and render them unwelcome as associ- 
 ates to their fellow-beings, and, as crea- 
 tures, unthankful to heaven. 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 I SHOULD offer you an apo- 
 logy for the authoritative tone I may 
 now and then assume, and for appear- 
 ing to give you information, but am 
 restrained by recollecting that my let- 
 ters are intended for the benefit of 
 others, and only for your amusement; 
 I therefore proceed to say, 
 
 That I have lived long enough to 
 have experienced a complete revolution 
 in most of my opinions, and, I trust, 
 to have changed some of them for the 
 better; but, in nothing has the alter- 
 ation of my sentiments been greater 
 
26 
 
 than in wbat relates to the subject of 
 books in general, and especially the 
 works of different English writers. 
 You know how highly I esteem your 
 taste and judgment ; I therefore believe 
 you will smile, (as indeed I myself do 
 at the recollection.) when I tell you 
 that at an early period of life, the 
 farrago of bombast called Ossian's 
 Poems, served me as a model of sub- 
 limity; and as to the versifiers, the 
 mewlings of the Dellacruscan school 
 were then in my mind the choicest ex- 
 amples of the sweet and tender in 
 poetry ! 
 
 That this could ever have been the 
 
27 
 
 fact seems to me now most astonishing; 
 it is, nevertheless, perfectly true, but 
 the mania did not endure long; and a 
 good while before the termination of 
 the last century those delectable ef- 
 fusions, and others of their class, 
 had become objects of my contempt. 
 Shortly after ihe appearance of Mr. 
 Gifford's excellent Baviad, the Delia- 
 cmscans were no more, and had ceased 
 to be subjects even of ridicule. And, 
 as this age has brought with it another 
 and a purer taste than the preceding, 
 I dare say an admirer of any of the 
 above productions would be as difficult 
 to find at present in our literary circles^ 
 
28 
 
 as a wolf in Wales, or even as an uni- 
 corn in the world. 
 
 We must not, however, be too presump- 
 tuous, nor plume ourselves overmuch on 
 our refinement; for probably some such 
 remark as has just escaped me may be 
 made by posterity on our times: there 
 are fashions in literary feelings as in clo- 
 thing, and the rancourofsomeReviewers 
 and Satirists, whose grandfathers are 
 yet unborn, may be poured forth on the 
 literati of this day for having perused 
 with rapture the " Stranger in Ireland/' 
 " Travels in Albania/' &c. It does, I 
 allow, appear incredible that such a 
 change should ever occur: that a race 
 
of writers and readers should hereafter 
 arise in England to excel our writers 
 and readers, and sneer irreverently at 
 the prices at which we purchase, and 
 the acclamations with which we greet 
 works now esteemed fit subjects of na- 
 tional pride: this is incredible, but 
 what is incredible may sometimes de- 
 serve another name; and it is possible 
 that posterity may deride our liking for 
 what we conceive to be imperishable 
 works; for those performances in which 
 we imagine no future critic can detect 
 a fault, nor human genius ever be able 
 to excel. You know r that Maundeville 
 and Tom D'Urfey had their day; it 
 
7 
 
 SO 
 
 therefore may happen that in less than 
 one hundred years the verses of P. and 
 the itinerary prose of H. will he for- 
 gotten, or remembered only as curious 
 proofs of what the then people of Eng- 
 land ^ill be pleased to call our bar- 
 barism; perhaps be kept to be stared 
 at and laughed at, as we stare and laugh 
 at the hoop-petticoats, jack-boots and 
 scarlet stockings of our ancestors. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as if 
 I thought that books fall into oblivion 
 or disrepute merely because they are 
 old; for, it must be granted that this 
 is not always the case. The Paradise 
 lost for example, has been a great 
 
31 
 
 while written, and is now more read 
 and more justly appreciated than it 
 was when Tonson printed the first 
 edition: and the Spectators of Steele 
 (for Steele wrote more of those papers 
 than Addison) have outlived their hun- 
 dred springs. 
 
 In these and some more English 
 works of celebrity there is a sort of in- 
 herent resistance to decay, by which 
 their fame is insured : I am also inclined 
 to suspect that some such antiputrescent 
 qualities are discoverable in the poetry 
 of Thomson, Goldsmith, Beattie, and 
 a few more; I persuade myself that 
 they are sustained by a species of 
 
vitality, not altogether inexplicable, 
 at least which I need not explain to you, 
 but without which neither book nor 
 man can hope to see length of days. 
 
 Of books it may be observed that 
 among such as are in common use with 
 English readers, and to these, remem- 
 ber, I shall generally confine myself, 
 there are several which every one re- 
 lishes: and of readers it is equally cer- 
 tain, that each has a partiality for some 
 particular kind of writing; a bias not 
 arising, possibly, from any portion of 
 ability displayed by the author, nor 
 from any peculiar discrimination in the 
 reader. The cause lies deeper: we ap- 
 
33 
 
 pear to be actuated by various motives; 
 some read from a desire of general in- 
 formation; some in the acknowledged 
 pursuit of a- particular object; some 
 through vanity; which will not let 
 them rest in ignorance of what is known 
 to others; some in order to divert their 
 thoughts from subjects of a painful na- 
 ture; and some with a design not less 
 wicked than foolish of what is denomi- 
 nated killing time. But in reality were 
 we carefully to investigate our feelings, 
 it would be found that in a chosen book, 
 as in a lover, or a mistress, there abides 
 a secret something by which the affec- 
 tions are caught; it probably meet* 
 D 
 
34 
 
 some sly and lurking principle scarcely 
 known to ourselves; supports a favorite 
 hypothesis, talks peace to a bosom 
 where some sorrow not avowed, and 
 never to be avowed, has fixed its dwell- 
 ing; or calls up to memory the irre- 
 trievable past with all its circumstances; 
 and these totally unconnected with the 
 matter of the volume: but then, it tells 
 of where, and when, and by whom the 
 pages were once turned and admired, 
 and is inestimable to the reader for a 
 thousand reasons which he does not 
 in all likelihood, could not disclose. 
 
 There are few who have not experi- 
 enced the feelings alluded to in this 
 
35 
 
 observation: but setting aside these 
 inducements to the perusal of particular 
 books, there are undoubtedly works 
 which in themselves deserve to be 
 esteemed for their adaptation to the 
 general taste, and at the same time for 
 their usefulness: such I conceive to be 
 every thing belonging to the class of 
 BIOGRAPHY, the lives of men, eminent 
 or obscure (it signifies little which they 
 are,) by faithful narrators; memoirs of 
 individuals, diaries, biographical anec- 
 dotes, &c. Books of this kind will, 
 after all, be ever the most gratifying, 
 and may prove the best teachers of th 
 best lessons. 
 
 D2 
 
36 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 JL T is from their attempted re- 
 semblance to writings of the kind men- 
 tioned in my last that Novels derive 
 their power of pleasing: but their being- 
 fictitious destroys the effect; the reader 
 of a well written novel has pleasure in 
 the perusal, chiefly because during the 
 process, the fact of its being a fiction 
 is forgotten: the mind is for the time, 
 deceived, and shadows are converted 
 into substance: were a perpetual con- 
 sciousness that the whole narrative is 
 the work of invention, to attend the 
 reader in his progress through the en- 
 
37 
 
 ticing pages of a master-artist in this 
 species of composition ; for instance of 
 Le Sage (who is, however, onlj the 
 translator of Gil Bias) or of Richardson, 
 or M c . Kenzie, his delight would change 
 into somewhat resembling contempt. 
 But how exquisitely would the reader's 
 indulgence be heightened could he know 
 that the adventures of Signior de Saa- 
 tillane were authenticated facts; could 
 he be perfectly assured that the hapless 
 Clarissa so nobly lived and so grace- 
 fully died, or that the fine characters 
 of the venerable Annesley or of Ryland, 
 in the " Man of the World," were re- 
 alities) instead of being phantoms, 
 
38 
 
 summoned to human -view by the magic 
 powers of genius! 
 
 1 firmly believe this to be true, but 
 let us examine it in another light, and 
 only suppose how much it would dimi- 
 nish the interest excited by any histori- 
 cal narration, were the admiring reader 
 informed in the chapter following that 
 which had just engaged his utmost 
 attention, that the historian had good 
 reason for doubting, or, indeed, dis- 
 crediting the whole of what had been 
 related. 
 
 Were he convinced by sufficient do- 
 cuments that Mary Stuart either never 
 existed, or was destitute of personal 
 
n 
 
 charms, and died of old age; or that 
 no such accomplished and gallant gen- 
 tleman as Sir Philip Sydney adorned 
 the British records: that the mournful 
 scene in the hall at Fotheringay was 
 imaginary; and the heroic deportment 
 of him who fell on the field of Zutphen, 
 was utterly without foundation, how 
 vapid, how disgusting to a discerning 
 mind would these stories prove ! 
 
 History (of every description) how- 
 ever defective the composition of it> 
 however erroneous the writer's reflec- 
 tions may be, if it can boast the single 
 excellence of being frwe,must be thought 
 instructive: a novel, written with all 
 
40 
 
 the talents which can be applied to the 
 execution of such a work, must through 
 the want of this important quality of 
 truth, be useless. Richardson with all 
 his art and all his eloquence, in fact, 
 teaches nothing when he \vould wil-* 
 lingly give a most beneficial lesson : 
 Sir Charles Grandison, affronted arid 
 defied by a formidable adversary, is 
 represented as calm under insult, and 
 immoveable under provocations exceed- 
 ing the ordinary limits of human en- 
 durance; invincibly resolute in support 
 of his pre-determination not to draw 
 his sword, nor forsake his own high 
 principles of right conduct; and vet 
 
41 
 
 managing his refusal to fight a duel, 
 with such dexterity, as to evade the 
 act not only with spotless honour, but 
 so as to impress the reader with in- 
 creased veneration for his courage. 
 Alas! What becomes of the precept 
 the author would inculcate, when we 
 remember that the goodly show is but 
 an air drawn vision ; and that Sir 
 Charles and Sir Hargrave are shadowy 
 and fantastic things which are not were 
 not! 
 
 On the contrary, let the young mili- 
 tary man read the following plainly- 
 told and well authenticated story, and 
 his emotions will convince him of the 
 
42 
 
 efficacy with which truth is employed, 
 when virtue is to be taught. 
 
 Early in the revolutionary war against 
 Austria, a detachment of French sol- 
 diers of the regiment ofAuvergne under 
 the command of a captain, lay on their 
 arms at night, considerably in advance., 
 w r here they were posted for the purpose 
 of alarming the main body of the 
 French forces, in case of an attack 
 from their well-disciplined and more 
 powerful enemy: the night was un- 
 usualiy dark, and notwithstanding their 
 captain's vigilance, the Austrians cams 
 by surprise on liis sleeping men, six 
 of the foe, w r ith fixed bayonets sud- 
 
43 
 
 denly stood before him, and pointing 
 their weapons at his breast, desired 
 him in a whisper, to keep silence on 
 pain of immediate death. In the bo- 
 som of this great man, the sentiment of 
 duty, valour and love of country was 
 paramount to all selfish feeling; the 
 fatal menace was scarcely pronounced, 
 when using the utmost force of his voice, 
 he shouted loudly to his comrades 
 and died the death of the brave! The 
 signal was sufficient; the alarm was 
 spread, the design of the enemy baffled, 
 and their party cut off. 
 
 The reflections to which the perusal 
 of such a fact as the above gives birth, 
 
i 
 
 jf 
 
 are among the most pleasing and salu- 
 tary: while it is impossible that the 
 happiest imitation of truth, when per* 
 ceiued to be an imitation, can ever 
 produce any thing similar. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 OU are aware that it is with 
 great diffidence I offer you my ob- 
 servations on such a subject as the 
 pleasures of MISCELLANEOUS READING: 
 my venturing to do so you will accept 
 as a testimony that I rely thoroughly on 
 your judgment, acuteness and discre- 
 tion ; and I am satisfied that you will 
 neither mistake my meaning, nor allow 
 it to be misconceived by those for 
 whose immediate advantage these slight 
 remarks are intended. I am not at all 
 apprehensive of your placing them in- 
 cautiously before certain persons of our 
 
46 
 
 acquaintance, whom I need not name, 
 but who affect the barbarous character 
 of book-haters, and with respect to 
 whom, I have a little, though but a 
 little to say. 
 
 Cicero himself would fail, could 
 Cicero now be found and prevailed on 
 to attempt giving a just description of 
 the pains and penalties which await 
 such men and women as are incapable 
 of flying for refuge to books in seasons 
 of indisposition, loneliness, or mental 
 depression. 
 
 The Idler, or book-scorner of either 
 sex, though commonly an object of 
 contempt, ought much rather to excite 
 
the pity of the assiduous and enlight- 
 ened; since nothing can well be ima- 
 gined more deplorable than the condi- 
 tion of a human being on whose hands 
 time is vulgarly said to hang heavy; 
 nothing indeed is more pitiable except 
 the state of those who, by various 
 means, are compelled to suffer misery 
 in consequence. 
 
 Suppose a gentlewoman insensible 
 to the pleasure which, you know, 
 books can impart; and allow her all 
 possible advantages besides; beaut y, 
 health, sweet-temper (preposterously so 
 called,) and riches: admit that she can 
 dance like the Didelot, and sing like 
 
48 
 
 Catalani, or Miss ; grant her all 
 
 this; and still the chances are that in 
 her transit through the world, whether 
 in the capacity of a married or an 
 unmarried member of society she will 
 do a great deal of mischief and be of 
 very little service to her fellow crea- 
 tures: and should she, in old age, 
 especially if single, have senses enough 
 left to make any reflections, she will 
 probably not derive much satisfaction , 
 from the comparison of what she has 
 been, with what she might have 
 been: from remembering that it was 
 possible to have employed herself 
 better than in giving business at first 
 
49 
 
 to the milliner, and at last to thje 
 card-maker; better, than in contribu- 
 ting to the public revenue' by having 
 consumed, in the course of practice* three 
 or four hundred pounds, avoirdupois, of 
 Scotch snuff: better than by means of 
 meddling, scandal and tale-bearing in 
 having produced several unsuitable and 
 unhappy marriages, and as many sepa- 
 rations: better, than in sowing th^etx- 
 tion between parents and children ; or 
 than in presiding at concerts, leading 
 the ton at balls and assemblies of other 
 kinds, and educating some scores of 
 monkies, canary birds, squirrels and 
 lap dogs. 
 
50 
 
 The male of the book-hating species 
 will not have any greater reason to 
 felicitate himself, when he recollects 
 how his days have been expended. 
 Comfortless and chaotic will be the 
 retrospect when, on attaining the age 
 of sixty or seventy years, he discovers 
 that during half a century of oppor- 
 tunities he has not dedicated twelve 
 months to the act of reading, and that 
 this poor portion of irrevocable life w r as 
 exhausted in dreaming over news-papers 
 and magazines, and the dullest parts 
 of both. 
 
 On these and such as these I shall no 
 longer waste your moments or my own ; 
 
51 
 
 but point your attention to a higher* 
 or rather a less debased order of man* 
 kind; those, who though they read per- 
 petually, read nothing except what 
 they ought to neglect. To such of this 
 description as are of your acquaint* 
 ance, I would through you, and in 
 these letters, make an earnest appeal 
 in favour of books of real merit, and 
 endeavour to direct their attention to 
 several which to me appear deserving of 
 it. What I advance in behalf of the 
 authors recommended shall in general 
 be supported by testimonies from their 
 works; and though this will render it 
 necessary to introduce a large share of 
 
 a 
 
52 
 
 quotations, you will excuse the cir- 
 cumstance, and the more readily, as 
 whatever I cite from others will be 
 better than any thing I could offer from 
 myself. 
 
53 
 
 LETTER VIL 
 
 A HAVE said that according to 
 my conception, in Biography , and in 
 whatever belongs to biographical anec- 
 dote, there resides more enticement for 
 general readers than in any other species 
 of writing. For this, among many 
 reasons which might be assigned, one 
 is, that Biography is not what it has 
 been called history in miniature, but, 
 the history of Man brought nearer to 
 his mind's eye. 
 
 Were the majority of readers com- 
 posed of monarchs, captains or states, 
 men, which very fortunately is not the 
 
54 
 
 fact, the histories of nations and go- 
 vernments might be -more generally 
 studied than they are; but still the 
 nature of Biography would leave it all 
 the advantage it now has over historical 
 relation, in the power of interesting 
 the passions. Few men have any 
 chance of becoming principal actors 
 on the great political stage; but the 
 sovereign, the general, and the minister 
 are certain of experiencing all the 
 pains and pleasures of ordinary men, 
 and whatsoever serves them to alleviate 
 the one or increase the other, must ba 
 equally serviceable to their rulers, 
 Neither in the tempers nor in the for 
 
55 
 
 tunes of mankind is there any thing 
 new: the story of any one person's 
 feelings related without reserve would 
 prove to be that of thousands of his 
 own rank: it would be a narrative of 
 petty follies committed, and trivial 
 accidents encountered or narrowly 
 escaped; of partialities and prejudices; 
 of slighted or successful love; of good 
 and evil, done and suffered : of ambi- 
 tion disappointed or gratified; of the 
 alternations of hope and fear, health 
 and sickness, joy and sorrow: and the 
 delineation of a fellow-creature's career 
 in life delights, not from its novelty, 
 but because it is in every respect the 
 
56 
 
 reverse of what is new, and because it 
 reflects images with which the reader's 
 feelings are -already familiar. 
 
 It is a fixed principle in our character 
 as human beings to be desirous of 
 knowing how others have conducted 
 themselves in circumstances which have 
 been, or may be our own; and this 
 curiosity is amply repaid by biogra- 
 phical anecdote, and by no other sort 
 of writing. 
 
 On this subject an eminent author 
 makes a very just and ingenious ob- 
 servation. " Of detailed biography too 
 much praise cannot readily be given; 
 it coMies homivfo ev<>rv man's heart and 
 
57 
 
 bosom. If history be philosophy teach- 
 ing by example, biography is moral 
 philosophy made dramatic. A critique 
 upon the lives and conduct of several 
 distinguished persons, executed with 
 judgment, and with a just appreciation 
 of their failings and merits would prove 
 a complete course of moral experimental 
 philosophy." To this excellent remark 
 I presume to add a thought which has 
 often occurred to me : biography, espe- 
 cially such as we are now considering, 
 can be relished without its being in- 
 cumbent on the reader to bring witk 
 him to the perusal any considerable 
 share of preparatory knowledge; it is., 
 
58 
 
 to use a phrase frequently applied 
 otherwise, easy reading: but this is 
 scarcely true of any other sort of li- 
 terature, A certain portion of refine- 
 ment and vivacity of imagination is 
 required to render even the lighter 
 classes of poetry agreeable. The study 
 of the sciences commonly so called, 
 cannot be pursued without such an 
 effort of the mind as is always accom- 
 panied by painful sensations: and with 
 respect to history, it cannot be read 
 advantageously, but by those who have 
 fiinds of information previously ac- 
 quired. Priestly, in speaking of the 
 varieties of learning which the student 
 
of history ought to possess, insists upon 
 what few readers can boast of, yet on 
 nothing which can be dispensed with : 
 an acquaintance with human nature, 
 that he may be able to comprehend the 
 characters and actions of men : philo* 
 sophical attainments; a knowledge of 
 astronomy and mathematics; and of 
 what he terms the eyes of history, geo- 
 graphy and chronology. 
 
00 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 JjfjLY meaning in recommending 
 Biography for its attractive qualities 
 (and among them the facility with 
 which it is read is not the least) will per- 
 haps be more obvious, if we try the effect 
 of a few particulars extracted from 
 the life of an individual, mentioned by 
 Hawkins in his account of Johnson. 
 
 The unhappy and imprudent S. Boyce 
 was a man of great talents: he was 
 reduced to excessive misery, and in that 
 state died at a poor lodging in Shoe- 
 Lane, London, in May, 1749, and was 
 buried at the charge of the parish. In 
 
61 
 
 1742, while confined in a spunging- 
 house, the Crown Coffee-house, Grocer's 
 Alley, Poultry, he solicited relief from 
 Cave, the conductor of the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, to whom he despatched the 
 following horrible lines : 
 
 '* Hodie, teste coelo summo, 
 
 Sine pane, sine nummo, 
 
 Sortc posit us infeste, 
 
 Scribo tibi dolens tnoeste. 
 
 Fame, bile, tumet jecur ; 
 
 Urbane ! Mitte opem precor : 
 
 Tibi enira tor humanum, 
 
 Non a malis alienum ; 
 
 Mihi niens nee male grato 
 
 Pro a te favore dato, 
 Ex Gehenna debitoria, 
 Vulgo doino spongiatoria." 
 
OS 
 
 Which I venture to translate: 
 
 Be witness, heaven, that I this daj 
 
 Of need and hunger am the prey; 
 
 And sinking under various woes, 
 
 My doleful case to you disclose ; 
 
 With frenzy fili'd, with want opprest : 
 
 Urban ! give ear to my request; 
 
 For thine's the truly generaus mind 
 
 That feels for all of human kind ; 
 
 Nor will my heart ungrateful be 
 
 For any goodness shown to me. 
 From debtor's hell, where I've been cramm'd, 
 A spunging-house by wretches nam'd. 
 
 Indigence had confined this profli- 
 gate and luckless genius to a bed with* 
 out sheets, and there, to procure food, 
 he was accustomed to write, in a sit- 
 ting posture; w r hile his only covering 
 
I 
 
 was a blanket, in which a hole was 
 made to admit of his employing his 
 arm ! 
 
 From this brief outline there certainly 
 is not much to be learned; but it tells 
 us a tale from which, notwithstanding, 
 some good may be drawn. The dangers 
 to which vice and improvidence expose 
 their votaries, the afflictions with which 
 poverty has to contend, and to which 
 mental energy may be opposed, glare 
 upon us while we read. We fancy, and 
 cannot help fancying the scene this ac- 
 count refers to: the squalid, and sunless, 
 and cheerless retreat of so much wretch- 
 edness appears before us; we picture to 
 
64 
 
 ourselves the pale face, the wasted form, 
 and sunken eye of the sufferer; and 
 can imagine the condition of his mind, 
 who with appetites for luxuries; with 
 taste for every variety of intellectual 
 gratification, and for all the pleasure* 
 society can afford, and sensibilities 
 capable of feeling all the tenderness 
 friendship can bestow w r as destitute 
 of food, raiment, liberty, friend and 
 associate, the victim of remorse and 
 despair, expiring in a dungeon. 
 
 Contrast with this article, the best 
 contrived incident in the best written 
 novel, or other work of fiction that 
 can be found, and how spiritless and 
 
65 
 
 void of interest will it not seem! And 
 fiovv much more spiritless and unin- 
 teresting any passage from the history 
 of merely national affairs and political 
 events, how just soever the historian's 
 observations, or however lucid the ar- 
 rangement of his expressions! 
 
 Before you consult Hume or Robert- 
 son, and bring the remark to the test of 
 a comparison, let us turn to an anecdote 
 of a totally distinct complexion from 
 the story of poor Boyce. It relates to 
 a circumstance of general notoriety,, 
 and of recent date: I transcribe from 
 the Courier news-paper of May, 1813. 
 
 " On the examination before a court- 
 
66 
 
 martial, of the surviving officers of his 
 Majesty's ship, Java, Jones Humble, 
 boatswain, deposed as follows: 
 
 " About an hour after the action 
 commenced, (with an American ship of 
 superior force. J I was wounded; I went 
 down, and stopped near an hour; and 
 when I got my arm put a little to rights, 
 by a turniquet being clapped on it, 
 for my hand was carried away, and my 
 arm wounded above the elbow, I put 
 the arm into the bosom of my shirt, 
 and went up again ; when I saw the 
 enemy a-head of us repairing his da- 
 mages. 
 
 "I had in v orders from Lieutenant 
 
67 
 
 Chads, before the action began to 
 cheer up the boarders with my pipe, 
 that they might make a clear spring in 
 boarding." 
 
 This anecdote, you will observe, be- 
 longs to the department of history, but 
 what renders it precious to the feelings 
 is its being a feature in the biography 
 of an individual, and calling forth a 
 multiplicity of agreeable reflections: it 
 exhibits a fine, and truly characteristic 
 specimen of a very extraordinary class 
 of people, British sailors. 
 
 Humble' s hand is torn from his shat- 
 tered arm; about which, however, he 
 appears actually unconcerned; and is 
 
 F2 
 
only anxious to regain his honourable 
 station on the deck, and obey his 
 officer's orders. 
 
 * There is positively nothing in the 
 annals of Grecian or Roman heroism 
 superior to this instance of professional 
 fidelity, and magnanimous contempt 
 for personal sufferings : and it is a most 
 striking proof of the loftiness of the 
 English spirit, to find such a fact steal- 
 ing modestly into public view through 
 the channel of a news-paper; and there 
 stated not as a surprising occurrence, 
 but a matter of course, and a thing 
 expected. 
 
69 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 J[ HE importance and general 
 magnitude of the subject of the book 
 we are reading will not make it interest- 
 ing. The history of man is a topic of 
 infinitely greater moment than that of 
 any one man ; yet I will venture to as- 
 sert that the latter is not only decidedly 
 more amusing, but more instructive, 
 and of course more useful than the 
 first. 
 
 When we read that the Civil Wars 
 of Charles's time stained England with 
 the blood of her citizens, sent one kiftg 
 to the block, and another into exile; 
 
70 
 
 threw the laws of the country into con- 
 fusion, interrupted the administration of 
 public justice, and disseminated fanati- 
 cism, discord and unchristian animosi- 
 ties in the realm, we here recognize the 
 melancholy story of a mighty kingdom 
 distracted, and of the ruin which over- 
 whelmed many thousands of the virtu- 
 ous, the valiant and the wise; we read all 
 this, and read itwith apathy compared to 
 the emotions of lively curiosity and 
 anxious alarm elicited by the account 
 
 of Worcester-fight, and its consequences 
 
 
 
 to the mean, hard-hearted and licenti- 
 ous Charles II. We tremble for him 
 when hiding in the oak; follow him, as 
 
71 
 
 it were on tiptoe through the woods of 
 Boscobel ; we smile when he and Col. 
 Carles are employed in dressing their 
 own food: w r e delight to imagine to 
 ourselves what was the hue of his lonely 
 meditations all that silent Suixday, 
 " During which, (says Blount in his 
 curious narrative,) his Majesty spent 
 some time in reading in a pretty arbour 
 in Boscobel Garden, which grew upon 
 a mount and wherein there was a 
 stone table, and seats about it, and 
 commended the place for its retired- 
 ness/' The climax of feelings is worth 
 attending to: they become gradually 
 more lively as the subject becomes less 
 
72 
 
 momentous ; thus the reader's pleasure 
 is materially increased by an exact des- 
 cription of the dress worn at the time 
 by the royal fugitive, who had " doffed' 5 
 his finery soon after the battle, and as- 
 sumed the garb of artistic. 
 
 " His Majesty's attire/' says Blount, 
 u was then a leather* doublet with pew- 
 ter buttons, a pair of old green breeches, 
 and a jump coat, (as the country calls 
 it,) of the same green; a pair of his 
 own stockens with the tops cut off, 
 because embro\ dered ; and a pair of 
 stirrop stockens, which were lent him 
 at Madeley : a pair of old shoes, cut and 
 slashed to give ease to his feet; an 
 
73 
 
 old gray, greazy hat without a lyning; 
 a noggen shirt of the coarsest linnen : 
 his face and hands made of a reechy 
 complexion, by the help of the walnut- 
 tree leaves." 
 
 Minute particulars are the heighten- 
 ing touches in a relation of any sort, 
 and prodigiously increase the reader's 
 pleasure, while the worth and the rank 
 of the parties add little or nothing to it. 
 The account of the invasion of Britain 
 by the Romans, has comparatively but 
 little interest for the reader: the des- 
 truction of the Spanish Armada engages 
 him more; the description of the sudden 
 sinking of the Royal George, as a gene- 
 
74 
 
 ral fact, more still : but who can read 
 without being greatly moved, of one 
 small incident which accompanied 
 the last-mentioned terrible casualty : 
 it is stated, that a boy, live years old, 
 clung closely to the back of a sheep 
 which floated from the vessel as she 
 went down, and conveyed its innocent 
 burden safe to shore ! 
 
 The mine is inexhaustible, and 1 
 should but tire you and myself were I 
 to bring forward all the proofs which 
 present themselves in favour of the in- 
 teresting nature of such reading as we 
 haye been considering : I shall, there- 
 fore, here take a temporary leave of 
 
75 
 
 that part of our subject, and proceed 
 with the original design of examining 
 the characters of a few works in gene- 
 ral circulation. 
 
 1 shall very candidly state the im- 
 pressions they left on my mind; from 
 which you may collect how they affected 
 me under various circumstances, and 
 how 1 conceive the books I shall notice, 
 and others of their kind, may be agree- 
 ably and usefully applied. 
 
76 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 I first entered upon 
 the design of these letters, I believed 
 thai the department of Travels would 
 have afforded room for a considerable 
 share of discussion; but in this ex- 
 pectation I am disappointed ; nor have 
 1 been able to summon to recollection 
 any traveller whose work can properly 
 be called a stock book. All travellers 
 have probably had readers from Coriat 
 to Sir ; but there are very few, if 
 any, of whose volumes it can be said 
 that they are found in every one's hands; 
 one reason for which is not that travels 
 
T7 
 
 may not be made exceedingly enter- 
 taining; but because they are generally 
 written so as to prove very much the 
 reverse: written in order to display the 
 importance of the traveller, or to sus- 
 tain a particular and favorite system of 
 his; or barely to tell the world that he 
 has been where nobody else ever was : 
 and especially, because the traveller 
 usually assumes, at starting, a certain 
 elevation of character which he con- 
 ceives himself necessitated to support 
 throughout; and having lavishly en- 
 dowed himself with divers heroic and 
 exalted qualities, natural and acquired, 
 he is ashamed to admit that he has said, 
 
78 
 
 suffered, or done any thing unworthy 
 of his imagined dignity. By thus dis- 
 claiming all mortal foibles in himself, 
 he is compelled to suppress innumer- 
 able petty circumstances which must 
 have occurred during the expedition, 
 and which would really have rendered 
 his pages amusing to most readers: 
 unless we are to suppose these readers 
 as free from all human weaknesses as 
 his imaginary self. But in the writings 
 of such a Phoenix, the frailty of ordi- 
 nary nature finds nothing to keep it in 
 countenance; not one lonely infirmity 
 to console the reader's feelings, and 
 make him some trifling amends for the 
 
79 
 
 vexation inflicted on his self-love by so 
 much excellence. 
 
 Books should be considered as com- 
 panions: it is Swift, 1 believe, who says 
 that for the purpose of enjoying the 
 pleasure of reading with the keenest 
 zest, we ought to fancy the author of 
 the volume we peruse actually speaking 
 to us; and it is not difficult to conceive 
 of what sort that character is which 
 w ? ould be most welcome to us in an 
 acquaintance. Should we not choose 
 one whose style of conversation was 
 perfectly easy, yet as untainted by vul- 
 garity as by pedantry; one w r ho could 
 
80 
 
 be rational, without being sententious ; 
 serious, not sour ; occasionally merry, 
 yet never boisterous or indecorous; no 
 declaimer, nor one given to dwell per- 
 tinaciously on any solitary topic to the 
 exclusion of every other, but full of 
 variety; and above all things neither 
 so extensively learned, nor so oppres- 
 sively amiable, as to keep us dejected 
 in his presence, debased in our own 
 esteem, and stunned with wonder 
 during the period of our intercourse? 
 Such, I am sure, as the above is the 
 ^definition of the associate whom I 
 should select; and it certainly would 
 
81 
 
 not be easy to show why it ought not 
 to apply at least as well to the book as 
 to the companion. 
 
 Under the fullest conviction that it 
 does, it may be amusing, and promote 
 our immediate object, to inquire how 
 far some established and much read 
 works correspond with the foregoing 
 description of what we ought to look 
 for. 
 
 Whether, for example, the writings 
 of STERNE will bear the test. They 
 are, perhaps^ as generally known, 
 as frequently reprinted in different 
 
 forms, and as constantly read among 
 G 
 
82 
 
 us, as those of any modern English 
 author. *- 
 
 Sterne is perpetually quoted and ap- 
 plauded as excelling in three respects, 
 namely, originality, tenderness and 
 humour. 
 
 Dr. Ferriar has proved with great 
 acuteness that he has little or no claim 
 to the title of an original author, and 
 that he is indebted for some of his hap* 
 piest thoughts to Rabelais, Burton, 
 Bishop Hall, Marivaux, &c. of whom 
 he- has made an unsparing and disin* 
 genuous use: and, indeed, to any at- 
 tentive reader of Dr. F/s ingenious 
 
treatise, it is manifest that Sterne's 
 strokes of pleasantry are frequently 
 purloined; of course, there remains of 
 his three alleged excellencies only the 
 power of awakening emotions of ten- 
 derness: and that he occasionally has 
 this power in a very eminent degree, 
 cannot be denied. He describes also 
 with singular felicity, and displays a 
 very extensive acquaintance with the 
 turnings and windings of the human 
 heart. Still I must be allowed to 
 assert, that had Sterne never either 
 stolen or borrowed the conceptions of 
 other writers; had he supplied laughter 
 to his readers only from storks of native 
 
 G2 
 
84 
 
 merriment ; and iqstead of failing, as 
 he sometimes does, invariably suc- 
 ceeded in his attempts at pathos^ yet 
 his works, I mean his Tristram Shandy 
 and Sentimental Journey, are so defiled 
 with impurities of all kinds as to render 
 them repulsive to every admirer of 
 moral propriety. 
 
 In his allusions to sacred subjects, 
 it is not saying too much to aver that 
 he now and then approaches the con- 
 fines of blasphemy: and, besides, not 
 only never misses, but incessantly 
 creates opportunities for the introduc- 
 tion of gross ideas. 
 
 lie fails, however, in matters of minor 
 
8* 
 
 consideration; while he would have his 
 readers suppose that he disdained a 
 regular and methodical narrative, he 
 leaves room for the suspicion that his 
 eccentricity was rather the effect of in- 
 capacity than choice. The persons 
 pourtrayed in his story of Mr. Shandy, 
 are goblins, not human beings: not 
 indiriduals selected from the mass of 
 mankind, but formations of bis own 
 which he chooses to call men, yet to 
 which he has assigned qualities never 
 found united in any one of our race. 
 The absurd attachment of Mr. Shandy 
 to exploded systems is totally incon- 
 sistent with the good sense and neatness 
 
ea 
 
 of observation he often displays ; and 
 the Cap fain at times evinces so sound 
 an understanding, that without sup- 
 posing him alternately doting and 
 rational, we cannot account for *ome 
 childish things which he says and does. 
 Don Quixote is not more insane when 
 he mistakes a flock of sheep for a hostile 
 army, than Uncle Toby in his propen- 
 sity to seeing every subject in a military 
 point of view. His courage, his sen- 
 sibility, his judicious benevolence, and 
 the experience he has had of life as a 
 soldier, do not accord with such traits 
 of egregious simplicity as the author 
 has thrown into the portrait; and 
 
87 
 
 which, had he been announced as a 
 harmless and diverting maniac, would 
 have been perfectly suitable. 
 
 Corporal Trim, who is vulgarly con- 
 ceived to be a chef-dceuvye in the ranks 
 of natural character, is, in fact, not 
 so: an old English soldier, and espe- 
 cially one who has held a station of 
 command, may be represented as fond 
 of recollecting and recounting what he 
 has done and suffered in his manly and 
 perilous vocation ; and familiarity with 
 his kind-hearted master, who had once 
 been his officer, is most becomingly 
 made a part of the picture; but he too 
 is as inconsistent, as puerile and as 
 visionary as the Captain. Neither does 
 
88 
 
 the fatiguing nse of the phrase " Your 
 honour' belong to the corporal; and 
 still less to the British man: it is the 
 expletive of servility, and I presume 
 of Irish growth. The people of Ireland, 
 when constrained to submit to English 
 rulers were forced also to flatter them, 
 and the practice has become habitual; 
 though now no more than form; as in 
 many parts of Britain the peasant re- 
 tains the feudal feature of moving his 
 hat to a well-dressed stranger. These, 
 howerer, are trivial strictures; trivial 
 in comparison with those invited by 
 the want of decency, for which Sterne 
 is so justly reprehensible. 
 
LETTER .XI. 
 
 THERE is a sketch of Sterne's 
 life prefixed to his works, the author 
 of which would willingly vindicate him, 
 and prove him innocent of the indeli- 
 cacy laid to his charge: he insinuates 
 that Sterne's violations of decorum are 
 not so much in his pages, as in the 
 minds and tastes of his readers. This 
 is poor sophistry, and an affront offered 
 to the common-sense of mankind: were 
 such a mode of argument admissible, 
 as this person uses in his defence of 
 Sterne's ambiguities, there is scarcely 
 any moral obliquity which may not 
 
90 
 
 find a similar excuse. If Sterne's man- 
 ner of writing is so obscure that it re- 
 quires peculiar discernment to discover 
 its beauties; if these are hidden, and if 
 his indecencies are perceptible at the 
 first glance, the question is decided. 
 
 We may be permitted to lament that 
 this accusation is so well founded; and 
 particularly that it should apply to the 
 Sentimental Journey ; for in it there cer- 
 tainly are many beautiful parts, many 
 of those passages which fill the mind 
 with charming ideas, and make the em- 
 ployment of reading so entertaining as 
 it is: which, to borrow the happy ex- 
 pressions of Sterne himself, " cheat ex 
 
91 
 
 flotation and sorrow of their weary 
 moments, and help us when tired of 
 ilie dull high-road of lift, and the 
 way is too rough and too steep for our 
 strength, to stray into enchanted ground, 
 and refresh ourselves in the smooth 
 velvet paths which fancy has scattered 
 over with rose-buds of delight." 
 
 There is hardly a book in the English 
 language more strictly applicable to the 
 present design than Sterne's Sentimen- 
 talJourney, of which I shall therefore 
 take a larger view than I can allow 
 myself of some other works. The po- 
 pularity of the c Journey 3 has been 
 rather increased than diminished by 
 
92 
 
 time; and as before observed, it abounds 
 in those qualifications which character- 
 ize books of entertainment; in humour, 
 tenderness, nice developement of the 
 human mind and its various motives; 
 and in fine specimens of what may be 
 called the art of painting with his pen, 
 in which the author was a very great 
 master: he exhibits on paper the ta- 
 lents of Carlo Dolce, Vandyke, Teniers 
 and Hogarth, and is often not inferior 
 in composition, colouring and truth to 
 any of them. 
 
 His portrait of the forlorn and gentle 
 Maria is complete in all the lines and 
 tints which constitute grace and soft- 
 
93 
 
 ness: her form, that of loveliness not 
 impaired but rendered more engaging 
 by feebleness and sorrow, than the 
 beauty of health and happiness can 
 ever be ; her ornament, a riband of pah 
 green: her attitude, sitting with her 
 elbow in her lap, and her head lean- 
 ing on one side within her hand : her 
 hair streaming loose, and tears trickling 
 down her cheek. The scenic accompa- 
 niments are appropriate, and finely in 
 contrast: the season that of the vintage 
 in the Bourbonnois, the finest district 
 of France; and the children of labour 
 rejoicing in the prospect of plenty : a 
 description which causes the reader to 
 
94 
 
 feel as the traveller says he does : .the 
 affections fly out, and kindle with every 
 group ; but they are soon recalled by 
 Maria, the poplar and the rivulet. 
 Pity now begins (o take her turn ; and 
 here, an ordinary dcscriber would sup- 
 pose that enough had been done ; but 
 Sterne was not to be satisfied with any 
 thing less than the utmost precision of 
 finishing, which he accordingly com- 
 municates to the piece: YORICK sits 
 down by Maria, and Maria lets him 
 wipe away her tears. 
 
 The Monk is a full length portrait 
 by the sapie expert hand, but in a quite 
 different taste from the last: no one 
 
95 
 
 can for a moment doubt that it is from 
 nature and from the life. The idea of 
 a painting was in Sterne's mind when 
 he undertook to give his admirable 
 likeness of Father Lorenzo. " The 
 Monk, (perhaps in propriety he should 
 have been called the Friar;} as I judged 
 from the break in his tonsure, a few 
 scattered white hairs upon his temples 
 being all that remained of it, might be 
 about seventy; but. from his eyes, and 
 that sort of fire that was in them, 
 which seemed more tempered by cour- 
 tesy than years, could be no more 
 than sixty; truth might lie between 
 he was certainly sixty-five; and the 
 
9& 
 
 general air of his countenance, notwith- 
 standing something seemed to have been 
 planting wrinkles in it before their time, 
 agreed to the account/' Here is con-* 
 sum mate art employed to produce the 
 greatest possible ease in the expression; 
 and the doubtful language used to 
 explain the air of sadness on the Friar's 
 face increases the interest by conveying 
 the notion of somewhat mysterious in 
 his story. 
 
 The drawing goes on incomparably, 
 and is indeed worthy of Guido him- 
 self: the head " mild, pale, penetrat- 
 ing; free from all common-place ideas 
 of fat, contented ignorance looking 
 
97 
 
 doumvards upon earth it looked for- 
 wards, but looked as if it looked at 
 something beyond this world/' This 
 is very beautiful; and as countenance 
 is concerned, nothing can be more im- 
 pressive than the repetition of the verb: 
 it reminds me of a similar beauty in 
 Shakspeare's portrait of Cassius, " sel- 
 dom he smiles^ or smiles in such a sortr 
 as if he mocked himself and scorned 
 his spirit that could be moved to smile 
 at any thing." 
 
 As yet we have the bust only of the 
 Franciscan in the canvas; but the re- 
 mainder is struck off with equal genius 
 
 and delicacy: " the form neither ele- 
 H 
 
68 
 
 gant nor otherwise, but as character 
 and expression made it so : thin, spare, 
 something above the common size, if it 
 lost not the distinction by a bend for- 
 ward in the figure. 3 * This might be 
 the outline of a picture or a statue, 
 though indeed of a fine one; but the 
 author's concluding strokes give it life: 
 " the attitude was that of intreaty ; 
 and as it now stands presented to my 
 imagination, it gained more than it 
 lost by it." It would be wearisome to 
 collect and comment on all the in- 
 stances which might be produced of 
 Sterne's powers and versatility. His 
 comic exhibitions are often not in any 
 
90 
 
 respect inferior to those of a grave or 
 tender cast; k nor is it easy to say in 
 which he most excels; but perhaps the 
 general opinion favors the idea that his 
 genius inclined him chiefly to sentiment 
 and pathos. In the " Journey/' it 
 certainly takes this direction fre- 
 quently; and when his cheerfulness 
 terminates in something at least serious"; 
 when, like Milton's " Pallegro," it is 
 ennobled by what approaches almost 
 to melancholy, it affects one with the 
 same solemnity of feeling as the view 
 of a mild autumnal evening commu- 
 nicates " When the faint landscape 
 swims away;" and leaves upon the 
 
 H2 
 
100 
 
 mind an impression of respect and 
 veneration for the writer, which his 
 wit never does. Had he altogether ab- 
 stained from the grossness in which he 
 indulges himself, his title to admiration 
 would have been indisputable; as it is, 
 he has forfeited his claim; and though 
 we cannot but regret the circumstance, 
 two thirds of his admirers are laudably 
 ashamed of their idol, and accordingly 
 his works are read by numbers who 
 dare not praise them. 
 
101 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 AT is not possible to speak of 
 the PLEASURES which miscellaneous 
 reading affords, and of the agreeable 
 sensations created by perusing the best 
 efforts of distinguished writers, without 
 taking some notice of the works of 
 Robert Burns; the resemblance of his 
 genius to that of the last mentioned 
 author must be obvious to all who are 
 acquainted with the productions of 
 both. 
 
 Burns, like Sterne, is a painter: 
 like Sterne he describes admirably; 
 sees every object with a poet's eyes; 
 
102 
 
 and exhilarates by Uis humour, or by 
 his pathetic passages fills the reader's 
 heart with emotions of tenderness; 
 ft MIc the happiest sketch of local cir- 
 cumstances generally adorns the story 
 he tells. But, like Sterne, he is some- 
 times so coarse in his expressions, and 
 so indecorous in his allusions, as to 
 i*ender a complete copy of his works in- 
 admissible into any society where good 
 breeding awd innocence are cultivated. 
 This general remark on the impro- 
 prieties of a writer so popular and so 
 highly gifted as Burns, may be thought 
 sufficient. As to his beauties, they, for 
 a tfery different reason, can only be 
 
103 
 
 slightly referred to in such letters fts 
 these: they are nearly innumerable, 
 and must be in every body's recol- 
 lection. 
 
 Allow me, however, a few obser- 
 vations, in order to point out one of 
 those turns of mind in which he strongly 
 resembles Sterne in his Sentimental 
 Journey; and which, as I have before 
 remarked to you, forms one of the fas- 
 cinations of that work. Burns fre- 
 quently adds the greatest imaginable 
 interest to his subject by the introduc- 
 tion of moral reflections: and the force 
 of his moralizing is increased by the 
 reader's surprize on perceiving himself 
 
104 
 
 allured, he scarcely knows how, from 
 light and joyous topics, into medita- 
 tions the most solemn and awful. 
 
 This transition from levity to serious- 
 ness, produces the finest effect: in his 
 lines, for instance, on turning up a 
 mouse's nest with the plough, the 
 genius of this true poet has given great 
 dignity to what would appear a hope- 
 less subject; and within the limits of 
 a few verses, has presented us with 
 samples of nearly all the elements of 
 composition: broad humour, accurate 
 description, the reflections of a sen- 
 sible mind on social interests, moral 
 deduction, the truest pathos, and that 
 
105 
 
 pathos heightened by natural and most 
 affecting references to his own untoward 
 fortunes. 
 
 This he has also done in the most 
 faultless and most delightful of all his 
 effusions, " The Mountain Daisy/* 
 The whole of this address is in a strain 
 of moral melancholy ; and the beauti- 
 ful climax is completed by the personal 
 allusion with which it finishes. The 
 Daisy is not excelled by any thing of 
 its kind, particularly, in the number 
 and variety of reflections for which it 
 gives occasion in the reader's mind; 
 and though the simple source of his 
 gratification is but a mountain-daisy, 
 
106 
 
 yet how rich is the poetic stream which 
 flo^s from it! In the first stanza, the 
 modest flower already acquires im- 
 portance; it is called a u bonnie gem/* 
 and ranks with the costly ornaments of 
 man's vanity: in the next, its fit com- 
 panion, the Lark, appears; and here the 
 painting is fine, and its beauties finely 
 compressed: w r e have the dew of the 
 morning, the speckled bo&om of the 
 bird ; its heaven-Ward flight, and the 
 purpling dawn above. To this Succeeds 
 a mournful view of the circumstances 
 of the flower, and its untimely fall, 
 and we bewail it as a friend undone : 
 but we are in the hands of a magician, 
 
107 
 
 whose spells are not yet exhausted. He 
 fcoon transports us to other scenes, and 
 \ve behold the Beauty of tbe village, 
 now moving in all the pride of inno- 
 cence; and now, cc by Love's sirnpli- 
 city betrayed" laid like her emblem 
 the flower in the dust. The fate of 
 thoughtless genius and suffering excel- 
 lence next engages our feelings; the 
 world, and the woes of life agitate 
 and appal us; and the interest is at 
 last increased to its utmost, and con- 
 centrated by a prophetic vision of the 
 misery which awaits the bard, from 
 whose talents we have just derived so 
 much pleasure: 
 
108 
 
 " Ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate-, 
 That fate is thine ; no distant date ; 
 Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate, 
 
 Full on thy bloom; 
 Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight 
 
 Shall be thy doom." 
 
 The superior gratification afforded 
 to the reader by this last stanza may 
 be traced to what has been previously 
 assigned as the chief cause of one of 
 the pleasures of reading: it contains 
 what may be termed biographical anec- 
 dote, and predicts, (unfortunately with 
 too much truth) the sad and premature 
 catastrophe which deprived society of 
 a man, whose works will be admired in 
 these countries 
 
 As long as rivers run and fore&ts rise. 
 
109 
 
 LETTER XIIL 
 
 BEFORE we take leave of the 
 Ayrshire-Poet, I cannot avoid making 
 a remark on the manner in which his 
 life has been written, and his works 
 edited by Dr. Carrie. Nothing in this 
 way can be more objectionable than 
 the course which his biographer and 
 editor has pursued. It is unfair even 
 as it respects (he present age ; and most 
 unjust towards the reader of after-times. 
 In the life of Burns, from the avowed 
 motives of respect to public opinion, 
 and a ridiculous desire to make the Poet 
 appear in an amiable light, his editor 
 
110 
 
 has concealed so many of his irregu- 
 larities, and so varnished his foibles 
 and follies, that the intimates and co- 
 temporaries of the Bard can scarcely re- 
 cognize any likeness, in such a smirk- 
 ing, rosy, well-dressed portrait, to the 
 rugged, impetuous, licentious and* ec- 
 centric original; and posterity %i!l 
 utterly misconceive the character. 
 
 In his letters, a still greater and 
 more unpardonable liberty has been 
 taken: the grammar and the orthogra- 
 phy have been put into repair; and pas- 
 sages truly illustrative of Burns have 
 been omitted: thus the existing public 
 is misled; and readers who are to 
 
Ill 
 
 come when we are gone, must wonder 
 and be ignorant. They will inquire in 
 vain, as we do, for a faithful portrait 
 of the inspired peasant; for proofs that 
 Burns was what he is asserted to have 
 been, a half-informed rustic of almost 
 unlimited poetical genius, by the force 
 of which he vanquished the difficulties 
 of his situation; and notwithstanding 
 his want of literary acquirements, and 
 although he did not spell correctly, and 
 altliough his breast was constantly the 
 dwelling of rude and lawless passions, 
 his temper offensive, and kis love of 
 vulgar indulgence intense, he yet, in 
 defiance of all this, extorted the ap- 
 
plauses of mankind. Proofs of his 
 powers \vill indeed be preserved ; but 
 posterity will ask likewise for his real 
 character ; at least, for testimonies of 
 his being nearly uneducated; and the 
 admirers of biographical anecdote, (that 
 is to say, every reader,) will seek for 
 something more; and regret the mis- 
 placed delicacy which has diminished 
 their pleasure. Either Burns's character, 
 and all the features of his character 
 should have been honestly retained in 
 his memoirs; (and this might have been 
 decorously executed,) or the delineation 
 should not have been attempted. 
 
us 
 
 IT has been said that a criterion of 
 poetical talent in a writer is that the 
 artist should be able to paint whatever 
 the author describes; and that the pen 
 has failed unless the painter can re- 
 present the images of the poetV 
 fancy. But this may be disputed; for 
 poetry is not always occupied with 
 substantial forms. The sublime con- 
 ceptions of Milton in the Paradise Lost, 
 perpetually baffle the best efforts of 
 the pencil ; and a poet such as Milton 
 never has had, probably never will 
 have an equal: yet it cannot be de- 
 nied that this is frequently a very 
 
114 
 
 fair proof of poetical excellence; and 
 that whenever description strongly re- 
 minds the reader of scenes and circum- 
 stances connected with it, or makes 
 him fancy that he sees or could paint 
 what is described, his admiration is 
 augmented, and such passages are most 
 deeply imprinted on the memory, and 
 most often quoted. 
 
 As these letters, dear E. are in- 
 tended merely to entertain us with a 
 general inquiry into the nature of the 
 Pleasures of Reading, and by no means 
 designed to be a critical examination 
 of the merits and demerits of the 
 authors alluded to, there is no neces- 
 
115 
 
 sity for precision of arrangement; nor 
 any reason why parts of books should 
 not be made use of, as the books them* 
 selves may be supposed to stand in a 
 private collection, without regard to 
 the classification of the writers. It is 
 not of any consequence whether the 
 work which supplies us with " food for 
 meditation," is historical, biographical, 
 or dramatic ; in prose, or verse. What- 
 ever may be the character of the writing 
 from which they originate, the re- 
 flections accompanying the perusal of 
 a book are the sources of our literary 
 pleasures* 
 
TIB 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 AMONG Reading Pleasures^ 
 Numberless as they are, there is one 
 which deserves to hold a place in the 
 foremost rank, and particularly be- 
 longs to poetical reading, though not 
 confined to poetry: this is the amuse- 
 ment which the mind receives from 
 observing how subjects, similar, or 
 nearly similar, have been treated by 
 different writers; how, for instance, 
 such eminent descriptive poets as 
 Milton and Thomson have succeeded 
 in describing the beauties of a land- 
 scape as seen at different periods of the 
 
HT 
 
 day, and what effect the descriptions 
 of each have upon *the feelings. 
 
 Milton has been thought to take 
 peculiar delight in, and to excel in de- 
 scribing night-scenes, which were sup- 
 posed most grateful to one whose eyes 
 were originally weak. This, however, 
 is barely a pretty idea; for it is not 
 known that in early life, his organs of 
 sight were feeble; and many passages 
 might be cited from his works in which 
 he has painted day views in as tasteful 
 and masterly a manner, as he has ex- 
 ecuted his evenings and moonlights. 
 
 In the fifth book of the Paradise 
 Lost, he has sketched the dawn/ of 
 
118 
 
 morning in Eden, with surpassing bril- 
 liancy of expression: 
 
 " the Sun, who scarce uprisen, 
 With wheels yet hovering o'er the ocean brim, 
 Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray, 
 Discovering in wide landscape all the East 
 Of Paradise, and Eden's happy plains." 
 
 Also in the Fourth Book of the Para- 
 
 dise Regained : 
 
 " And now the Sun with more effectual beams 
 Had cheer'd the face of earth, and dried the wet 
 From drooping plant, or dropping tree ; the birds, 
 Who all things now behold more fresh and green, 
 
 Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray, 
 To gratulate the sweet return of morn." 
 
 And in U Allegro, we have a view of 
 arly day finer even than the foregoing : 
 
119 
 
 " Sometime walking not unseen, 
 
 By hedge-row elms and hillocks green, 
 
 Right against the Eastern gate 
 
 Where the great Sun begins his state ; 
 
 Rob'd in flames of amber light, 
 
 The clouds in thousand liveries dight." 
 
 In these quotations from Milton, 
 there is, you must allow, not only in- 
 finite beauty, but all that variety of 
 beauty which suits the same subject 
 treated under different circumstances. 
 The first is distinguished by grandeur 
 adapted to the magnificent scene the 
 birth of day in Paradise: the landscape 
 displayed is boundless ; the features, 
 few and great. In the next, the adap- 
 tation of imagery is not less appropri- 
 
120 
 
 ate, but, if the expression may be used, 
 it is less divine, and belongs more to 
 such a world as we are acquainted with. 
 Here, besides,, contrast the most 
 powerful was required; the fair face 
 of earth had been deformed by tem- 
 pest ; and this " war of elements 3 * raised 
 to terrify and try the patience of the 
 Saviour; to show him 
 
 " Unappall'd iii calm and sinless peac." 
 The charms of nature are, accord- 
 ingly, not merely lighted up by the. 
 glorious luminary, but his rays are 
 
 dispensed to make amends for the ra- 
 
 B 
 vages of the storm, and bring back 
 
 the freshness they had lost. 
 
121 
 
 In the passage last quoted, cheer- 
 fulness is thrown over every thing ; the 
 landscape smiles, and we see not orilyv 
 day break, but a rural day, and day- 
 in England; 
 
 The same subject in Thomson's hands 
 loses little from comparison with the 
 painting of Milton: 
 
 " But yonder comes the powerful king of day 
 
 Rejoicing in the East. The less'ning cloud, 
 
 The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow 
 
 Illum'd with fluid gold, his near approach 
 
 Betoken glad. Lo ! now apparent all, 
 
 Aslant the dew-bright earth and colour'd air 
 
 He tooks in boundless majesty abroad, 
 
 And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays 
 
 On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wand'ring streams, 
 
 High gleaming fjojn afar," : 
 
128 
 
 Thomson has also drawn a sun-set 
 superior in beauty even to the above ; 
 and though not indebted to any thing 
 borrowed from the author of the Para- 
 dise Lost, has attained in it much re- 
 semblance to his best manner. 
 
 *' Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, 
 Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds 
 Assembled gay, a richly gorgeous train, 
 In all (heir pomp attend his setting throne. 
 Air, earth and ocean smile immense. And now, 
 As if his weary chariot sought the bower 
 Of Amphitrite, and her tending nymphs, 
 (So Grecian fables sung,) he dips his orb; 
 Now, half immers'd, and now a golden curve 
 Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.*' 
 
 All this, but especially the latter part f 
 evinces the nicest attention to nature io 
 
123 
 
 one of her most interesting moments ; 
 and is not exceeded even by the ad- 
 mired description of closing day in the 
 Paradise Lost, where Milton takes up 
 the subject precisely when Thomson 
 leaves off, and pursues it to the com- 
 mencement of darkness, with great ele- 
 gance of thought. 
 
 " The sun was sunk, and after him the star 
 Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring 
 Twilight upon the earth, shot arbiter 
 Twixt day and night." 
 
124 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 JLT would be both easy and 
 agreeable to follow Milton and Thom- 
 son through the whole of a poetical 
 day in different parts of their applauded 
 writings; but one night piece will be 
 here sufficient. The " II Penseroso," 
 shall furnish the first in a passage 
 quoted almost as frequently as the 
 scene it describes has been beheld, and 
 as little likely as that scene to weary 
 
 the eve of taste. 
 
 
 
 < , . the wand'ring moon, 
 
 Ridiflg near her highest noon, 
 
125 
 
 Like one that had been led astray 
 Thro' the heaven's wide pathless way, 
 And oft, as if her head she bow'd, 
 Stoopiiig thro' a fleecy cloud/' 
 
 Every thing in this is poetry; and it 
 might be called painting also, had it 
 not something in it more than painting 
 can give : the exhibition has motion. 
 The moon wanders, flies along, and 
 stoops under the clouds in her career ; 
 in despite, indeed, of the Newtonian 
 system, but in perfect concord witli 
 the spectator's feelings, and with ex- 
 traordinary advantage to the picturesque 
 effect intended. For the sake of va- 
 riety, Thomson'* noble poem " Liberty'' 
 shall supply a night-view of heavenly 
 
12S 
 
 Brightness, without the aid of moon- 
 light: 
 
 <* As on pure winter's eve, 
 Gradual the stars effulge; fainter at first, 
 They, straggling, rise ; but when the radiant host, 
 In thick profusion pour'd, shine out immense, 
 Each casting vivid influence on each, 
 From pole to pole a glittering deluge plays. 
 And worlds above rejoice, and men below/' 
 
 It might appear too bold a declara- 
 tion were I to assert that such extracts 
 as the preceding, or extracts of any 
 kind, or the works from which they 
 are taken, w r ould tend to heal a broken 
 heart, or to correct a lad one : neither is 
 it probable that the victim of affliction, 
 remorse or bodily pain would, in such 
 
127 
 
 effusions, find enough to attract his 
 attention. But, it is certain that the 
 mind which can occupy itself with 
 works of true literary respectability, 
 must, when so engaged, be at least 
 innocently employed; and may be so 
 drawn away from the contemplation of 
 mental or corporeal sufferings, as to ex- 
 perience a temporary relief: and it is 
 likewise equally certain that the charms 
 inherent in books have double attrac- 
 tions for such as are in prosperous cir- 
 cumstances* 
 
 In a state of excessive happiness or 
 misery, books are of little or no use; 
 in the former condition, the mind, we 
 
128 
 
 know, is too much elevated; in the 
 latter, too much depressed. But be- 
 tween these extremes are many degrees 
 of sensations, and every one, fond of 
 reading, can imagine or remember 
 periods of cheerfulness and vexation, 
 during which a book has proved a most 
 welcome resource. 
 
 None but the initiated can conceive 
 how many and how great are the 
 pleasures which books afford ; and this 
 will appear more strikingly true, if we 
 advert to the numerous points of view 
 in which a volume may be considered, 
 independently of its specific character; 
 and solely as the form in which the 
 
workings of the human mind arc 
 enveloped ; the means whereby the 
 thoughts of one intellectual being are 
 transmitted to another. We are in- 
 terested in perusing, if detailed, even 
 the story of the writer; or in conjec- 
 turing it, where the information is not 
 given; and that ought never to be 
 omitted if the requisite particulars can 
 be procured. 
 
 Of many of the greatest writers, the 
 world now knows nothing but that 
 they were authors; yet it is undeniable 
 that the pleasure of reading the poems 
 of Milton, or the dramas of Shakspeare, 
 yvould be increased, could we add, to 
 
ISO 
 
 eur admiration of their genius, (in 
 which they did not resemble other 
 men,) an intimate knowledge of their 
 ordinary habits, occupations and 
 amusements, common to all : could we 
 be certified how and where they studied 
 and wrote for immortality ; or eyen 
 know what garments they wore ! How 
 great a treasure would it not be 
 esteemed, even by the grave and the 
 wise, had the world a complete detail 
 of a domestic day in Shakspeare's 
 house at Stratford ; or were we in pos- 
 session of a few more trifling feature 8 
 in the private history of the mighty 
 author of the Paradise Lost ! of whom 
 
131 
 
 it only whets curiosity to hear that he 
 wore a suit of grey, and had latchets 
 in his shoes, and sat in a room hung 
 round with green cloth. The public 
 has acquired some farther information 
 respecting Milton, from Aubrey's Mis- 
 cellanies, recently printed, and form- 
 ing a most entertaining work: here we 
 are told that John Milton's face was 
 ovall; his eie a dark gray: that he was 
 of middle stature; exceeding fayre; a 
 spare man; temperate; extreme plea- 
 sant in conversation, and at dinner, 
 supper, &c. but satyricall: also, that 
 he pronounced the letter R, very hard, 
 which, Aubrey acquaints us, is a cer- 
 
 K2 
 
152 
 
 taine signe of a satyricall witt, in Joint 
 Dryderfs opinion. Yet, who is there 
 that would not wish for something more 
 of Milton! 
 
 Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Brit^h 
 Poets, in defiance of the prejudices 
 with which they are sullied, will doubt- 
 less, for ages contribute to gratify all 
 admirers of polished style and acute 
 criticism; but had they contained what 
 they almost totally want, the biogra- 
 phical minutiae just referred to, they 
 would have been, and continue to be 
 read with tenfold pleasure. 
 
133 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 oTILL farther sources of indul- 
 gence are opened to the reader in ob- 
 servations upon the manner in which 
 the author treats his subject ; where, 
 in style and sentiment, he exceeds ex- 
 pectation, and where he disappoints it ; 
 where he accidentally coincides \vith 
 other writers, borrows from them un- 
 intentionally, or designedly makes use 
 of their bright and applicable thoughts. 
 More circumstances might be added 
 under this head, but they naturally 
 suggest themselves to every one wko 
 takes up a book. 
 
134 
 
 The next, and a yet higher degree 
 of pleasure supplied by books is con- 
 nected with their immediate contents, 
 and the reference they bear to our 
 general feelings as reasoning creatures. 
 The last and highest of all y the force 
 with which books or parts of books 
 reach the actual situation of the reade/s 
 mind ? at the period of perusal. 
 
 And here, instead of following through 
 its several divisions the observation of 
 the Roman philosopher, it will perhaps 
 be more convenient to confine our at- 
 tention to what may be supposed the 
 most serviceable application of books? 
 under circumstances, to which all rea- 
 
135 
 
 ders are liable, and which have fallen 
 to the lot of the greater number: I 
 mean the common grievances to which 
 life is exposed; the agitations of hope 
 deferred, or the anguish attendant on 
 disappointment; that state which is 
 
 something less than wretchedness, but 
 far and for ever removed from happi- 
 ness; during which memory dwells on 
 the good that has been, and which can 
 never be again ! To a mind so situated 
 the species of Reading which should 
 " come with healing on its wings ; 5> which 
 would bring tranquillity along with it, 
 and substitute agreeable for painful 
 
136 
 
 ideas, would be deemed, and very justly, 
 an invaluable acquisition. 
 
 This desired effect would be most 
 likely to arise from what is usually 
 termed anecdote, historical and biogra- 
 phical ; and from descriptive and pa- 
 thetic poetry. 
 
 The tendency of this remark, and 
 the chief object of these letters, can- 
 not be more satisfactorily explained, 
 than by instances taken from writings 
 of each kind: and as there is no ne- 
 cessity for pursuing a very regular 
 course, the requisite illustrations may 
 be readily obtained? and a few examples 
 
137 
 
 easily brought forward which will as 
 effectually answer the purpose as if 
 whole volumes were transcribed. 
 
 In Sir John Dalrymple's memoirs, the 
 author has drawn with a very free and 
 bold pencil the character of Lord Dun- 
 dee, and described with great spirit 
 the fatal stage of his last exploit : 
 
 " Dundee had inflamed his mind from 
 his earliest youth, by the perusal of 
 ancient poets, historians and orators, 
 with the love of the great actions they 
 praise and describe. He is reported to 
 have inflamed it still more by listening 
 to the ancient songs of the Highland 
 bards. He entered into the profession 
 
1S8 
 
 of arms with an opinion that he ought 
 to know the services of different nations, 
 and the duties of different ranks: with 
 this view, he went into several foreign 
 services; and when he could not obtain 
 a command, served as a volunteer. 
 
 " Dundee had orders not to fight 
 
 M c . Kay, until a large force which was 
 promised from Ireland should join him; 
 hence he was kept during two months 
 cooped up in the mountains, furious from 
 restraint. He was obliged continually 
 to shift his quarters by prodigious 
 marches, in order to avoid or harrass his 
 enemy's army, to obtain provisions, and 
 sometimes to take advantages. The first 
 
139 
 
 messenger of his approach was generally 
 his own army in sight ; the first intel- 
 ligence of his retreat, brought accounts 
 that he was already out of his enemy's 
 reach. In some of these marches, his 
 men wanted bread, salt, and every 
 thing but water during several weeks; 
 yet were ashamed to complain when 
 they observed that their commander 
 lived not more delicately than them- 
 selves. If any thing good was brought 
 him to eat, he sent it to a faint or sick 
 soldier; if a soldier was weary, he 
 offered to carry his arms. He kept 
 those who were with him from sinking 
 under their fatigues, not so much by 
 
140 
 
 exhortation, as by preventing tliem 
 from attending to their sufferings: 
 for this reason he inarched on foot with 
 tlie men; now by the side of one clan, 
 and anon by that of another; he amused 
 them with jokes; flattered them with 
 his knowledge of their genealogies, and 
 animated them by a recital of the deeds 
 of their ancestors, and of the verses of 
 their bards." For the remainder of these 
 extracts 1 refer you to my next. 
 
141 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 " T 
 
 JLT was one of Dundee's max- 
 ims that no general should fight with 
 an irregular army, unless lie was ac- 
 quainted with every man he com- 
 manded; yet with these habits of fa- 
 miliarity, the severity of his discipline 
 was dreadful: the only punishment he 
 inflicted was death; " all other punish- 
 ments/ 3 he said, " disgraced a gentle- 
 man, and all who were with him were 
 of that rank, but that death was a re- 
 lief from the consciousness of crime/' 
 It is reported of him that having seen 
 a youth fly in his first action, he pre- 
 
142 
 
 tended he had sent him to the rear on 
 a message : the young man fled a second 
 time; he brought him to the front of 
 the army, and saying that " a gentle- 
 man's son ought not to fall by the hands 
 of a common executioner" shot him 
 dead with his own pistol! 5 ' 
 
 " The pass (of Killikranky) con- 
 sists of an open road, in a line nearly 
 straight, about two miles in length, 
 where not more than six or eight men 
 at a time could go abreast. On the 
 right are mountains that seem to rise 
 to the skies; on the left, a precipice 
 hanging over a deep and black river: 
 on the opposite side of the river, is 
 
143 
 
 a prodigious mountain, covered to the 
 top with waving woods, across which 
 eagles and other wild birds are conti- 
 nually flying and screaming." 
 
 " Dundee, who had been the 
 
 foremost on foot in the attack, was the 
 foremost on horseback in the pursuit. 
 In a little time he perceived he had 
 out-run his men: he stopped; he waved 
 his hand in the air, to make them in- 
 crease their speed, and pointed to 
 the pass, as if he already grasped it. 
 Being conspicuous in person and 
 action, he was observed, and a musket- 
 ball aimed at him, found entrance in 
 an opening of his armour, occasioned 
 
144 
 
 by the elevation of his arm. He rode 
 off the field, desiring his mischance to 
 be concealed; and fainting, dropped 
 from his horse; as soon as he recovered, 
 he desired to be raised, looked to the 
 field, and asked " how things went" 
 being told all was well, " then," said 
 he, " I am well," and expired/' 
 
 This is well told: and cannot be read 
 without considerable emotion. It has 
 all the rapidity which historical narra- 
 tive demands: and many of the nice 
 and more delicate touches which belong 
 to the department of anecdote, and, be^ 
 cause they do, always constitute the 
 richest portions of the historical page* 
 
145 
 
 Every thing in the narrative, is in 
 harmony with the subject: the ro- 
 mantic education of Dundee, and his 
 early acquaintance with the business of 
 war, prepare us to expect the military 
 energy and hardihood he afterwards 
 displays; scarcely a modern feature 
 intrudes to spoil the pleasure we take 
 in fancying that the event related is 
 an occurrence of the darker ages, rather 
 than one of the seventeenth century; 
 the enthusiasm of the hero is lighted 
 up by " antique songs, and bardish 
 rhymes \> and subsequently finds em- 
 ployment in that species of warfare 
 and among such a soldiery as are 
 
146 
 
 best suited to the regions of wildness 
 where their prowess is exerted. After 
 reading of Dundee's courage, fierce- 
 ness, invincible patience, and martial 
 genius, we should feel disappointed 
 had his course terminated like that of 
 an ordinary person: on the contrary, 
 it is finished amidst all that is mag- 
 nificent and terrible in nature; amidst 
 towering and forest-clad mountains; 
 and near a precipice which yawns over 
 a black river running beneath it, and 
 where the cry of the eagle is happily 
 introduced to indicate the general lone- 
 liness of the scene; any thing less 
 grand and dreadful would have ap- 
 
147 
 
 peared unbecoming. Dundee falls* 
 likewise, with characteristic majesty; 
 and his latest breath is expended in 
 giving utterance to a, sentiment with 
 which any warrior might wish to die. 
 
 Were history usually written in th 
 same strain as the passages extracted 
 from Dalrymple's memoirs, there i& 
 little doubt that it would be studied 
 with more satisfaction, and be much 
 more faithfully retained bj r the memory 
 than it is. But, as history is generally 
 executed, there is a great deal of toil 
 suffered by the author through the 
 pitiful affectation of writing gravely; 
 and of pleasure withheld from 
 
 L2 
 
148 
 
 reader through the vanity of perusing 
 what he supposes, or has been taught 
 to think rational facts. The one ima- 
 gines that it becomes his wisdom to 
 dilate on, and the other is seduced into 
 a belief that it increases his learning 
 and self-importance to pore over long 
 treatises concerning finance, the subr 
 tleties of negotiations, or the depra- 
 vities 0f cabinets; and together with 
 these, erroneous conjectures as to the 
 possible political results of what was 
 never intended; or insinuations of lu- 
 minous and providential motives as- 
 signed to the projects of Statesmen, 
 through ignorance of the private and 
 
149 
 
 insignificant sources from which the 
 occurrences related really took their 
 rise. Add to this, the infusion of party- 
 spirit into that which should be the 
 most impartial of all functions; and 
 the common vice of historians, the in- 
 sertion of speeches of their own com- 
 position, given to princes and chief- 
 tains, of whose characters they also 
 give incongruous and fanciful desig- 
 nations, and the whole will afford no 
 unfair outline of what is frequently 
 received as history. 
 
150 
 
 *$ 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 X HAT such reading as I have 
 test spoken of, affords useful instruc- 
 tion, may be alleged; as it may that 
 it is pleasant to be instructed: but r 
 after all, the feelings of ordinary reader* 
 talk a different language; and com- 
 mon eonsent cries out in favour of 
 somewhat less wise, and moire entertain- 
 ing. The mind which demands amuse- 
 ment, gives a warmer welcome to the 
 gossipping, and ( if it must be so, ) 
 the unprofitable and unphilosophical 
 page of the antiquarian enthusiast, and 
 the homely biographer ; to the black- 
 
151 
 
 letler ballad, and the domestic anec- 
 dote ; to the light effusion of the es- 
 sayist, or the volume of poetry, which 
 without enlarging our knowledge, ap- 
 peals to and perhaps improves, the 
 best sensibilities of our hearts, than 
 it ever does to the mosl sublime disser- 
 tations of Smith or Gibbon; or any 
 name equally celebrated. 
 
 To know whether the right of exer- 
 cising political power is derived from 
 the consent of the people over whom 
 it is exercised ; or if not 5 to know 
 whence it is derived, and whether Sir 
 Robert Filmer's hypothesis touching 
 this momentous question is better than 
 
152 
 
 that of Mr. Locke; or his, than Sir 
 Robert Fil trier's: to be quite satisfied 
 that the argonautie expedition was 
 not twenty-five but forty-three years after 
 the demise of King Solomon, accord- 
 ing to Eudoxus : to ascertain whether 
 Thales and Hipparehus coincide or not; 
 
 to Jearn what reliance ought to be 
 
 * 
 placed on the Chinese enumeration of 
 
 eclipses, and how the progression of 
 the equinoxes may be applied to his- 
 torical dates would undoubtedly be 
 more instructive, and concern us more 
 than any thing in the discovery of an 
 Abbot's kitchen, or the disinterment of 
 a Roman urn, or a Saxon skeleton ; in 
 
153 
 
 none of which is there, indeed, a sin- 
 gle circumstance which can, in a cer- 
 tain sense, be converted to the ad- 
 vantage of any body; jet, these and 
 similar matters will be read with in- 
 terest, and conduce to dispel the gloom 
 of melancholy and beguile the tedious 
 hours of the invalid, where Herodotus 
 and Thucydides would fail. 
 
 This is not only true, but perfectly 
 natural, and not very difficult of ex- 
 planation, though to attempt account- 
 ing for it here, would lead to other 
 subjects, not connected with the im- 
 mediate purport of these letters, in 
 which my intention is to give a few 
 
154 
 
 bints as to the varieties of mental indul- 
 gence in which books abound ; and to 
 expatiate not on their pains, but their 
 pleasures; on the benefits, not of study, 
 but of reading. 
 
 Some of these have been briefly 
 touched on already; but among many 
 remaining unnoticed, there is one which 
 cannot properly be overlooked in ex- 
 amining the pleasures reserved for mis- 
 cellaneous readers: the amusement of 
 scrutinizing the styles as well as the 
 thoughts of different writers. 
 
 Arithmetical computation has been 
 recommended (on good authority) as 
 an admirable expedient for concentrat- 
 
155 
 
 ing the powers of the understanding, 
 allaying the irritabilities of temper, 
 and withdrawing the mind from ha- 
 rassing cogitations. But there is every 
 reason to believe that literary disquisi- 
 tions will more effectually do this, than 
 the dry and isolated science of numbers; 
 and should they operate thus far, the 
 process must surely prove more agree- 
 able than that of calculation, from 
 which all flights of fancy are excluded. 
 
 There may, indeed, exist a taste 
 which prefers the pastime of extract- 
 ing the, Square-Root^ to the charms of 
 the Belles Letlres; but such tastes are 
 pare; aud perhaps not much intitled 
 
156 
 
 either to applause or envy from those 
 who do not possess them. The general 
 description of readers would probably 
 be more gratified by a comparative 
 view of the style and manner of com- 
 position by which some distinguished 
 writers have endeavoured to recom- 
 mend their labours to the public. 
 
 Until about the period of the civil 
 wars in the seventeenth century, 
 nothing like u systematical style of 
 English prose writing existed. As far 
 back, however, as the reigns of Eli- 
 zabeth and James, and certainly during 
 the time of the Commonwealth, good 
 writing may be found, though that 
 
157 
 
 epithet does not belong to what was 
 then generally published. The par- 
 liamentary speeches, sermons, and pam- 
 phlets of those days usually betray a 
 total ignorance or disregard of the 
 principles of style; and excellent mat- 
 ter is perpetually buried beneath a 
 heap of uncouth and gritty phrase- 
 ology; yet this, as I have observed, is 
 not always the case. The superior 
 genius of some anticipated the im- 
 provements of another and a politer 
 age, and helped them to write as clearly 
 as they thought. 
 
 Lord Verulam may be mentioned as 
 an example of this; the letters of Howel 
 
158 
 
 also, who came not long after him, have 
 a similar merit; and it must be con- 
 ceded that these writers, and others 
 who resembled them in manner, are 
 not excelled by any modern authors 
 in perspicuity: they are occasionally 
 quaint and homely, but seldom or 
 never obscure; while the style of our 
 own times is often so, from over refine- 
 ment, and the intermixture of foreign 
 idioms, 
 
159 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 JL HE essential difference be- 
 tween any two styles may be readily 
 ascertained by such as choose to try the 
 pleasant experiment of passing sud- 
 denly from the pages of one prose writer 
 to those of another. 
 
 A passage from an accomplished and 
 popular author of modern date will 
 afford us an instance of a style much 
 admired, and of that kind of high 
 finishing, the polish of which almost 
 dazzles, and might be well exchanged 
 for language of less elegance and less 
 majesty, but greater simplicity. 
 
100 , 
 
 In the Preface to Lander's famous, 
 or rather notorious essay on Milton, 
 known to be the production of Doctor 
 Johnson's pen, the writer, in allusion 
 to the Paradise Lost, thus proceeds: 
 " Among the inquiries to which this 
 ardour of criticism has naturally given 
 occasion, none is more obscure in itself, 
 or more worthy of rational curiosity, 
 than a retrospection of the progress of 
 this mighty genius in the construction 
 of his work; a view of the fabric gra- 
 dually rising, perhaps from small be- 
 ginnings, till its foundation rests in the 
 centre, and its turrets sparkle in the 
 skies; to trace back the structure 
 
161 
 
 through all its varieties to the simpli- 
 city of its first plan: to find what was 
 first projected, whence the scheme was 
 taken, how it was improved, by what 
 assistance it was executed, and from 
 what stores the materials were collected ; 
 whether its founder dug them from the 
 quarries of nature, or demolished other 
 buildings to embellish his own." 
 
 This certainly is excessively brilliant; 
 the sentences are surprisingly harmo- 
 nious, the words which compose it most 
 dexterously adapted to the purpose of 
 expression; and it may be esteemed 
 one of the best specimens of style in 
 the works of the best English writer of 
 
 M 
 
162 * 
 
 these days. It assuredly bears no re- 
 semblance to the plain book-talk of him, 
 who is endearingly called the good old 
 Izaah Walton; yet, with all its modu- 
 lation, ail its grandeur of thought, and 
 splendour of imagery, it will not (with 
 some) gain much by a comparison with 
 an extract from the " Complete Angler;" 
 a performance which does infinite 
 honour to the literary taste of Crom- 
 well's time, and may rank with those 
 contemporary proofs of national genius, 
 the coins of Simon, and the engravings 
 of Lombart. 
 
 " Look, und^r that broad beech I 
 sate down when I was last this way a 
 
163 
 
 fishing; and the birds in the adjoining 
 grove seemed to have a friendly con- 
 tention with an echo, whose dead voice 
 seemed to live in a hollow cave, near 
 to the brow of that primrose hill: there 
 I sate viewing the silver streams glide 
 silently towards their center, the tem- 
 pestuous sea; yet sometimes opposed 
 by rugged roots and pibble stones, 
 which broke their waves, and turned 
 them into fome; and sometimes view- 
 ing the harmless lambs, some leaping 
 securely in the cool shade, whilst others 
 sported themselves in the cheerful sun/' 
 There is here a total neglect of ar- 
 rangement, and no attempt made to 
 
 M2 
 
164 
 
 produce measured periods, or to choose 
 mellifluous words ; nevertheless, the 
 passage is full of mechanical beauties, 
 and has the effect of music on the ear: 
 such writing as this makes no preten- 
 sions, but wins its modest way to the 
 reader's approbation, without allowing 
 him to be alarmed by the superior 
 talents of the writer. 
 
 The like difference in styles distin- 
 guishes the versification of Walton's 
 cotemporaries and immediate prede- 
 cessors, from that of modern poets, 
 and frequently the comparison is in 
 favor of the former for the reasons 
 already advanced. 
 
165 
 
 Let us, for example, try a stanza or 
 two from the poems of any of the ap- 
 plauded versifiers of our time, and con- 
 trast them with some of a more remote 
 period: 
 
 " Then swifter than the wings of thought 
 The song with heavenly pity fraught 
 Would die away in magic lone, 
 Sweet as the ring-dove's plaintive moan ; 
 Soft as the breeze at closing day, 
 That sighs to quit the parting ray ; 
 Or on ethereal pinions borne 
 Upon the perfum'd breath of morn, 
 Sails o'er the mountain's golden crest 
 To fan Aurora's burning breast." 
 
 ODE TO THB HARP OF LOUISA, 
 By Mrs. Robinson. 
 
166 
 
 Of this, by Dr. Darwin: 
 TO MAY. 
 
 *' Born in yon blaze of orient sky, 
 
 Sweet May, thy radiant form unfold;. 
 Unclose thy blue voluptuous eye, 
 
 And wave thy shadowy locks of gold t 
 For thee the fragrant zephyrs blow, 
 
 For thee descends the sunny shower; \ 
 The iills in softer murmurs flow, 
 
 And brighter blossoms gem the bower* 
 Light Graces dress'd in flowery wreaths, 
 
 And tip-toe joys their hands combine ; 
 And Love his sweet contagion breathes, 
 
 And laughing, dances round thy shrine r 
 Warm with new life, the glittering throngs,, 
 
 On quiv'ring fin and rustling wing, 
 Delighted join their votive songs, 
 
 And hail thee godded of the spring." 
 
 These lines contain some of the best 
 ingredients of modern verse; and 
 
167 
 
 words as they are selected, are sweet 
 even to lusciousness. Whether some 
 pretty and well-known lines by Mar- 
 low, which I shall now transcribe, or 
 those of any other old writer, are more 
 or less grateful to the ear, is a question 
 for the reader's decision: his amusement 
 does not depend on the answer, but on 
 instituting the comparison suggested, 
 and investigating the different manners 
 of English poets, living nearly two 
 hundred years apart, 
 
 g 
 
 " Come live with me, and be my love, 
 And we will all the pleasures prove 
 That vallies, groves, or hills, or fields, 
 Or woods and steeple mountains yeelds. 
 
163 
 
 Where we will sit upon the rocks, 
 And see the shepherds feed our flocks, 
 By shallow rivers to whose falls, 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals ; \ 
 And I will make thee beds of roses, * 
 And then a thousand fragrant posies, 
 A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
 Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle. 
 
 The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
 For thy delight each May morning ; 
 If these delights thy mind may move, 
 Then live with me and be my love." 
 
169 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 JL HE reference which the matter 
 of books bears both to the general and 
 particular feelings of Readers, has been 
 mentioned as another of their pleasures. 
 And though it was intimated that bio- 
 graphical anecdote is, of all reading, 
 that which best answers the desirable 
 end of entertaining while it enlarges 
 the mind, it is not to be concluded 
 that books of every other kind are in- 
 adequate to the production of pleasura- 
 ble sensations : the contrary is so true, 
 that it mav admit of a doubt whether 
 
170 
 
 any books can be named, not hostile (o 
 the interests of virtue, nor merely books 
 of science, from the perusal of which 
 entertainment and utility cannot be 
 derived, by the application of certain 
 parts of their contents to feelings pe- 
 culiar to each, or common to us all 
 in our social capacity. 
 
 The volume which unfolds the effects 
 of human ingenuity in the practice of 
 the fine arts ; which displays the per- 
 severance of the traveller or the ma- 
 riner; exhorts the soldier by details of 
 military prowess, or excites the spirit 
 of the merchant by telling of the opu* 
 l^nce and the honours which wait on 
 
171 
 
 commercial integrity ; the literature, 
 which, through the medium of religi- 
 ous and moral precept aims at correct- 
 ing the passions by which the heart of 
 man is agitated, and the enjoyment of 
 existence abridged, must include much 
 of what every one is concerned in. But 
 it should be considered that under 
 the head of biography all this may be 
 found; these topics being in fact legi- 
 timate branches of the biographical tree. 
 The mind-filling and curious incidents 
 in the life of any remarkable person, 
 must embrace some or most of them ; 
 while a separate treatise under each of 
 the foregoing heads might be written 
 
without containing a particle of singular 
 anecdote or private memoir. 
 
 This I conceive to be a very sufficient 
 reason for the predilection generally 
 felt and avowed in favour of biography 
 and its varieties: in addition to which 
 it may be observed, that it is not only 
 possible but necessary to illustrate the 
 memoirs of the eminent, by referring 
 to almost every other species of writing; 
 by which the interest they excite in the 
 reader is greatly increased. 
 
 There is another act of the mind 
 connected with the pursuit of reading, 
 and productive of much genuine plea- 
 sure; but here imagination must fre- 
 
ITS 
 
 quently come to the reader's assistance; 
 because, although it may be extremely 
 entertaining to suppose that an intimate 
 relation subsists between an author's 
 REAL, CHARACTER and his WRITINGS, the 
 idea is too often fallacious. 
 
 Nevertheless it is not in the power of 
 an ordinary person and one who reads 
 for amusement, to free himself altogether 
 from the belief that the book and the 
 man resemble each other; and that the 
 volume not only contains testimonies of 
 the author's taste and genius, but like- 
 wise of his moral excellencies ; that he 
 who writes with pathos, must have 
 tender and amiable sensibilities; and 
 
174 
 
 that no one can be the potent advo- 
 cate of virtue who does not walk in 
 her gentle footsteps. 
 
 Innumerable traits in the private his- 
 tories of those who have written both 
 agreeably and wisely, might be collected 
 to prove that the deduction is not war- 
 ranted by experience. Johnson has 
 somewhere an anecdote of the author of 
 the Seasons, (against whom, indeed, 
 nothing immoral was ever alleged,) from 
 which it appears how much deceived 
 they may be who think that the habit- 
 ual propensities of a fine writer can be 
 conjectured from the productions of his 
 in use: a lady told Richard Savage, the 
 
175 
 
 poet, that she should have concluded 
 Thomson, from his poem, to have been 
 very temperate, very fond of swimming, 
 and a most sentimental lover; to which 
 Savage replied that he knew the man 
 well, and could safely assure her, that 
 he was an enthusiastic admirer of a 
 good dinner, and had never in his life 
 been either in love or in the water ! 
 
 Neither, perhaps, would the opposite 
 conclusion be a fair one; nor are we at 
 
 libertv to infer because there are im- 
 
 v 
 
 purities in the Epistle of Eloisa to 
 Abelard, and in the Rape of the 
 Lock, that Pope's practices w 7 ere cen- 
 surable; or that Fielding and Smollett 
 
176 
 
 were vulgar and vicious because their 
 pages are thronged with coarse phrases 
 and gross descriptions. The taste, 
 however, of a writer, is, in a great 
 measure, decided by his book; and it 
 surely is little less than justice on the 
 reader's part to presume that he who 
 with his pen supports the cause of de- 
 corurn and of rectitude, is at least the 
 friend of both, and of the true interests 
 of his fellow-creatures, whatever his 
 personal deportment may be. It would 
 be still better if all who attempt to 
 instruct or entertain the public through 
 the means of the press, were to re- 
 member that the printed volume is 
 
1T7 
 
 made of more durable materials than 
 its author; and that his precepts and 
 his mode of inculcating them, will pro* 
 bably operate long after his living ex* 
 ample shall have lost its influence, 
 
178 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 
 to myself, I must own that 
 I am much indebted for my amuse- 
 ment in reading, to the readiness with 
 which I fall into the belief, where there 
 are no existing facts to the contrary 
 of a resemblance between all the parts 
 of an author's character, and his work ; 
 and no small force of argument would 
 be necessary to persuade me that the 
 before mentioned writer of the Com- 
 plete Angler, judging from that per- 
 formance alone, was not in truth as 
 innocent as he shows himself ingenious. 
 
179 
 
 Hawkins, in his curious edition of 
 the " Discourse upon fish and fishing/' 
 gives a very pleasing and just character 
 of the book. " Let no man," says he, 
 " imagine that a work on such a sub* 
 ject must necessarily be unentertaining, 
 or trifling; or even uninstructive : for 
 the contrary will most evidently ap- 
 pear from a perusal of this excellent 
 piece; which, whether we consider the 
 elegant simplicity of the style; the 
 ease and unaffected humour of the di- 
 alogue, the lovely scenes which it de- 
 lineates, the enchanting pastoral poetry 
 which it contains, or the fine morality 
 
 it so sweetly inculcates, has hardly its 
 MS 
 
189 
 
 fellow in any of the modern languages. '* 
 lie adds feelingly " Remember that 
 the art and invention of mankind were 
 bestowed for other purposes than to 
 deceive silly Jish" " When seated under 
 a shady tree, on the side of a pleasant 
 river, or moving about on the banks of 
 it, thou art otherwise pursuing thy re- 
 creation; when the gliding of waters, 
 the singing of birds, the bleating of 
 flocks, the lowing of cattle, and the view 
 of delightful prospects, and the various 
 occupations of rural industry, shall dis- 
 pose thee to thought and reflection, let 
 the beauties of nature, the power, wisdom 
 and goodness of the Almighty, as man!- 
 
181 
 
 fested in the production of his creatures, 
 the order and course of his providence 
 in their preservation, the rewards of a 
 good life, and the certainty of thy end, 
 be the subjects of thy meditation/' 
 
 Would it not be in opposition to the 
 current of all our best moral affections, 
 to doubt for an instant that he had a 
 kindly and gentle nature who composed 
 a tract to which the beautiful enco- 
 mium of Hawkins could deserve to be 
 applied ? 
 
 Making this aur rule of judgment 
 it would not be easy to say whether 
 from his writings, the reputation of 
 Milton would be greater as a genius 
 
182 
 
 and a scholar; or as an amiable mem- 
 ber of society. He has found an able, 
 but a prejudiced biographer in Johnson ; 
 and in Hayley, a very respectable vin- 
 dicator of his fame as a private charac- 
 ter ; but the particular features of the 
 character of Milton were alike un- 
 known to both. A page of his diary ^ 
 (were we masters of such a relic,} 
 would possibly have done more towards 
 proving whether he was tyrannical and 
 capricious, or mild and philosophical 
 in the government of his family, and 
 in his domestic relations, than many 
 volumes of conjectures. But, if we 
 are permitted to form conjectures, and 
 
183 
 
 that we found these on different pas- 
 sages in his poetical writing^, they 
 would afford lineaments for a most fa- 
 vorable sketch of the moral portrait of 
 this resplendent genius. 
 
 From his two immortal poems, the 
 Paradise Lost ? and Regained, we are 
 authorized to believe his piety as 
 refined as his talents were extraor- 
 dinary. From these, as well as from 
 his smaller productions, many a verse 
 might be culled, indicative of great 
 nervous sensibility, and a just relish 
 for all those natural charms which 
 chiefly engage the attention of elevated 
 and guiltless minds : and both of these 
 
184 
 
 qualities seem to be the inheritance 
 of the " pure in heart" and of them 
 only. 
 
 We are apt to think that a cheerful 
 companion cannot be a mischievous 
 one. To smile and to be malignant 
 at one and the same time, is either 
 supposed impossible, or the privilege 
 of a diabolical disposition. A like 
 observation might probably be made 
 with even more truth, on one of a 
 serious turn. Austerity, and sullen 
 harshness of manner; a mien, dark, 
 scowling and ungracious, are charac- 
 teristics of the sanguinary and mali- 
 cious; while solemnity, which may be 
 
185 
 
 called the moon-light of the soul, is 
 not only perfectly compatible with 
 an unencumbered spirit, but often the 
 genuine indication of it, and of a 
 mind busy with lofty and unearthly 
 thoughts. 
 
186 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 AN Milton's Comus, his Lycidas, 
 and the poems, I/ Allegro and II Pen- 
 seroso, which have been justly termed 
 two noble efforts of the imagination, 
 he has left us specimens of cheerfulness 
 chastened by good sense, of acute feel- 
 ing, and correct taste, on every topic 
 that can fairly be esteemed a subject 
 for the display of those excellencies. 
 
 The creative fancy of Shakspeare 
 which could imagine worlds, and peo- 
 ple them, has been justly extolled; 
 but Shakspeare never struck off nor 
 
187 
 
 embodied thbse " shadowy tribes of 
 mind," and " things unseen, 5 ' with 
 greater felicity, or more of the wild- 
 ness of poetry than Milton. In Comus 
 the lady says 
 
 " A thousand fantasies 
 Begin to throng into my memory, 
 Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire; 
 And aery tongues, that syllable men's names 
 On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses." 
 
 She lias previously lamented that 
 " nought but single darkness/' sur- 
 rounds her: this is with true poeti- 
 cal magic, speedily succeeded by a 
 beauteous illumination ; 
 
 " Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud 
 Turn forth her silver lining on tin; night] 
 
188 
 
 I did not err: there does a sable cloud 
 Turn forth her silver lining on the night, 
 And casts a gleani over this tufted grove." 
 
 But, indeed, this entire piece is, 
 according to Milton's own words, " la- 
 den with blooming gold/ 1 and more 
 than profusely rich; it blazes in the 
 utmost splendor of ornament, and the 
 eye of the reader throughout encounters 
 nothing but brilliancy ; Meander's 
 margent green; the violet-embroidered 
 vale; pansies, pinks, and lilies; beds 
 of roses and hyacinth; the rathe prim- 
 rose and pale jessamine ; the turquoise 
 and the emerald; rocks of diamond; 
 the twilight meadow; bowers and 
 
189 
 
 crisped shades; alleys of cedar, and 
 groves of myrrh and cinnamon. 
 
 The Lvcidas is equally strewed with 
 " bells and flowrets of a thousand hues;' 1 
 and in it, as in Conius, every thing is 
 besides exalted by the highest mag- 
 nificence of epithet. When day breaks, 
 the lawns appear 
 
 *' Under the opening eye-lids of the morn." 
 
 The beginning of Spring is described 
 
 as the time that 
 
 " Flowers their gay wardrobe wear, 
 When first the white-thorn blow^s." 
 
 " Deva spreads her wizard stream;" the 
 day-star " sinks in the ocean bed;" and 
 at his return 
 
 " Flames in the forehead of the morning sky," 
 
190 
 
 In L'Allegro, it is not possible for any 
 one to read the description of a bright 
 and expanded view, without feeling 
 convinced that Milton's taste in land- 
 scape painting, was perfect: 
 
 " Strait mine eye bath caught new pleasures, 
 Whilst the landscape round it measures ; 
 Russet lawns and fallows grey, 
 Where the nibbling flocks do stray: 
 Mountains, on whose barren breast 
 The laboring clouds do often rest; 
 Meadows trim with daisies pied ; 
 Shallow brooks, and rivers wide; 
 Towers and battlements it sees 
 Bosom'd high in tufted trees." 
 
 And here, and in the II Penseroso, 
 as well as in all his writings, where the 
 smallest opportunity is afforded of 
 
191 
 
 introducing the subject, his skill in 
 music, his enthusiasm for the science 
 and his perception of its true effects on 
 human sensibility, are apparent. In 
 L' Allegro he says: 
 
 ; ' And ever against eating cares, 
 Lap me in soft Lydian airs 
 Married to immortal verse, 
 Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
 In notes with many a winding bout 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out ; 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning, 
 The melting voice thro' mazes running, 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony/' 
 
 Solemnity the most august is the 
 character of the II Penseroso; all the 
 imagery in it, is, to use the expressions 
 
192 
 
 of the poet " sober, stedfast, and de- 
 mure:" the song .of the nightingale, 
 and the tolling of the curfew; his lamp 
 at midnight, in some high and lonely 
 tower, lights him in the pursuit of such 
 studies as are appropriate: gorgeous 
 tragedy comes sweeping by, and the 
 enchantments of romance engage him 
 till not a sunny day, but civil-suited 
 morn appears, ushered in with piping 
 winds and showers. -Afterwards arched 
 walks of twilight groves receive him, 
 and from these he passes to the cloyster, 
 the high-embowed roof, the painted 
 window, the pealing organ, and the 
 anthem swelling from below. 
 
193 
 
 When the great and multiplied 
 beauties of these compositions are ta- 
 ken into consideration; and when it is 
 remembered that Milton devoted hi* 
 time, his health, and his prodigious 
 talents to the completion of literary 
 labours, which evince an ardent and 
 constant love of virtue, of religion, 
 and of civil liberty; that his learning 
 was as unlimited as his genius; that 
 unimpeded by the distractions of his 
 country, their injurious effects on him- 
 self, and the dismal and depressing 
 calamity of blindness, his writings not 
 only procured their author a reputation 
 
 which can never die, but have become 
 o 
 
191 
 
 the boast and pride of his native land; 
 when all this is recollected, the admi- 
 rers of Milton must stand excused for 
 asserting that it is absolutely impossible 
 Jie could have been defective in morals; 
 and that considering how his years and 
 his powers were employed, he had 
 neither time, nor capability to be any 
 other than GOOD, 
 
195 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 JL HE works of the author of 
 Hudibras leave on the reader's mind, 
 impressions very different from those 
 referred to in my last. In every point 
 of view, Butler may be styled the 
 literary contrast of Milton. The story 
 of his celebrated poem, is, now at least, 
 uninteresting; and must always have 
 been coarse, foul and indecent: in its 
 severity there is no solemnity; the ri- 
 dicule with which it abounds is taste- 
 less at the present day; and to the 
 cavalier reader of Charles's time, how- 
 ever full of party zeal, it must have 
 
196 
 
 appeared in one grand respect, exceed- 
 ingly misplaced; because (as Johnson 
 has observed) though the Round-heads 
 might have been inexpert in the use of 
 the scholar's weapons, they were very 
 formidable with their swords, and 
 handled them with deadly adroitness. 
 
 The poem is also over-run with 
 learning; of which Butler displays an 
 astonishing share; but it is, in general, 
 too much for his reader, far-fetched 
 and abstruse; and most wastefully ex- 
 pended on obscure and sordid subjects. 
 In the admiration expressed for Hudi- 
 bras by cotemporaries there might have 
 been some sincerity, as there certainly 
 
197 
 
 was a great deal of court adulation : 
 what the monarch relished and quoted 
 was sure of popularity; but at present, 
 it is little else than affectation in those 
 who speak of it with applause. Few 
 have read it a second time; and no one 
 ever rose from the perusal with the 
 same consciousness of delight, or the 
 same veneration for the poet's character 
 that he has experienced from reading 
 the productions of Milton's pen. 
 
 This brief notice of a performance of 
 which so much has been said and writ- 
 ten as HudibraS) has been introduced 
 for the double purpose of giving you 
 my free and unbiassed opinion of the 
 
198 
 
 work; and of touching on that sort of 
 pleasure which arises to a reader from 
 scrutinizing the merits of two renowned 
 and coeval candidates for reputation, 
 \vhose claims, in these instances, are 
 founded, however, on very different 
 pretensions 5 and whose moral characters, 
 should the reader draw his conclusions 
 from their several writings, must seem 
 to him as dissimilar as their poetry and 
 their politics. 
 
 I have, in a former letter, said that 
 the reference we make in reading, of the 
 matter before us to oar own peculiar 
 and private feelings, is one of the prin* 
 cir>n1 amusements afforded bv 
 
199 
 
 Every one who is habitually a reader 
 will assent to the truth of this position, 
 and be ready to admit that few things 
 are more palatable than the pleasure 
 communicated by this mirror-like pro- 
 perty which books hare, when we dis- 
 cover in them not only the reflection of 
 the general sentiments of mankind, 
 and the particular opinions of the 
 writer; but our own deviations and 
 foibles; our own good and evil quali- 
 ties; all the alarms, incertitudes, and 
 remembrances; all the hopes and all 
 the apprehensions, which make our own 
 hearts so restless, and render each 
 human being a little world to himself. 
 
200 
 
 This power in books of giving back 
 the images of the mind, though scarcely 
 restricted to any description of litera- 
 ture is most discernible in poetry, and 
 in what are commonlv termed works 
 of fiction, or novels. In these the au- 
 thenticity of the facts introduced is 
 unimportant: we do not, in this in- 
 stance, require to know whether the 
 loves and griefs, described by the 
 author, are real or feigned; whether 
 the courage, the beauty, or the con- 
 stancy of the prominent characters 
 actually belong to those on whom the 
 writer has conferred them, or not ; 
 neither is it our concern whether the 
 
201 
 
 personages in the poem or the romance 
 vvere or were not in existence. It is 
 enough for the reader's gratification, 
 if he can discover that their exterior 
 and their story resemble realities which 
 he has found in himself or his inti- 
 mates; and that the passions pourtrayed 
 are like the passions he feels, or once 
 has felt; or which have agitated the 
 bosoms of some for whom he has been 
 interested. 
 
 Though the present and the past 
 are both implicated in this species 
 of enjoyment, its highest degree per- 
 haps is attached not so much to what 
 is, as to what was: the pleasures of 
 
remembering are far from being the least 
 of those which reading affords; it is 
 agreeable to our nature to be pleased 
 with the recollection of the good we 
 have tasted of, and lost; or the ills we 
 have formerly endured. And though 
 the immediate pressure of such misfor- 
 tunes as friendless and childless old 
 age, decrepitude and poverty is most 
 racking and grievous; there is some- 
 thing dignified, something which flat- 
 ters and sooths us, in the remembrance 
 of better times. They who have never 
 been happy, healthy or affluent, not 
 only suffer misery under opposite cir- 
 cumstances, but, (strange as it may 
 
503 
 
 appear, and contradictory as it is to 
 received notions,) suffer more than if 
 they had fallen from a state of pros- 
 perity into these reverses ; and have 
 one pleasure less than those, who, while 
 they sigh and weep, and even specify 
 the contrary as the chief cause of their 
 pain, would not, (were it possible) ex- 
 change states with others who had never 
 lost what they lament. 
 
 
204 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 JL O a belief in the existence 
 of the last mentioned principle in our 
 minds, the world is indebted for seve- 
 ral fine thoughts in one of the fairest 
 productions of modern genius; the title 
 of which supports the foregoing ob- 
 servations. The author of " The Plea- 
 sures of Memory" attributes to that 
 faculty, some of our purest mental 
 enjoyments ; and I dare say that the fol- 
 lowing lines have caused, and will yet 
 cause, many a bosom to throb, and 
 many a secret tear to flow : 
 
205 
 
 " And hence that calm delight the portrait gives ; 
 We gaze on every feature till it lives ! 
 Still the fond lover views the absent maid ! 
 And the lost friend still lingers in the shade! 
 Say why the pensive widow loves to weep, 
 When on her knees she rocks her babe to sleep; 
 Tremblingly still, she lifts the veil to trace 
 The father's features in his infant face]" 
 
 A couplet from another part of this 
 admired performance answers the ques- 
 tion of the poet; the painted simular 
 of a much-loved object, absent it may 
 be for ever ; of a dear friend deceased, 
 has become inestimable because 
 
 " Her charm around th' enchantress MEMORY threw, 
 A charm that sooths the mind, and sweetens too." 
 
 Fvery one who feels at all, will feel 
 ibe force of this allusion, and be coi> 
 
scions that in hours of solitude and 
 meditation, the mind dwells less upon 
 the brighter scenes of life, than on the 
 recollection of distresses and disappoint- 
 ments; and, notwithstanding, dwells 
 on them with enthusiastic fondness. 
 
 There is a thought on this subject 
 expressed with his accustomed tender- 
 ness and beauty, by Goldsmith; 
 
 " O memory, thou fond deceiver, 
 
 Still importunate and vain ; 
 To former joys recurring ever, 
 
 And turning all the past to pain !*' 
 
 To pain undoubtedly; but to pain 
 which we greet with welcome, and 
 cherish when we inflict it on ourselves: 
 
207 
 
 and it may also be observed, that 
 Memory is rather termed a deceiver for 
 the sake of rhyme, than out of regard 
 to justice; Hope we know is prover- 
 bially deceitful; and of the character 
 to be affixed to the present, we are often 
 dubious: whereas what relates to the 
 past is alone ours ; and only what we 
 remember is intitled to rank among cer- 
 tainties. 
 
 That to which we look forward as a 
 possible event, may nevar arrive; and 
 the friend in whom to-day we confide 
 may to-morrow become perfidious ; the 
 mistress we worship, prove inconstant; 
 or the child of our hopes, unworthy. 
 
208 
 
 Not so the prosperity of a former 
 period; not so those whom the grave 
 has consecrated. To the eye of Me- 
 mory, the scenes of felicity gone, and 
 gone irretrievably, are arrayed in sun- 
 light; when we look back on them, v*e 
 see in them only 
 
 " Yellow meads of asphodel, 
 And amaranthine bowers/* 
 
 Of the departed friend we remember 
 nothing but his virtues; the vision of 
 her we loved, and have lost, appears 
 with every grace of mental and personal 
 beauty; and we should hate the heart 
 that could conceive, or the lips that 
 could utter a doubt of the perfections 
 
209 
 
 which bloomed in the child of whom 
 death has despoiled us! 
 
 Blair's fine poem, the Grave, may 
 be instanced as a literary production 
 endeared to the general reader, not 
 merely by the excellence of its lan- 
 guage, or its awe-inspiring subject, but 
 because it holds converse with our 
 hearts on topics, which we but dare to 
 whisper to ourselves, and should deem 
 it a sort of profanation to discuss aloud 
 and at large, even with a chosen and 
 long-tried associate. The matter here 
 is full of melancholy interest ; it em- 
 braces an allusion to every thing which 
 merits the name of affliction; and 
 
210 
 
 might be thought to appeal with too 
 much violence to memory, and to the 
 sensibilities of those who grieve; were 
 it not for the consolation it offers, by 
 reminding the unhappy of that which 
 only can console them: of that period, 
 when no more sighs shall be heaved, 
 nor tears shed; when hope will be lost 
 in certainty, and when the mourned and 
 
 t|ie mourner shall meet to " bask in 
 uncreated rays/' and to part no more. 
 
 There are several passages in the 
 Grave, which are rich in what may 
 be called these terrible graces; leaving 
 it doubtful whether the memory of the 
 sufferer had not better have remained 
 
211 
 
 quiescent, than be thus awakened; yet 
 it is more than probable that these are 
 the passages most frequently read, and 
 for the reason before given: they bring 
 private recollections home to the bosom 
 of the individual, and are converted 
 into so many cases in point. 
 
 For her who as yet has lived " in 
 single blessedness," and is still a 
 stranger to the world, and to its cares; 
 who is as cheerful as innocence, and 
 health, and happiness can render her, 
 the following lines have but a general 
 meaning; and by her they may be read 
 and forgotten. But how many are 
 they by whom they must be perused 
 
212 
 
 with a sensation as if personally ad- 
 dressed to themselves, and minutely 
 descriptive of their sorrows! 
 
 " The new-made Widow too, I've sometimes spied, 
 Sad sight ! slow moving o'er the prostrate dead : 
 Listless she crawls along in doleful black, 
 While bursts of sorrow gush from either eye, 
 Fast falling down her now untasted cheek. 
 Prone on the lonely grate of the dear man 
 She drop?. Whilst busy, meddling MEMORY, 
 In barbarous succession, musters up 
 The past endearments of their softer hours, 
 Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks 
 She sees him, and indulging the fond thought, 
 Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf, 
 Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way." 
 
 And, beyond a doubt, there are thou- 
 sands who, though they must admire 
 the thought in the Poet's mind, and 
 
213 
 
 the elegance of his expressions, would, 
 with comparative heedlessness, run their 
 
 eves over those verses in which the dis- 
 
 i 
 
 solution of female youth and beauty is 
 delineated: whereas, let a father, or a 
 lover be concerned; let Memory act, 
 and the fearful picture be appropriated 
 bv some child of misfortune, and the 
 effect instantaneously becomes power- 
 ful : interest and anguish ensue; and 
 nothing but the name seems wanting to 
 make the story his own : 
 
 " Beauty ! thou pretty plaything ! dear deceit \ 
 That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart, 
 And gives it a new pulse unknown before ! 
 The Grave discredits thee : thy charms expung'd 
 Thy roses faded and thy lilies soil'd, 
 
214 
 
 What hast thou now to boast of? Will thy lovers 
 Flock round thee now to gaze and do thee homage ? 
 Methinks I see thee, with thy head low-laid ; 
 Whilst surfeited upon thy damask cheek, 
 The high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll'd, 
 Riots unscar'd." 
 
215 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 THOUGH a great deal might 
 be added to what I have last said, I 
 shall not enlarge farther on that division 
 of the Pleasures of Reading; my in- 
 tention being only to throw into my 
 letters a few loose notions on some of 
 the various methods by which books 
 recommend themselves to our minds; 
 I shall therefore here proceed to par- 
 ticulars of another kind, in which such 
 as read for amusement are not less in* 
 terested than in those already touched 
 on : I mean the entertainment afforded 
 
216 
 
 by a certain degree of attention to the 
 merits and faults of books. 
 
 Reading would become a toilsome 
 occupation, were every part of an 
 author's works examined with an eye 
 of severity, and tried by all the rigid 
 laws of criticism; although to some of 
 them every writer should be thought 
 amenable. On the other hand, to read 
 with such supineness, as to overlook 
 glaring and obvious deviations; or with 
 such absurd and ill-judged clemency 
 as to consider them with perfect in- 
 difference,, and be as well satisfied with 
 bad as with good writing, is to resign 
 one of the choicest gratifications in the 
 
217 
 
 literary banquet, which I conceive to 
 be an aptitude to discover the beautiful 
 passages in authors ; to dwell on them, 
 and make them so far our own as to 
 be able to recal them on different 
 occasions. The brilliant thoughts of 
 various writers, who express in happy 
 terms what has been forcibly conceived, 
 may be brought to recollection, and 
 applied so as to reflect a stronger light 
 on each passage than that in which it 
 would otherwise appear. Verse, though 
 not necessarily, is usually best adapted 
 for promoting this kind of mental plea- 
 sure; as it is well-known that what is 
 conveyed in measured language is less 
 
S18 
 
 liable to be forgotten, than if it had 
 been in plain prose ; and a memory well 
 supplied with these literary flowers can 
 quickly compose a rich and beautiful 
 garland for the embellishment of any 
 subject under contemplation. 
 
 It can do this, not only with the 
 contents of books, but with nearly 
 every object of real life, and especially 
 with landscape scenery; when the scene 
 and the volume perpetually suggest 
 each other. It is to such a gratification 
 as this that Cicero alludes, when he 
 says, our studies go along with us 
 wherever we go, and are always agree- 
 able fellow-travellers. 
 
219 
 
 What I have observed respecting 
 poetical suggestions, does not so rea- 
 dily admit of being illustrated by ex- 
 amples; indeed the attempt would be 
 surperfluous; as every one who reads 
 must feel that it is impossible to avoid 
 associating with any given topic the re- 
 membrance of a great variety of thoughts 
 collected from distant sources: and 
 to expatiate on this principle of as- 
 sociation would lead us too far. 
 
 But with regard to the application 
 of an author's sentiments to the actual 
 circumstances in which we may be 
 occasionally placed, I shall endeavour 
 to be more particular; and chiefly for 
 
220 
 
 the sake of referring to a composition 
 which not only abounds in what have 
 been admired as fine poetical ideas, 
 but contains, in as great profusion as 
 any celebrated poem we possess, such 
 passages as apply directly to view* 
 of rural nature in England; and this 
 is Dyer's Grongar Hill: of which John- 
 son says, " The scenes it displays are 
 so pleasing, the images which they 
 raise so welcome, and the reflections 
 of the writer so consonant to the ge- 
 neral sense and experience of mankind, 
 that when it is once read, it will be 
 read again." This is just, but cold: 
 the taste which could relish Grongar 
 
221 
 
 Hill, would indulge in a constant re- 
 collection of it ; but Johnson, as it is 
 known, had defective eye-sight; and 
 was on that account alone an incom- 
 petent judge of the beauties of Gron- 
 gar Hill. 
 
 He could not enjoy the extent and 
 magnificence of rural views and had 
 probably never conceived the notion of 
 comparing Dyer's powers of description 
 with reality: it is, however, in this 
 respect only that the poem is here in- 
 troduced. 
 
 Were a critique on the composition 
 intended, I should, instead of ven- 
 turing upon any observations of my 
 
222 
 
 own, rather choose to make use of a 
 very ingenious article, in a volume of 
 the European Magazine, with the sig- 
 nature " Heranio," in which the writer 
 has compared Grongar Hill, as it now 
 is, with the poem first published under 
 that title in 1726; the year before 
 Lewis's miscellany appeared. It was 
 originally what is termed a pindaric 
 ode, with some obscurities, and a few 
 trivial faults of another kind, which it 
 still preserves ; but the general opinion 
 would perhaps be in favor of the 
 measure last adopted, as better suited 
 to description than that of the irregular 
 ode. Most persons would be displeased 
 
223 
 
 to find Milton's L' Allegro, which it 
 resembles, transformed into pindaric 
 measure. 
 
 Grongar Hill is full of the most 
 agreeable pictures which can be pre- 
 sented to the eye of imagination, and 
 these drawn with so much truth, that the 
 reader fancies he has often and in many 
 different places seen the same glorious 
 assemblage of natural charms; " Vistas 
 shooting beams of day;" woods and 
 meads; the gay and cloudless land- 
 scape, spreading beneath, and viewed 
 from the mountain's brow 
 
 " Old castles on the cliffs arise, 
 Proudly towering in the skies! 
 
224 
 
 Rushing from the woods, the spires 
 Seem from hence ascending fires ; 
 Half his beams Apollo sheds 
 On the yellow mountain-heads, 
 Gilds the fleeces of the flocks, 
 And glitters on the broken rocks !" 
 
 This is not only incomparable paint- 
 ing, but of that kind which suffers 
 nothing by being repeatedly exhibited; 
 and the verses might be recited daily 
 with pleasure as undiminished as that 
 with which we could behold the scene 
 they describe. Both to it, and to 
 Grongar Hill> may be applied a couplet 
 from the poem itself: 
 
 " Ever charming, ever new, 
 
 When will the landscape tire the view !* 
 
225 
 
 never until the human heart and 
 human eyes are fatigued with the bles- 
 sings which God, in his boundless 
 benevolence, has poured forth for the 
 indulgence of man: never until we 
 cease to be pleased with the green rai- 
 ment of the earth, the blush of the 
 rose, the fresh blowing air, the foun- 
 tain's fall, the river's flow; never till 
 we are tired of viewing " this universal 
 frame, thus wond'rous fair/' and are 
 grown forgetful of the divine hand that 
 formed it. 
 
226 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 AN laying out the scenery of 
 his poem, Dyer has shown the greatest 
 possible taste. All the embellishments 
 are not natural; but where the signs 
 of human industry are employed, the 
 effect is finely heightened, and nothing 
 but what is picturesque appears. The 
 Garden in the Paradise Lost, is de- 
 scribed by the poet as a display of 
 " enormous bliss, wild without rule or 
 art. 3 ' t)yer has thought fit to throw 
 in fragments of architecture and traces 
 of cultivation, but has done this with 
 the greatest delicacy: the pile, once 
 
227 
 
 " big with the vanity of state,'* he has 
 reduced to remnants of towers, held 
 together by clinging ivy; or, " ever 
 and anon" falling in huge heaps of 
 hoary mouldered walls; the flocks of 
 the shepherd are barely discernible on 
 the illuminated mountain; and (says 
 the poet ) 
 
 " See on the mountain's southern side, 
 Where the prospect opens wide, 
 Where the evening gilds the tide, 
 How close and small the hedges lie ! 
 What streaks of meadow cross the eye V 9 
 
 Great expanse and great depth of per- 
 spective being necessary, all parts of 
 the composition are in harmony; and 
 
 Ihougb the dwelling and the form of 
 Q2 
 
228 
 
 man are omitted, his mind is remem- 
 bered; and moral reflection inter- 
 spersed with the utmost propriety. 
 
 Having mentioned the grandeur of 
 conception evinced by Milton in his 
 description of Paradise in Eden, it may 
 b amusing, and included in our cur- 
 sory view of Reading Pleasures, to com- 
 pare his scenery, and what appear to 
 be his highest notions of garden- 
 beauty, with some curious passages in 
 Bacon's Essay on the subject of what 
 he deems a Garden for a Prince. He 
 would have it occupy a space of thirty 
 acres of ground, and be divided into 
 three parts; a green at the entrance, a 
 
229 
 
 heath or desert at the going forth, and 
 the main garden in the midst; with 
 alleys on both sides. The green grass 
 should be finely shorn ; there should be 
 a fair alley in the midst, and a stately 
 hedge as an enclosure : and there should 
 be on either side of the green a covert 
 alley, upon carpenter's work, about 
 twelve feet in height, by which 'you 
 may go in shade into the garden. As 
 for the making of knots and figures 
 with divers coloured earth, (which was 
 the false taste of Bacon's time, though 
 his genius soared above it,) he says, 
 they be but toys; you may see as good 
 sights many times in tarts. 
 
230 
 
 Frequently, however, his taste deserts 
 him ; for he insists on it that his gar- 
 den should be square, encompassed on 
 all the four sides, with a stately arched 
 hedge; the arches to be upon pillars of 
 carpenter's work: above this, another 
 hedge, and over every arch, a little 
 turret with a belly enough to receive a 
 cage of birds ; and over every space 
 between the arches, some other little 
 figure with broad plates of round 
 coloured glass gilt, for the sun to play 
 upon ! 
 
 He would, moreover, have sloping 
 banks, set all with flowers; and though 
 he excepts against images cut out of 
 
231 
 
 garden stuff, and says, they be for chil- 
 dren; yet, alas! taste fails him again, 
 and he proposes little low edges, round 
 like welts, with some pretty pyramids, 
 " and these" saith he "Hike well." 
 
 The fair mount in the centre would 
 be very good, but it is marred by his 
 fine banqueting house, with chimnies 
 neatly cast. He cannot well be pardoned 
 for his partiality to alleys, which, doubt- 
 less, he intended to have in right lines: 
 but his management of water is tasteful; 
 though his surrounding images gilt, or 
 of marble, might be dispensed with ; 
 as well as the pieces of coloured glass, 
 and lustrous things at the bottom of what 
 
232 
 
 he terms the bathing pool. His heath, 
 he, judiciously, would have framed as 
 much as may be to a natural wild- 
 ness; and, indeed, the whole arrange- 
 ment, making allowances for the time 
 in which Bacon wrote, and the gro- 
 tesque ideas on the subject then pre- 
 vailing, does him great credit. 
 
 Though Milton wrote at a later period 
 than Lord Verulam, yet his was as 
 little the age of taste in gardening, as 
 that which preceded it. But the mind 
 of Milton was of no particular era; 
 nor is the compliment paid to him by 
 Dryden and Thomson overstrained, or 
 more than justice: the force of nature 
 
233 
 
 could no farther go in the production 
 of intellect: in the eulogy of the latter 
 nothing is exaggerated, and there is a 
 great share of Miltonic beauty in the 
 lines: 
 
 " Is not each great, each amiable muse 
 
 Of classic ages in thy Milton met ! 
 
 A genius universal as his theme, 
 
 Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom 
 
 Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime !" 
 
 In the garden of Paradise every thing 
 is disposed with the closest adherence 
 to the rules of taste, but to rules of 
 no "Other kind. Wild it is, yet remote 
 from rudeness as from any feature of 
 trimness or formalitv. Milton has filled 
 
234 
 
 his scenery with ornament, but avoided 
 whatever could look like art; and has 
 contrived to divest his solitudes of 
 gloom, and to enliven grandeur by 
 making it cheerful. 
 
 " A fresh fountain with many a rill 
 
 Water'd the garden there united fell 
 
 Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood. 
 
 " This was the place 
 
 A happy rural seat of various views 
 
 Groves whose rich trees wept od'rous gums and balm, 
 
 Betwixt them, lawns, or level downs, and flocks 
 
 Grazing the tender herb, were interpos'd ; 
 
 Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap 
 
 Of some irriguous valley spread her store 
 
 Flowers of all hue ; and without thorn, the rose. 
 
 Another side, umbrageous grots and caves 
 
 Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine 
 
 Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creep* 
 
935 
 
 Luxuriant : meanwhile murm'ring waters fall 
 Down the slope hill, dispersed; or in a lake 
 That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd, 
 Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. 
 The birds their quire apply ; airs, vernal airs 
 Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune 
 The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, 
 Knit with the graces, and the hours in dance, 
 Led on th* eternal spring." 
 
 Bacon's sumptuous banqueting-house 
 with chimnies neatly cast and without 
 too much glass; and indeed the proud- 
 est structure that Athens or Rome 
 could boast, must yield to the u blissful 
 bower'* of Adam, which Dr. Aikin 
 praises Milton for adorning with great 
 botanical taste: 
 
236 
 
 " ft was a place 
 
 Chosen by the sovereign planter, when he framed 
 All things to man's delightful use : the roof 
 Of thickest covert was inwoven shade 
 Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew 
 Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side 
 Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub, 
 Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower 
 Iris all hues, roses and jessamine, 
 Rear'd high their flourished heads between, and 
 
 wrought 
 
 Mosaic : under foot the violet, 
 Crocus and hyacinth, with rich inlay 
 Broider'd the ground." 
 
 *>. 
 
237 
 
 LETTER XXV1L 
 
 R. Aikin whom I have before 
 named, is the author of a very inge- 
 nious essay which you probably have 
 met with, on the application of natural 
 history to poetry. The recent perusal 
 of this work has suggested to me an- 
 other of the Pleasures of Reading, 
 which consists in discovering the favo- 
 rite theme of an author, especially of a 
 poet : and this may be ascertained by 
 the test of his frequently recurring to 
 the same subject, and handling it still 
 with unabated spirit. 
 
238 
 
 Were I disposed to speak with severity 
 and introduce the failings rather than 
 the excellencies of our established 
 writers, I might here point your atten- 
 tion to the readiness with which some 
 glide inlo the discussion of ungraceful 
 and disgusting topics, and the proofs 
 they give of their attachment to these 
 by the dexterity they display on such 
 occasions. Fielding, for example, riots 
 amidst scenes of human folly and 
 wickedness, particularly in the inferior 
 walks of life; and Smollett is never 
 more himself, than when engaged in 
 dilating on the deformities of both the 
 souls and bodies of the human species. 
 
239 
 
 With a like bias towards a beloved 
 subject, but highly to the credit of his 
 delicate taste and exalted mind, Milton 
 never passes by an opportunity of 
 alluding to the song of the nightingale, 
 in verse, as musical as the notes of this 
 his favorite bird. 
 
 In book the third of the Paradise 
 Lost, she is called 
 
 " The wakeful bird that sings 
 Darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 
 Tunes her nocturnal note." 
 
 And again in book the fourth she is 
 mentioned : 
 
 "All but the wakeful nightingale, 
 She all night long her amorous descant sung." 
 
240 
 
 In book the seventh : 
 
 " Nor then the solemn nightingale 
 Ceas'd warbling, but all night, tun'd her soft lays." 
 
 In the II Penseroso" Philomel" is 
 implored to 
 
 " Deign a song. 
 In her sweetest, saddest plight," 
 
 and is apostrophised as the sweet 
 bird 
 
 " That shuns the noise of folly, 
 Most musical, most melancholy." 
 
 In Com us, 
 
 " In the violet-embroidered vale, 
 Where the lore-lorn nightingale 
 Her sad song mourneth well." 
 
 And iji another part of the masque, 
 
the lady is beautifully compared with 
 I he bird; 
 
 " And O poor hapless nightingale, thought I, 
 How sweet thou singst, how near the deadly snare !" 
 
 The nightingale is also addressed by 
 her admirer, in a sonnet full of ardor: 
 
 " O nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray, 
 Warblest at ve, when all the woods are still ; 
 Thou with fresh hopes the lover's heart dost fill, 
 While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, 
 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day 
 
 Portend success in love/' 
 
 When the powers of the nightingale 
 are considered, and we recollect not 
 only the sublime character of Milton's 
 mind, but that he had a refined sen- 
 
242 
 
 sibility to the charms of music, his 
 fondness for the melodj of this bird 
 will appear most natural. 
 
 Its history has been recorded several 
 years since by a pen of superior force ; 
 and the writer gives such a view of this 
 surprising creature's faculties as fully 
 accounts not merely for Milton's ad- 
 miration of its song, but for that of 
 mankind in all ages. 
 
 The nightingale has been the idol of 
 the hero, the philosopher and the poet 
 in the brightest periods of antiquity; 
 and while they have enriched their 
 works with images drawn from its 
 capabilities of pleasing, and immor- 
 
243 
 
 talized its merits, they have paid their 
 own taste the highest compliment. 
 a When literature revived in Europe," 
 says the writer alluded to, " the descrip- 
 tion given by the ancients of the night- 
 ingale, was the more relished, and 
 made the deeper impression as the bird 
 was well known, and every one per- 
 ceived it to be just. 
 
 " The songster now underwent the 
 strictest examination ; and it was soon 
 found that no language, no fancy, 
 could even do justice to the ideas in- 
 spired by its notes ; and that on the 
 least acquaintance with it, the finest 
 things that had been said concerning 
 
 R2 
 
it, by the finest writers in the world, 
 were immediately perceived to be in- 
 ferior to its deserts, 
 
 " Nature is ever the same; and the 
 moderns seem to vie with those of for- 
 mer times in doing honor to the night- 
 ingale; and certainly nothing less than 
 unexceptionable merit can command 
 universal esteem." 
 
 This observer speaks with suitable 
 enthusiasm of the falls, shakes, tran- 
 sitions, breaks and pauses, associated 
 by the bird in its song, with such 
 judgment and graceful execution as 
 absorb every feeling of the heart in a 
 succession of the most grateful sen- 
 
245 
 
 sations, and afford a complete specimen 
 of ihe power of sentimental harmony. 
 
 Can we wonder that Milton should 
 have keenly felt music thus described 
 as so full of softness and delicacy; and 
 so consonant to all the movements of 
 true sensibility; or that Virgil should 
 have composed one of the most splen- 
 did passages in all his writings, in order 
 to excite compassion, as well as admi- 
 ration for the harmless and enchanting 
 nightingale. 
 
 Thomson has transfused the sense of 
 the Roman poet, with great beauty 
 into his Seasons. Having described 
 " the astonished mother" returning to 
 
246 
 
 her vacant nest, which has been bar- 
 barously robb'd during her absence in 
 search of food for her young ones, he 
 proceeds with a translation of the Latin 
 original, not inferior to any similar 
 attempt ever made. 
 
 " To the ground the vain provision falls ; 
 
 Her pinions ruffle, and low drooping, scarce 
 
 Can bear the mourner to the poplar shade, 
 
 Where all abandoned to despair, she sings 
 
 Her sorrows through the night ; and on the bough, 
 
 Sole sitting, still at ev'ry dying fall 
 
 Takes up again the lamentable strain 
 
 Of winding woe ; till wide around, the woods 
 
 Sigh to her song, and with her wail resound.* 
 
347 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 JL OU will have observed that 
 in enumerating the pleasures of books, 
 I have hitherto neglected to notice 
 those which might be supposed to arise 
 from reading dramatic composition. 
 They are too many to be separately 
 considered; yet too important to be 
 totally passed over in silence. 
 
 In this kind of reading, imagination 
 is not only requisite for the reader's 
 complete indulgence, but we must allow 
 this power of the mind to revel unre- 
 strained; and to such as can do this, 
 the perusal of a fine tragedy or comedy 
 
J48 
 
 is likely to afford infinitely more de- 
 light than its exhibition on the stage, 
 where no piece was ever yet presented, 
 in which more than two or three of the 
 characters have been fully supported. 
 Whereas, we can fancy, in our closet, 
 each part well acted, and may confer 
 the most appropriate figures, counte- 
 nances and habits on the performers: 
 and should the w 7 ork happen to be one 
 of consummate merit, the wished for 
 illusion is then rendered perfect. The 
 reader of a play is secure from the 
 interruption inseparable from a theatre; 
 not only from the noise of the well and 
 .ill-dressed rabble, the comments of the 
 
*9 
 
 stupid and illiterate, and the ridiculous 
 plaudits which ranting is sure to pro- 
 duce from that class of spectators, on 
 whom every finer stroke of genius in 
 actor and author is totally lost but 
 he escapes from the much greater incon- 
 venience of seeing that which attend- 
 ants on theatrical amusements have the 
 mortification constantly to see, youth 
 and beauty personated by the aged and 
 the ugly: clumsiness substituted for 
 grace, vulgarity for fine breeding; grim 
 aspects and white handkerchiefs, for 
 sorrow ; starting and stamping for an- 
 ger; school-boy spouting for eloquence; 
 and hysterical giggling for laughter, a 
 
250 
 
 species of convulsion only tolerable 
 when spontaneous and genuine. 
 
 For the reader of dramatic pieces, 
 especially of tragedy, there is a great 
 fund of entertainment in calmly ex- 
 amining the art, or the want of art 
 displayed by the poet in delineating 
 the effects of the passions, and assign- 
 ing adequate expressions to the person 
 agitated by them; in discovering, by 
 comparison with his own feelings, when 
 strict attention is paid to nature by the 
 author; when nature, (as she often is) 
 is sacrificed in some measure to what i 
 shall call dramatic nature; and when she 
 is altogether forsaken. This may be 
 
251 
 
 done with effect by a reader, who would 
 find such a scrutiny impracticable in 
 a theatre, where decorum, or more pro- 
 perly speaking, human vanity, forbids 
 our giving way to our sensibilities, 
 particularly of a tender sort ; and where 
 the strongest minded and most resolute 
 thinker is liable to be somewhat carried 
 away by the tide, and to be more or 
 less infected by sympathy: when he is 
 in danger of being trepanned into 
 feeling and expressing awe or pity ; 
 indignation or merriment; at times, 
 when, shrewd and judicious in himself, 
 he is conscious that each sentiment is 
 misplaced. 
 
252 
 
 The pleasures of dramatic reading 
 might be illustrated by numberless 
 inferences to popular tragedies and 
 comedies; the produce, not only of 
 this country, but of France, Italy and 
 Germany. Of foreign authors in gene- 
 ral, however, I have forborne to speak 
 throughout this correspondence, and 
 shall not introduce them here. Neither 
 will I enter into a minute examination 
 of any celebrated specimen of English 
 dramatic genius, but instead, v\ill lay 
 before you a thought which has struck 
 me on the subject of dramatic talent, 
 and which might be curiously applied 
 (if it never has been so applied) by any 
 
253 
 
 one who had leisure, to all eminent 
 authors, as well as those who have 
 written for the stage. 
 
 The idea is that of a scale of dramatic 
 merit, similar to what has been drawn 
 up for celebrated painters of the old 
 school, and which was found among 
 the papers of a distinguished artist 
 deceased. 
 
 I shall here only sketch the thought, 
 but the plan might be enlarged and 
 improved upon. Instead of the terms 
 expression, colouring, design, and com- 
 position, used when the labours of the 
 pencil are in question, those of pathos, 
 humour, nature, style, plot, and mo- 
 
254 
 
 Plot. 
 
 Moral. 
 
 Style. 
 
 Nature. 
 
 Humour. 
 
 Patbos. 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 18 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 5 
 
 17 
 
 11 
 
 10 
 
 18 
 
 17 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 ral may be employed ; and, as in the 
 list of painters, we can suppose eighteen 
 the degree of excellence: for example: 
 
 Shakspeare 
 
 OtvKay- 
 
 Southern 
 This you will immediately perceive to 
 be imperfect in itself; and capable of 
 being extended, not only as to the 
 number of writers, and to those of 
 modern times; but that it is calculated 
 to include all the varieties of dramatic 
 genius, and particularly to reach such 
 authors as have shown extraordinary 
 skill in a very fascinating department of 
 the drama; the composition of tender 
 
255 
 
 incidents in pieces avowedly comic; 
 by which a happy contrast is effected ; 
 the bosom is thrilled with the finest 
 emotions; and sighs are heaved, and 
 tears summoned to the eyes, while the 
 heart overflows with gladness: delight- 
 ful sensations, experienced when we 
 find innocence unexpectedly and amply 
 vindicated, reconciliation taking place 
 between the virtuous and amiable; a 
 generous forgiveness granted, or a 
 noble act of any kind performed. 
 
256 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 I PROCEED in this my con- 
 cluding letter to what I conceive, and 
 am persuaded you will think a topic 
 most worthy of serious consideration. 
 Hitherto the Pleasures of Reading have 
 formed the subject of our inquiry; and 
 we have, I trust, arrived at a thorough 
 conviction that there is a very great 
 variety of mental enjoyments derivable 
 from books; that these merit the name 
 of pleasures in the true sense of that 
 much abused term ; and are such as, in 
 the words of the poet " bring with their 
 
257 
 
 sweetness no satiety." But a taste for 
 books, I have formerly observed, is 
 probably conducive to a more impor- 
 tant end than that of rendering our 
 mortal condition tolerable. I have pre 
 sumed to insinuate the likelihood of 
 a result infinitely preferable to any 
 thing connected with a state so short 
 at best, always so uncertain, often so 
 wearisome, so full of cares and of af- 
 flictions as that of human life: I have 
 ventured to surmise that the love of 
 books, properly directed, operates as 
 a preparative for that mighty change 
 we shall undergo when we have done 
 
 " With this our day of proof, our Iftnd of hope/ 1 
 s 
 
258 
 
 and are called upon to pass into re- 
 gions Of IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Some idea of my meaning may be 
 formed, if we consider in what a dif- 
 ferent light this world must appear 
 to two persons of opposite tastes and 
 characters. The one endowed with 
 quick sensibilities in general; and in 
 particular, with a lively feeling for 
 every moral and natural beauty; with 
 a just ear for music, whether that of 
 the orchestra or of the woods and 
 fields; with eyes to perceive the charms 
 of a painted, and a real landscape; 
 with such a knowledge of the arts as 
 to admit of his seeing the genius un- 
 
259 
 
 folded in a temple, a column or a sta- 
 tue, the work of some renowned hand ; 
 with such an acquaintance among men 
 of letters, and their productions, that 
 the precepts of the sage, the numbers 
 of the poet, and the learning of the 
 scholar are incessantly in his memory, 
 and ever ready to be applied. 
 
 Shall not one thus gifted, who could 
 discover wisdom " in the running 
 brooks, sermons in stones, and good in 
 every thing," be said truly to enjoy 
 the blessing of existence? 
 
 But let us imagine his contrast: to 
 him, this glorious earth is but a fruit- 
 less and steril waste ; he acknowledges 
 
260 
 
 in the suu and moon only the heat or 
 light they emit; he knows that spring 
 is verdant, and winter cold; but of the 
 associations and reflections which the 
 brightness of the celestial luminaries and 
 the alternations of the seasons not only 
 might call forth, but were undoubt- 
 edly designed to excite, by their bene- 
 ficent maker, he alas! is ignorant. 
 
 On a mind such as this, the pictures- 
 que of every kind is completely thrown 
 away; and such a man lives, if this 
 deserves the name of life, insensible to 
 the good with which he is environed: 
 his faculties decay, and his frame~ 
 perishes; and he drops into the grave 
 
201 
 
 without baring known the charms 
 which he was invited to admire; he 
 has tasted only of the waters of bitter- 
 ness ; his path to the tomb has been 
 literally through a vale of tears; " joy- 
 less and unendeared" have been the 
 days of his pilgrimage; and he has 
 crept into the narrow bed of death, pos- 
 sibly, thankful for being allowed to 
 exist, but without a sentiment of gra- 
 titude to the benevolence, which, in 
 creating this our temporary inheritance, 
 seems to have consulted ornament and 
 the gratification of every sense, at least 
 as much as utility, 
 
 At first view the person thus deli- 
 
262 
 
 neated may appear to be a fit object 
 of pity, and to be unjustly stigmatized ; 
 and some would be inclined, in his 
 case, to make the defence commonly 
 set up, when inferiority is in question, 
 and to allege that his dulness is not 
 culpable but unfortunate. This might 
 be allowed were he upbraided for na- 
 tural deficiencies, but cannot be ad- 
 mitted in excuse for wilful obtuseness; 
 for a disposition so brutish and per- 
 verse ; so obstinately regardless of the 
 allurements spread before hiiii, and 
 which solicit his notice on every side; 
 which crv to him as Adam to \i\sfairest, 
 his espoused, when he summons her from 
 
263 
 
 slumber to share the splendors of day- 
 break in Paradise: 
 
 " AWAKE! the morning shines, and the fresh field 
 Calls us : we lose the prime ; to mark how spring 
 Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, 
 What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed ; 
 How nature paints her colours; how the bee 
 Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet/' 
 
 May we not appeal to one who will 
 not look on the " universal love that 
 smiles around/' in the fervid and most 
 poetical language of Beattie! 
 
 " O how canst thou renounce the boundless store 
 Of charms which nature to her votary yields! 
 
 The warbling woodlands, the resounding shore, 
 The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields ; 
 
264 
 
 All that the genial ray of morning gilds, 
 And all that echoes to the song of even, 
 
 All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, 
 
 And all the dread magnificence of heaven, 
 O how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!" 
 
 He who will sleep, when lie might 
 awake and feel; who chooses the sordid 
 pursuits of self interest, to the exclu- 
 sion of all others ; who shuts his eyes, 
 and exclaims that it is dark; who shuns 
 all intercourse with rational books and 
 their admirers, from declared humility, 
 but, in truth from a base and despicable 
 arrogance which will not allow him to 
 endure the thought of coming in con- 
 tact with any thing more refined than 
 himself; or who, should he read, (for 
 
265 
 
 the dull and the insensible read, and 
 not a little) selects works contrived 
 to clog the intellect and vitiate the 
 mind, is not a subject of commiseration, 
 but a criminal. 
 
 Is it to be supposed that these ima- 
 gined representatives of two distinct or- 
 ders of human being can pass through 
 the world with sensations equally 
 agreeable ? It would be a misapplica- 
 tion of words and time to say more 
 than that their doing this is an impos- 
 sibility. Neither is it possible that 
 these two could be entitled to the same 
 degree of respect as members of the 
 community. Goodness and refinement 
 
are more nearly allied than they are 
 commonly conceived to be; for a faci- 
 lity in doing wrong is, like rectitude, 
 the result of practice: a mind exercised 
 in laudable pursuits, and ever in search 
 of improvement, has not leisure to be 
 vicious or vulgar. 
 
 And although we cannot form any 
 conjecture as to the kind of happiness 
 we are to expect in our eternal state, it 
 is but reasonable to conclude, that 
 whatever is most welcome to the taste 
 of the virtuous and enlightened here, 
 will most effectually contribute to form 
 their felicity hereafter. * 
 
 I have endeavoured to show that our 
 
267 
 
 enjoyments in life may be greatly en- 
 hanced by a well-regulated use of 
 books; and would willingly persuade 
 others of what you feel as strongly as I 
 do, that to LOVE BOOKS, to be enamoured 
 of these " silent friends" is, (as Thomson 
 sings of the effects of Seraphina's 
 charms) " to be tender, happy, pure," 
 
 " Tis from low passions to escape,, 
 And woo bright Virtue's fairest shape ; 
 Tis ecstacy with wisdom joined, 
 And heaven infused into the mind :" 
 
 And not only this, but by invigora- 
 ting our faculties, and enlarging the 
 scope of our sublunary pleasures, that 
 they lend their benign aid as the assis- 
 
tants of RELIGION, to a work of still 
 mightier import ; and that the benefits 
 we here derive from books, will wait 
 upon us when our sojourning on earth 
 is at an end, and we shall have 
 
 " Wing'd our mystic flight to future worlds." 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 PRINTED BV OY AND SON, MARKET-PLACED BATH. 
 
" ' 
 
Ms? 
 
AT57 
 
TREATMENT REPORT 
 
 A View of the Pleasures Anting 
 
 from a Love of Books - 1814 
 
 Z1003 M37 
 
 Condition : 
 
 The text block was broken in two. 
 
 The board* were detached from the book and the 
 spine was broken in two. 
 
 Treatment : 
 
 Handmade paper endshcets with airplane linen 
 hinge were sewn on. 
 
 ("Yale with Flax" Wove paper -Twinrocker, Ind.) 
 
 The sewing was reinforced using 2 cords and linen thread. 
 (Oarkson Cord Don Guyot, Washington) 
 
 (16/2 thread - Barboun, Ireland) 
 
 The spine was lined with Japanese paper and paste. 
 (Hosakawa Bookmakers, Riverdale. Maryland.) 
 (Starch -Zin Shofu- Conservation Materials, NV) 
 
 A bradcl binding was attached. 
 
 Handmade paper was used for the bonnet 
 ("Doe" muslin 6d flax Twinrocker, Indiana.) 
 
 The boards were covered with doth and handmade 
 paper sides with vellum tips. 
 
 (Archivart, Supreme Blue Conservation Board - 
 Process Materials Corp, New Jersey.) 
 (Cotlin Cloth - Talas, New York.) 
 ("Berkeley Blue" paper - Twinrocker, Indiana.) 
 
 The label and treatment report were laser 
 
 printed on handmade paper by the Library Graphics 
 
 Service using a Macintosh computer. 
 
 ("Yale with Flax" Wove - Twinrocker. Indiana.) 
 
 The label was sprayed with a fixative. (Krylon) 
 
 December, 1992 
 
 G. Boa!. Lib try OnuavMtor - Rare Book* 
 
 Conservation Department, University of California 
 
I