THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 :t]\ )
 
 THE BOOK-LOVER'S 
 ENCHIRIDION.
 
 ]6ncbittMon. 
 
 THOUGHTS ON THE 
 
 Solace 
 
 AND 
 
 Companionship 
 
 OF 
 
 Books. 
 
 Selected and Cluouologically Aivaugeil by 
 
 Ipbilobiblos* 
 
 'infinite riches in a little room. 
 
 C. Marloue. 
 
 1S83.
 
 London : 
 
 SiMPKIX, Makshall, & Co., 
 
 Stationebs' Court. 
 
 edinburgh: david douglas, 
 manchester: j. e. cornish, 
 glasgow: david m., main. 
 
 PRINTED BT A. IRELAND AND CO. 
 MANCHESTER. 
 
 .^fconb Xh(Jltsan^. 
 
 ALL hlGHTS RESERVED.
 
 TO 
 
 JAMES CROSSLEY, ESQ., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CHETHAM SOCIETY, 
 
 AN 
 
 ACCOMPLISHED 
 
 AND 
 
 HONOURED BOOK-LOVER ; 
 
 THIS LITTLE VOLUME 
 
 IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY 
 
 ITS COMPILER.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The motto to this little volume gives 
 the key-note to its contents. "In- 
 finite riches in a little room," de- 
 scribes what the reader ■will find 
 within it. The object of the compiler 
 has been to present, in chronological 
 order, the summed-up testimonies of 
 aU the best Book-Lovers on the sub- 
 ject of Books, and the Habit and Love 
 of Reading . The writers selected from 
 range fi-om Solomon and Cicero down 
 to Carlyle and Ruskiu. On this bead- 
 roll of illustrious names, " that down 
 the steady breeze of honour sail," 
 will be found those of Horace, Seneca, 
 Plutarch, Richard de Bury (author 
 of " Philobiblon," written at the 
 end of the 13th century), Chaucer, 
 Luther, Montaigne, Bacon, Shake- 
 speare, Bishop Hall, Robert Burton 
 (author of "The Anatomy of Me- 
 lancholy"), Fuller, Milton, Baxter, 
 Cowley, Locke, Addison, Steele,
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 Johnson, Goldsmith, Wordsworth, 
 Lamb, Southey, Godwin, Hazlitt, 
 De Quincey, Landor, Leigh Hunt, 
 Bulwer, Macaulay, Herschel, Hare, 
 Maurice, Helps, Dawson, Carlyle, 
 Raskin, Hamerton, John Bright, 
 and many other eminent thinkers. 
 
 The reader will find in the follow- 
 ing pages the deliVjerate utterances 
 of some of the wisest spirits of all 
 time, upon the subject of Books and 
 what they do for us — the steadfast and 
 unpresuming friendship of these silent 
 counsellors, — the consolation they 
 afi"ord in every variety of circumstance 
 or fortune,— and the ceaseless delights 
 they bring at so Little cost, and with 
 no trouble or diflSculty. 
 
 The writers of the present century 
 have contributed, of course, most 
 largely to the general store of thought 
 on this special subject. Living authors, 
 and the representatives of some who 
 have passed away, have kindly allowed 
 the compiler to make use of works in 
 which they hold a vested interest. 
 Among the selections will be found 
 many valuable pages from American
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 authors. The words of Chaiming, 
 Wfishingtou Irving, Emersou, Long- 
 fellow, Theodore Parker, Hillard, 
 Alcott, Beecher, and Collyer stand 
 side by side with those of their 
 English co-thiiikers. 
 
 This little Manual, it is hoped, 
 will meet some of the special wants 
 and moods of many thoughtful per- 
 sons ; more particularly of those who 
 are earnest and reverent, and who 
 find their most enduring pleasures in 
 studious contemplation. 
 
 The compiler has gone to the origi- 
 nal sources for his matter, selecting 
 direct from the works of the writers 
 quoted ; so that the correctness of 
 the text may be relied upon. In a 
 few cases only has he resorted to 
 existing collections of extracts. 
 
 A. I.
 
 For Friends, although your lordship be 
 scant, yet I hope you are not altogether 
 destitute ; if you be, do but look upon good 
 books: they are true friends, that will 
 neither flatter nor dissemble: be you bat 
 true to youiself, applying that which they 
 teach unto the party grieved, and you shall 
 need no other comfort nor counsel. To 
 them and to God's holy Spirit, directing 
 yon in the reading of them, I commend 
 your lordship,— Fia/icw Bacon— Letter to 
 Chief Justice Coke.
 
 Books are a safe ground and a long one, 
 but still introductory onl}', for what we 
 really seek is ever comparison of expe- 
 riences-%) know if you have found therein 
 what alone I prize, or, still better, if yon 
 have foiuid what I have never found, and 
 yet is admirable to me also. ... I 
 hold that we have never reached their best 
 use until our own thought rises to such a 
 pitch that we cannot afford to read much. 
 I own this loftiness is rare, and we must 
 long be thankful to oui' silent friends before 
 the day comes when we can honestly dis- 
 miss them.— JJ. W. Emerson, in a Letter to 
 a Friend.
 
 Books, we kuow, 
 Are a substantial world, both pm-e and 
 
 good; 
 Kound wliicb, with tendrils strong as flesh 
 
 and blood, 
 Ovu- pastime and our happiness will grow. 
 IVilliam Wordsworth.
 
 Hin. 
 
 Japs' 
 
 ->co<- 
 
 SoLOMON. B.C. 1033—975. 
 
 He that walketh with wise men shall be 
 wise.— Proverbs xiii. 20. 
 
 A word spoken in dae season, how good 
 is it !— Proverbs xv. 23. 
 
 Apply thine heart unto instruction, and 
 thine ears to the words of knowledge.— 
 Proverbs sxiii. 12. 
 
 Socrates, b.c. 46S— 399. 
 
 Employ your time in improving yourself 
 by other men's documents; so you shall 
 come easily by what others have laboured 
 hard for. Prefer knowledge to wealth, for 
 the one is transitory, the other perpetual. 
 
 Plato, b.c. 427—347. 
 
 Books are the immortal sons deifying 
 theii- sires. 
 
 3364139
 
 Cicero — Horace. 
 
 ixscription on the library at 
 Alexakdria, Fouxbed about 
 300 B.C. Destroyed a.d. 640. 
 The Nourishment of the Soul ; or, 
 
 according to Diodorus, The Medicine of 
 
 THE Mind.— I, Disraeli's " Curiosities of 
 
 Literature." 
 
 Cicero, b.c. 106— 41. 
 Nunc ceterae neque temporum sunt, neque 
 aetatum omnium, neque locorum ; hsec studia 
 adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, 
 secundas res cimant, adversis perfugium, ac 
 solatium praebent, delectant domi, non im- 
 pediunt foris, pemoctant nobiscum, peregri- 
 nantur, rusticantur.— " Arc. 7." 
 
 [For the other employments of life do not 
 suit all times, ages, or places; whereas 
 literary studies employ the thoughts of the 
 young ; are the delight of the old, the orna- 
 ment of prosperity, the refuge and solace of 
 adversity, our amusement at home, no im- 
 pediment to us abroad, employ our thoughts 
 in the night, attend us when we travel, and 
 accompany us when we retire into the 
 country.] 
 
 Horace, b.c 65—8. 
 O rus, quando ego te aspiciam ? quandoque 
 
 lieebit. 
 Nunc veterum libris, nnnc somno et inerti- 
 
 bus horis, 
 Ducere soUcitae jacnnda oblivia vitae ? 
 
 " Sat. II., 6. 51."
 
 Seneca — P hit arch . 
 
 [O coiintry, when shall I behold you, and 
 when will it he granted to me, at one time 
 reading the writings of the ancients, at 
 another taking my siesta, and spending my 
 hours in indolence, to quaff at my ease the 
 sweet forgetfulness of anxious life ?— " Lons- 
 dale and Lee's Prose Translation of Horace." 
 (The Globe Edition.) 
 
 O country, when shall I behold thee, and 
 be allowed to drink a sweet oblivion of the 
 cares of life, musing on the works of ancient 
 sages, or in gentle sleep and hours of peaceful 
 abstraction from the world's busy scenes ?— 
 " Kamage's Translation."] 
 
 Seneca, b.c. 58— a. d. 32. 
 If you devote your time to study, you 
 will avoid all the irksomeness of this life; 
 nor will you long for the approach of night, 
 being tiied of the day; nor will you be a 
 burden to yourself, nor your society insup- 
 portable to others.— "Ep. 82." 
 
 Otiiun sine Uteris mors est, et vivi 
 hominis septiltura.— " Ep. 82." 
 
 [Leisure without study is death, and the 
 grave of a living man.] 
 
 Plutarch. 46—120. 
 ■We ought to regard books as we do sweet- 
 meats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, 
 but chiefly to respect the wholesomest ; not 
 forbidding either, but approving the latter 
 most.
 
 4 Persian and Hindu Sayings. 
 
 St. Paul. a.d. 65. 
 
 For whatsoever things were written 
 aforetime were written for our learning.— 
 Romans xv, 4. 
 
 All may learn, and all may be comforted. 
 —I. Corinthians xiv. 31. 
 
 From the Persian. 
 A wise man knows an ignorant one, 
 because he has been ignorant himself ; but 
 the ignorant cannot recognise the wise, 
 because he has never been wise. 
 
 Hindu Saying. 
 The words of the good are like a staff in 
 a slippery place. 
 
 From the Persian. 
 They asked their -vs-isest man by what 
 means he had attained to such a degree of 
 knowledge ? He replied: "Whatever I did 
 not know, I was not ashamed to inquire 
 about. Inquire about everything that you 
 do not know; since, for the small trouble 
 of asking, you will be guided in the road of 
 knowledge." 
 
 EicHARD DE Bury, Bishop of 
 Durham. 1287—1345. 
 
 In Books we find the dead as it were 
 living; in Books we foresee things to come ; 
 in Books warlike affairs are methodized; 
 the rights of peace proceed from Books.
 
 Richard de Btcjy. 5 
 
 All things are corrupted and decay with 
 time. Saturn never ceases to devour those 
 whom he generates; insomuch that the 
 glory of the world would be lost in oblivion 
 if God had not provided mortals with a 
 remedy in Books. Alexander the ruler of the 
 world ; Julius the invader of the world and 
 of the city, the first who in unity of person 
 assumed the empire in arms and arts ; the 
 faithful Fabricius, the rigid Cato, would at 
 this day have been without a memorial if 
 the aid of Books had failed them. Towers 
 are razed to the earth, cities overthrown, 
 triumphal arches mouldered to dust ; nor 
 can the King, or Pope be found, upon whom 
 the privilege of a lasting name can be con- 
 ferred more easily than by Books. A Book 
 made, renders succession to the author: 
 for as long as the Book exists, the author 
 remaining adavaro';, immortal, cannot 
 perish. . . . The holy Boetius attributes a 
 tlireefold existence to Tnith,— in the mind, 
 in the voice, and in writing; it appears to 
 abide most usefully and f ractif y most pro- 
 ductively of advantage in Books. For the 
 Truth of the voice perishes with the sound. 
 Truth latent in the mind, is hidden wisdom 
 and invisible treasure ; but the Truth which 
 illuminatea Books desii-es to manifest itself 
 to every disciplinable sense, to the sight 
 when read, to the hearing when heard : it, 
 moreover, in a manner commends itself to 
 the touch, when submitting to be tran- 
 scribed, collated, corrected and preserved. 
 Truth confined to the mind, though it may
 
 Richard de Bury. 
 
 be the possession of a noble soul, ■while it 
 wants a companion and is not judged of, 
 either by the sight, or the hearing, appears 
 to be inconsistent with pleasure. But the 
 Tnith of the voice is open to the hearing 
 only, and latent to the sight (which shows 
 us many differences of things fixed upon by 
 a most subtle motion, beginning and ending 
 as it were simultaneously). But the Trutli 
 written in a Book, being not fluctuating, 
 but permanent, shows itself openly to the 
 sight, passing through the spiritual ways of 
 the eyes, as the porches and balls of com- 
 mon sense and imagination ; it enters the 
 chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the 
 couch of memory, and their congenerates 
 the eternal Truth of the mind. 
 
 Lastly, let us consider how great a com- 
 modity of doctrine exists in Books, how 
 easily, how secretly, how safely they expose 
 the nakedness of hiunan ignorance without 
 putting it to shame. These are the masters 
 who instmct us without rods and ferrules, 
 without hard words and anger, without 
 clothes or money. If you approach them, 
 they are not asleep; if investigating you 
 interrogate them, they conceal nothing ; if 
 you mistake them, they never grumble; if 
 you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you. 
 
 You only, O Books, are liberal and inde- 
 pendent. You give to all who ask, and 
 enfranchise all who serve you assiduously. 
 . . . Truly you are the ears filled with 
 most palatable grains. . . . You are 
 golden urns in which manna is laid tip, rocks
 
 Chance 
 
 flowing with honey, or rather indeed honey- 
 combs; udders most copiously yielding the 
 milk of life, store-rooms ever full ; the four- 
 streamed river of Paradise, where the human 
 mind is fed, and the arid intellect moistened 
 and watered; . . . fruitful olives, vines 
 of Engaddi, fig-trees knowing no sterility; 
 burning lamps to be ever held in the hand. 
 
 The library, therefore, of wisdom is more 
 precious than all riches, and nothing that 
 can be wished for is worthy to be compared 
 withit. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges 
 himself to be a zealous follower of truth, of 
 happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of 
 the faith, must of necessity make himself a 
 Lover of Books.— " Philobiblon, a Treatise 
 on the Love of Books: " written in Latin in 
 1344, and translated from the first edition, 
 1473, by J. B. IngUs. (London, 1832.) 
 
 Geoffrey Chaucer. 1328—1400. 
 
 A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also, 
 That unto logik hadde long igo 
 
 For him was lever have at his beddes head 
 Twenty bookes, clothed in blak and reed, 
 Of AristotU, and of his philosophie. 
 
 But al though he were a pliilosophre, 
 Yet hadde he but litul gold in cof re ; 
 But al that he might of his frendes hente. 
 On bookes and his lemyng he it spente. 
 
 " Prologue to the Canterbui-y Tales."
 
 8 Thojnas a Kempis. 
 
 And as for me, though that I konne but 
 lyte, 
 On bokes for to rede I me delyte, 
 And to hem yeve I f eyth and ful credence. 
 And in myn herte have hem in reverence 
 So hertely, that ther is game noon. 
 That fro my bokes maketh me to goon. 
 But yt be seldome on the holy day, 
 Save, certeynly, whan that the monethe of 
 
 May 
 Is comen, and that I here the f oules synge. 
 And that the flom-es gynnen for to sprynge, 
 Far wel my boke, and my devocion ! 
 
 "Prologue to the Legende of Goode 
 Women." 
 
 For out of old fieldes, as men saithe, 
 Cometh all this new come fro yere to yere. 
 And out of old bookes, in good faithe, 
 Cometh al this new science that men lere. 
 
 "The Assemby of Foules." 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. 1380—1471. 
 
 If thou wilt receive profit, read with 
 humility, simplicity, and faith; and seek 
 not at any time the fame of being learned.— 
 Book I. chap. v. Ko. 2, 
 
 Verily, when the day of judgment comes, 
 we shall not be examined what we have 
 read, but what we have done ; nor how 
 learnedly we have spoken, but how reli- 
 giously we have lived.— Book I. chap. vi. 
 No. 5.
 
 Luther — Montaigne. 
 
 Martin Luther. liS3— 1546. 
 
 Every great book is an action, and every 
 gi-eat action is a book. 
 
 All who would study with advantage in 
 any art whatsoever, ought to betake them- 
 selves to the reading of some sure and certain 
 books oftentimes over; for to read many 
 books produceth confusion, rather than 
 learning, like as those who dwell everywhere 
 are not anywhere at home.—" Table Talk." 
 
 Michael de Montaigne. 1537—1592. 
 The Commerce of Books is much more 
 certain, and much more our own. It yields 
 all other Advantages to the other two ; but 
 has the Constancy and Facility of it's Service 
 for it's own Share : it goes side by side 
 with me in my whole Coiu-se, and every 
 where is assisting to me. It comforts me 
 in my Age and Solitude; it eases me of a 
 troublesome Weight of Idleness, and delivers 
 me at all Hours from Company that I dis- 
 like; and it blunts the Point of Griefs, if 
 they are not extreme, and have not got an 
 entire Possession of my Soul. To divert 
 myself from a troublesome Fancy, 'tis but 
 to run to my Books; they presently fix me 
 to them, and drive the other out of my 
 Thoughts ; and do not mutiny to see that I 
 have only recoiu-se to them for want of other 
 more real, natui-al and lively Conveniences ; 
 they always receive me with the same Kind- 
 ness. . . . The sick Man is not to be
 
 10 Montaigne. 
 
 lamented, who has his Cure in his Sleeve. 
 In the Experience and Practice of this Sen- 
 tence, which is a very true one, all the 
 Benefit I reap from Books consists ; and yet 
 I make as little use of it almost as those 
 who know it not; I enjoy it as a Miser does 
 his Money, in knowing that I may enjoy it 
 when I please; my Mind is satisfied with 
 this Eight of Possession. I never travel 
 without Books, either iu Peace or "War ; and 
 yet sometimes I pass over several Days, 
 and sometimes Months, without looking 
 into them ; I will read by and by, say I to 
 my self, or to Morrow, or when I please, and 
 Time steals away without any Inconveni- 
 ence. For it is not to be imagin'd to what 
 Degree I please my self, and rest content in 
 this Consideration, that I have them by me, 
 to divert my self with them when I am so 
 dispos'd, and to call to mind what an Ease 
 and Assistance they are to my Life. 'Tis the 
 best Viaticum I have yet found out for this 
 human Journey, and I very much lament 
 those Men of Understanding who are unpro- 
 vided of it. And yet I rather accept of any 
 sort of diversion, how light soever, because 
 this can never fail me. When at Home, 
 I a nttle more frequent my Library, from 
 whence I at once survey all the whole Con- 
 cerns of my Family : As I enter it, I from 
 thence see under my Garden, Court, and 
 Base-court, and into all the parts of the 
 Building. There I turn over now one Book, 
 and then another, of various Subjects 
 without Method or Design : One while I
 
 Montaigne. 
 
 meditate, anotlier I record, and dictate as 
 I walk to and fro, such Whimsies as these 
 •with which I here present you. 'Tis in the 
 third Story of a Tower, of which the Ground- 
 Boom is my Chapel, the second Story an 
 Apartment with a withdrawing Room and 
 Closet, where I often lie to be more retired. 
 Above it is a great Wardrobe, which for- 
 merly was the most useless part of the 
 House. In that Library I pass away most 
 of the Days of my Life, and most of the 
 Hours of the Day. In the Night I am never 
 there. There is within it a Cabinet hand- 
 som and neat enough, with a very con- 
 venient Fire-place for the Winter, and 
 Windows that afford a great deal of Light, 
 and very pleasant Prospects. And were I 
 not more afraid of the Trouble tlian the 
 Expence, the Trouble that frights me from 
 all Business, I could very easily adjoin on 
 either Side, and on the same Floor, a Gal- 
 lery of an hundred Paces long, and twelve 
 broad, having found Walls already rais'd 
 for some other design, to the requisite 
 height. Every Place of Retirement requires 
 a Walk. My Thoughts sleep if I sit still ; 
 my Fancy does not go by it self, my legs 
 must move it ; and all those who study with- 
 out a Book are in the same Condition. The 
 Figm-e of my Study is round, and has no 
 more flat WaU than what is taken up by 
 my Table and Chairs ; so that the remaining 
 parts of the Cii'cle present me a View of 
 all my Books at once, set upon five Degrees 
 of Shelves round about me. It has three
 
 12 Montaigne. 
 
 noble and free Prospects, and is sixteen 
 Paces Diameter. I am not so continually 
 there in Winter ; for my House is built upon 
 an Eminence, as it's Name imports, and no 
 part of it is so much expos'd to the Wind 
 and Weather as that, which pleases me the 
 better, for being of a painful Access, and a 
 little remote, as well upon the account of 
 Exercise, as being also there more retir'd 
 from the Crowd. 'Tis there that I am in my 
 Kingdom, as we say, and there I endeavour 
 to make my self an absolute Monarch, and 
 to sequester this one Comer from all Society, 
 whether Conjugal, Filial, or CivU. Else- 
 where I have but verbal Authority only, and 
 of a confus"d Essence. That Man, in my 
 Opinion, is very miserable, who lias not at 
 home, where to be by himself, where to 
 entertain himself alone, or to conceal him- 
 self from others. ... I think it much 
 more supportable to be always alone than 
 never to be so. If any one shall tell me, 
 that it is to nnder-value the Muses, to make 
 use of them only for Sport, and to pass away 
 the Time ; I shall tell him, that he does not 
 know the value of Sport and Pastime so well 
 as I do ; I can hardly forbear to add further, 
 that all other end is ridiculous, I live from 
 Hand to Mouth, and, with Reverence be it 
 spoken, I only live for mj' self ; to that all 
 my Designs do tend, and in that terminate. 
 I studied when young for Ostentation; 
 since to make my self a little wiser; and 
 now for my Diversion, but never for any 
 Profit. A vain and prodigal Humour I had
 
 Florio. 13 
 
 after this sort of Fnrniture, not only for 
 supplying my owti needs and defects, but 
 moreover for Ornament and outward show ; 
 I have since quite abandon'd it. Books 
 have many charming Qualities to such as 
 know how to choose them. But every 
 Good has it's 111 ; 'tis a Pleasure that is 
 not pure and clean, no more than others: 
 It has it's Inconveniences, and great ones 
 too. The Mind indeed is exercised by it, 
 but the Body, the care of which I must 
 withal never neglect, remains in the mean 
 time without Action, grows heavy and 
 melancholy. I know no Excess more pre- 
 judicial to me, nor more to be avoided in 
 this my declining Age.— "Of Thi-ee Com- 
 merces." (Chailes Cotton's Translation, 
 1686.) 
 
 John Florio. 1545—1625. 
 Concerning the Honour of Books. 
 Since honoiir from the honourer proceeds. 
 How well do they deserve, that memorize 
 And leave in books for all posterities 
 The names of worthies and their virtuous 
 
 deeds ; 
 When all their glory else, like water-weeds 
 Without their element, presently dies, 
 And all their greatness quite forgotten lies. 
 And when and how they flourished no man 
 
 heeds ! 
 How poor remembrances are statues, tombs 
 And other monuments that men erect 
 To princes, which remain in closed rooms,
 
 14 Sidney — Bacon. 
 
 Where but a few behold them, in respect 
 Of Books, that to the universal eye 
 Show how they lived ; the other where they 
 lie! 
 Prefixed to the second edition of liis 
 Translation of Montaigne's Es- 
 says, 1613.— [Fide Notes to D. 
 M. Main's " Treasury of English 
 Sonnets," p. 248, in reference to 
 this Sonnet.] 
 
 Book of Common Prayer. 1549. 
 Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. — 
 Collect for Second Sunday in Advent. 
 
 John Lylye [or Lilly]. 1553—1601. 
 ... far more seemely were it for thee 
 to have thy Studie full of Bookes, than 
 thy Purses full of Mony.— " Euphues ; the 
 Anatomy of 'Wit." 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney. 155i —1586. 
 
 It is manifest that all government of 
 action is to be gotten by knowledge, and 
 knowledge, best, by gathering many know- 
 ledges, which is reading. 
 
 Francis Bacon. 1561—1629. 
 Studies serve for delight, for ornament, 
 and for ability. Their chief use for delight 
 is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament 
 is in discourse: and for ability is in the 
 judgment and disposition of business. . .
 
 Bacon — Daniel. 15 
 
 Read not to contradict and confute, nor to 
 believe and take for granted, nor to find 
 talk and discoui-se, but to weigh and con- 
 sider. Some books are to be tasted, others 
 to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed 
 and digested ; that is, some books are to be 
 read only in parts; others to be read, but 
 not curiously; and some few to be read 
 wholly, and with diligence and attention. 
 . . . Keading maketh a full man; con- 
 ference a ready man; and writing an exact 
 man; and, therefore, if a man write little, 
 he had need have a great memory : if he 
 confer little, he had need have a present 
 wit : and if he read little, he had need have 
 much cunning to seem to know that he doth 
 not.— "Essays." 
 
 The images of men's wita and know- 
 ledge remain in books, exempted from the 
 worry of time and capable of perpetual 
 renovation. Neither are they fitly to be 
 called images, because they generate still, 
 and casts their seeds in the minds of others, 
 provoking and causing infinite actions and 
 opinions in succeeding ages.— "Essays." 
 
 Samuel Daniel. 1562—1619, 
 O blessed Letters ! that combine in one 
 All Ages past, and make one live with all. 
 By you we do confer with who ai'e gone. 
 And the Dead-living unto Council call ; 
 By you th' unborn shall have Communion 
 Of what we feel and what doth us bef al. 
 Soul of the World, Knowledge without thee;
 
 i6 Daniel — Shakespeare. 
 
 ■UTiat hath the Earth that truly glorious is ? 
 . . . What Good is like to this, 
 To do worthy the writing, and to write 
 Worthy the Reading, and the World's 
 DeHght ■? 
 
 "Musophilus; containing a General 
 Defence of Learning." 
 
 And tho' books, madam, cannot make this 
 
 Mind, 
 Which we must bring apt to be set aright; 
 Yet do they rectify it in that Kind, 
 
 And touch it so, as that it turns that Way 
 Where Judgment lies. And tho' we cannot 
 find 
 The certain Place of Truth; yet do they 
 stay, 
 And entertain us near about the same : 
 And give the Soul the best Delight that 
 
 may 
 Enchear it most, and most our Sp'rits 
 enflame 
 To Thoughts of Glory, and to worthy Ends. 
 " To the Lady Lucy, Countess of 
 Bedford." 
 
 William Shakespeare. 1564—1616. 
 Me, poor man, my library 
 Was dukedom large enough. 
 
 "Tempest," L2. 
 
 Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me, 
 From my own library, with volumes that 
 I prize above my dukedom. 
 
 "Tempest," i. 2.
 
 BisJiop Hall. 
 
 Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties 
 that are bred in a hook. 
 
 " Love's Labour Lost," iv. 2, 
 
 The hooks, the arts, the academes, 
 That show, contain, and nourish all the 
 ■world. 
 
 " Love's Labour Lost," iv. 3. 
 
 Come, and take a choice of all my library ; 
 And so beguile thy sorrow. 
 
 " Titus Andronicus," iv. 1. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Hall, Bishop of 
 Norwich. 1574— 165G. 
 Not to be cloyed with the same conceit is 
 difllcult, above human strength; but to a 
 man so fiu-nished with all sorts of know- 
 ledge, that according to his dispositions he 
 can change his studies, I should wonder that 
 ever the sun should seem to pass slowly. 
 , . . What a heaven lives a scholar in, 
 that at once in one close room can daily 
 converse with all the glorious martyrs and 
 fathers ? . . . Let the world contemn 
 us; while we have these delights we cannot 
 envy them ; we cannot wish ourselves other 
 than we are. Besides, the way to all other 
 contentments is troublesome ; the only re- 
 compense is in the end. To delve in the 
 mines, to scorch in the fire for the getting, 
 for the fining of gold is a slavish toil; the 
 comfort in Study itself is our life; from 
 which we would not be barred for a world.
 
 1 8 Bishop Hall. 
 
 I can wonder at nothiug more than how 
 a man can be idle — but of all others, a 
 scholar,— in so many improvements of 
 reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, 
 in such variety of studies, in such impor- 
 tunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry ; 
 in philosophy, profoundness; in history, 
 wonder of events; la oratory, sweet elo- 
 quence ; in divinity, supernatural light, and 
 holy devotion— as so many rich metals in 
 their proper mines,— whom would it not 
 ravish with deUght?—" Epistle to Mr. ilil- 
 ward." 
 
 What a world of wit is here packed up 
 together ! I know not whether this sight 
 doth more dismay or comfort me; it dis- 
 mays me to think, that here is so much that 
 I cannot know; it comforts me to think 
 that this variety yields so good helps to 
 know what I should. There is no truer 
 word than that of Solomon— there is no end 
 of making many books; this sight verifies 
 it — there is no end; indeed, it were pity 
 there should. God hath given to man a 
 busy soul, the agitation whereof cannot but 
 through time and experience work out many 
 hidden truths ; to suppress these would be 
 no other than injurious to mankind, whose 
 minds, like unto so many candles, should 
 be kindled by each other. The thoughts of 
 our deliberation are most accurate; these 
 v.e vent into oui- papers ; what a happiness 
 is it, that without all offence of necromancy, 
 I may here call up any of the ancient
 
 A I ouzo of Arragon, 
 
 worthies of learning, whether human or 
 divine, and confer with them of all my 
 doubts !— that I can at pleasure summon 
 whole synods of reverend fathers, and acute 
 doctors, from all the coasts of the earth, 
 to give their well-studied judgments in 
 all points of question which I propose ! 
 Neither can I cast my eye casvially upon 
 any of these silent masters, hut I must 
 learn somewhat : it is a wantonness to com- 
 plain of choice. No law binds me to read 
 all ; but the more we can take in and digest, 
 the better liking must the mind's needs be. 
 Blessed be God that hath set up so many 
 clear lamps in his church. Now, none but 
 the wilfully blind can plead darkness; 
 and blessed be the memory of those his 
 faithful servants, that have left their blood, 
 their spirits, their lives, in these precious 
 papers, and have willingly wasted them- 
 selves into these during monuments, to 
 give light unto others.—" Occasional Medita- 
 tions." 
 
 Alonzo of Arragon. 
 
 Alonzo of Arragon was wont to say in 
 commendation of Age, that Age appeared to 
 be best in four- things: old wood best to 
 burn; old wine to drink; old friends to 
 trust; and old authors to read.— Bacon's 
 "Apophthegms," No. 101. [Bartlett (" Fami- 
 liar Quotations," p. 84) quotes this saying, 
 and refers to Melchior : " Spanish Proverbs," 
 ii. 1-20.]
 
 20 Fletcher. 
 
 John Fletcheu, 1576—1625. 
 Give me 
 Leave to enjoy myself. That place, that 
 
 does 
 Contaiu my books, the best companions, is 
 To me a glorious court, where hourly I 
 Converse with the old sages and philosophers. 
 And sometimes for variety, I confer 
 With kings and emperors, and weigh their 
 
 Calling their victories, if unjustly got, 
 Unto a strict account : and in my fancy, 
 Deface their ill-planed statuss. Can I 
 
 then 
 Part with such constant pleasures, to em- 
 brace 
 Uncertain vanities ? No : be it your care 
 To augment a heap of wealth; it shall be 
 
 mine 
 To increase in knowledge. Lights there for 
 my study ! 
 
 If all thy pipes of wine were fill'd with 
 
 books. 
 Made of the barks of trees, or mysteries 
 
 writ 
 In old moth-eaten vellum, he would sip thy 
 
 cellar 
 Quite dry, and still be thirsty. Then, f ors 
 
 diet. 
 He eats and digests more volumes at a meal. 
 Than there would be larks (though the sky 
 
 should faU) 
 Devour'd in a month in Paris. 
 
 " The Elder Brother," Act i. Scene 2.
 
 Btirton. 
 
 Robert Burton. 1576—1640. 
 
 But amongst those exercises or recrea- 
 tions of the mind within doors, there is none 
 so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts 
 of men, so fit and proper to expel idleness 
 and melancholy, as that of study. [Here 
 Cicero is quoted, the passage from whom 
 is given ante p. 2.] What so full of con- 
 tent, as to read, walk, and see maps, pic- 
 tui-es, statues, «S:c. . . . Who is he that 
 is now wholly overcome with idleness, or 
 otherwise encircled in a labyrinth of worldly 
 care, troubles, and discontents, that will 
 not be much lightened in his mind by read- 
 ing of some enticing story, true or feigned, 
 where as in a glass he shall observe what 
 our forefathers have done, the beginnings, 
 ruins, falls, periods of commonwealths, 
 private men's actions displayed to the 
 life, &c. Plutarch therefore calls them, 
 secundas mensas et bellaria, the second 
 course and junkets, because they were 
 generally read at noblemen's feasts. Who 
 is not earnestly affected with a passionate 
 speech, well penned, an eloquent poem, or 
 some pleasant bewitching discourse, like 
 that of Heliodorus (Melancthon de Helio- 
 doro), uH oblectatio quaedam placide fluit 
 cum hilaritate conjuncta? ... To most 
 kind of men it is an extraordinary delight 
 to study. For what a world of books offers 
 itself, in all subjects, arts, and science, to 
 the rival contest and capacity of the reader !
 
 22 Bw'ton. 
 
 . . . What is there so sure, what so plea- 
 sant ? . . . What vast tomes are extant in 
 law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, 
 practice, speculation, in verse or prose I 
 Their names alone are the subject of whole 
 volumes ; we know thousands of authors of 
 all sorts, many great libraries full weU fur- 
 nished, like so many dishes of meat, served 
 out for several palates ; and he is a very 
 block that is affected with none of them. 
 . . . Such is the excellency of these 
 studies that all those ornaments, and 
 childish bubbles of wealth, are not worthy 
 to be compared to them ; I would even live 
 and die with such meditations, and take 
 more deUght, true content of mind in them, 
 than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, 
 how rich soever thou art. And as Cardan 
 well seconds me — "it is more honourable 
 and glorious to understand these truths, 
 than to govern provinces, to be beautiful, or 
 to be young." The like pleasui-e there is in 
 all other studies, to such as are truly addicted 
 to them ; the like sweetness, which, as Circe's 
 cup bewitcheth a student, he cannot leave 
 off. . . , Julius Scaliger . . . brake out 
 into a pathetical protestation, he had rather 
 be the author of twelve verses in Lucan, or 
 such an Ode in Horace, than Emperor of 
 Germany. . . . King James (1605) when 
 he came to see our University of Oxford, 
 and amongst other edifices now went to 
 view that famous Library renewed by Sir 
 Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, 
 at his departui'e brake out into that noble
 
 Burton. 23 
 
 speech: "If I were not a king, I would be 
 a University man; and if it were so that 
 I must be a prisoner, if I might have my 
 wish, I would desire to have no other 
 prison than that library, and to be chained 
 together with so many good authors." So 
 sweet is the deUght of study, the more 
 learning they have (as he that hath a 
 dropsy, the more he drinks, the thirstier 
 he is) the more they covet to learn; harsh 
 at first learning is, radices amarae, but 
 fructus dulces, according to Isocrates, plea- 
 sant at last; the longer they live, the 
 more they are enamoured with the Muses. 
 Heiusins, the keeper of the library at Ley- 
 den, in Holland, was mewed up in it aU the 
 year long ; and that which to thy thinking 
 should have bred loathing, caused in him a 
 greater liking. " I no sooner (saith he) come 
 into the library, but I bolt the doors to 
 me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and 
 all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, 
 the mother of ignorance, and melancholy 
 herself; and in the very lap of eternity 
 amongst so many divine souls, I take my 
 seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, 
 that I pity all our great ones and rich men 
 that? know not this happiness." . . . 
 WTiosoever he is therefore that is overrun 
 with solitariness, or carried away with 
 pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, 
 and for want of employment knows not 
 how to spend his time; or crucified with 
 worldly care, I can prescribe biin no better 
 remedy than this of study . . . provided
 
 24 Burton. 
 
 always that this malady proceed not from 
 overmuch study; for in such case he adds 
 fuel to the fire, and nothing can be more 
 pernicious; let him take heed he do not 
 overstretch his wits, and make a skele- 
 ton of himself. . . , Study is only pre- 
 scribed to those that are otherwise idle, 
 troubled in mind, or carried headlong with 
 vain thoughts and imaginations to distract 
 their cogitations (although variety of study, 
 or some serious subject, would do the former 
 no harm), and direct their continual medi- 
 tations anotlier way. Nothing in this case 
 better than study. . . . Read the Scrip- 
 tures, which Hyperius holds available of 
 itself; "the mind is averted thereby from 
 all worldly cares, and hath much quiet and 
 tranquillity." For as Austin well hath it, 
 'tis scientia scientiarum, omni melli dulcior, 
 omni pani suavior, omni vino Idlarior: 'tis 
 the best nepenthe, rarest cordial, sweetest 
 alterative, presentest diverter ; for neither, 
 as Chrysostom well adds, "those boughs 
 and leaves of trees which are plashed for 
 cattle to stand under, in the heat of the 
 day, in summer, so much refresh them 
 with their acceptable shade, as the read- 
 ing of the Scripture doth recreate and 
 comfort a distressed soul, in son-ow and 
 affliction." . . . quod cibis corpori, lectio 
 animae facit, saith Seneca, " as meat is to 
 the body, such is reading to the soul." . . . 
 Cardan calls a library the physic of the soul ; 
 " divine authors fortify the mind, make men 
 bold and constant; and (as Hyperius adds)
 
 Burton — Overbury. 25 
 
 godly conference will not permit the mind 
 to be tortured with absurd cogitations." 
 Ehasis enjoins continual conference to 
 such melancholy men, perpetual discourse 
 of some history, tale, poem, news, &c., which 
 feeds the mind as meat and drink doth the 
 body, and pleaseth as much. . . . Saith 
 Lipsius, "when I read Seneca, methinks I 
 am beyond all human fortune, on the top 
 of a hill above mortality." ... I would 
 for these causes wish him that is melan- 
 choly to use both human and divine authors, 
 Toluntaiily to impose some task upon him- 
 self to divert his melancholy thoughts. , . . 
 Or let him demonstrate a proposition in 
 Euclid, in his last five books, extract a 
 square root, or study algebra ; than which, 
 as Clavius holds, " in all human disciplines 
 nothing can be more excellent or pleasant, 
 so abstruse and recondite, so bewitching, 
 so miraculous, so ravishing, so easy withal 
 and full of delight."— " The Anatomy of 
 Melancholy," Part ii.. Sec. 2, Memb. 4. 
 
 Sir Thomas Overbury. 15S1— 1613. 
 
 Books are a part of man's prerogative. 
 In formal ink they Thoughts and Voices 
 hold. 
 That we to them our Solitude may give. 
 
 And make Time Present travel that of Old. 
 Our Life Fame pieceth longer at the End, 
 And Books it farther backward do extend. 
 " The Wife."
 
 26 Wither. 
 
 A Seventeenth Century Divine. 
 (Unverified.) 
 There be those that ungratefully com- 
 plain of the heaviness of time, as if vre could 
 have too much of God's most precious gift of 
 life and its containings. Let such persons 
 consider that there be daUy duties to be well 
 performed -which do not exclude innocent 
 recreations and the privileged opportunities 
 of silent conversation with the greatest 
 minds and spirits, in their most chosen 
 words, in their books, that lie ready and 
 offer themselves to ns if we would. 
 
 George Wither. 1588—1667. 
 
 She [The Muse] doth teU me where to borrow 
 
 Comfort in the midst of sorrow : 
 
 Makes the desolatest place 
 
 To her presence be a grace : 
 
 And the blackest discontents 
 
 To be pleasing ornaments. 
 
 In my former days of bliss, 
 
 Her divine skill taught me this, 
 
 That from everything I saw, 
 
 I could some invention draw : 
 
 And raise pleasure to her height, 
 
 Through the meanest object's sight. 
 
 By the murmur of a spring, 
 
 Or the least bough's rustleing ; 
 
 By a daisy, whose leaves spread 
 
 Shut when Titan goes to bed ; 
 
 Or a shady bush or tree.
 
 Shirley. 27 
 
 She could more infuse in me, 
 Than all Nature's beauties can 
 In some other wiser man. 
 
 She hath taught me by her might 
 To di-aw comfort and delight. 
 Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, 
 I will cherish thee for this. 
 Poesy ! thou sweet' st content 
 That e'er heaven to mortals lent : 
 
 Let my life no longer be 
 Than I am in love with thee. 
 
 " Philartte." 
 
 James Shirley. 159:1—1666. 
 
 . . . but I hope 
 You have no enmity to the liberal arts : 
 Learning is an addition beyond 
 Nobility of birth; honour of blood. 
 Without the ornament of knowledge, 
 Is but a glorious ignorance. . . . 
 
 I never kaew 
 
 More sweet and happy hours than I employ'd 
 "Upon my books. 
 
 "The Lady of Pleasure," Act ii. Scene 1. 
 
 Sir William Waller, Parliamen- 
 tarian General. 1597—1668. 
 Here is the best solitary company ta the 
 -world, and in this particular chiefly excel- 
 ling any other, that in my study I am siure to 
 converse with none but wise men ; but abroad 
 it is impossible for me to avoid the society
 
 28 Sir William Waller. 
 
 of fools. What an advantage have I, by this 
 good fellowship, that, besides the help which 
 I receive from hence, in reference to my life 
 after this life, I can enjoy the life of so many 
 kges before I lived !— that I can be acquainted 
 with the passages of three or four thousand 
 years ago, as if they were the weekly occur- 
 rences ! Here, without travelling so far as 
 Endor, I can call up the ablest spirits of 
 those times, the leamedest philosophers, the 
 wisest counsellers, the greatest generals, 
 and make them serviceable to me. I can 
 make bold with the best jewels they have in 
 their treasury, with the same freedom that 
 the Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians, 
 and, without suspicion of felony, make use 
 of them as mine own. I can here, without 
 trespassing, go into their vineyards and 
 not only eat my fiU of their grapes for my 
 pleasure, but put up as much as I will in my 
 vessel, and store it up for my profit and ad- 
 vantage. . . I would therefore do in reading 
 as merchants used to do in their trading ; 
 who, in a coasting way, put in at several 
 ports and take in iwhat commodities they 
 afford, but settle their factories in those 
 places only which are of special note; I 
 would, by-the-bye, allow myself a traffic 
 with sundry authors, as I happen to light 
 upon them, for my recreation ; and I would 
 make the best advantage that I could of them : 
 but I would fix my study upon those only 
 that are of most importance to fit me for 
 action, which is the true end of aU learning. 
 Lord, teach me so to study other men's works
 
 Bishop Earle. 29 
 
 as not to neglect mine o^ti ; and so to study 
 Thy word, which is Thy work, that it may 
 be " a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto 
 my path "—my candle to work by. Take me 
 off from the curiosity of knowing only to 
 know ; from the vanity of knowing only to 
 be known ; and from the folly of pretending 
 to know more than I do know : and let it be 
 my wisdom to study to know Thee, who art 
 life eternal. Write Thy law in my heart, 
 and I shall be the best book here.— "Divine 
 Meditations." "Meditation upon the con- 
 tentment I have in my Books and Study." 
 
 Francesco di Rioja. 1600—1659. 
 A little peaceful home 
 Bounds all my wants and wishes ; add to this- 
 My book and friend, and this is happiness. 
 
 Dr. John Earle, Bishop of 
 Salisbury. 1601—1665. 
 
 The hermitage by his study has made 
 him somewhat uncouth in the world . . 
 but practice him a little in men, and brush 
 him over with good ccmpanj^ and he shall 
 out-balance those glisterers, as far as a solid 
 substance does a feather, or gold, gold- 
 lace.— " Microcosmography : A Down-right 
 Scholar." 
 
 Sir William Davenant. 1605—1668. 
 
 Books shew the utmost conquests of our 
 
 minds. "Gondibert."
 
 30 Fuller — Milton. 
 
 Db. Thomas Fuller. 1608—1661. 
 When there is no recreation or business 
 for thee abroad, thou may'st have a com- 
 pany of honest old fellows in their leathern 
 jackets in thy study -which will find thee 
 excellent divertisement at home. . . . 
 To divert at any time a troublesome fancy, 
 run to thy books ; they presently fix thee 
 to them, and drive the other out of thy 
 thoughts. They always receive thee with 
 the same kindness.—" The Holy State, and 
 The Profane State." 
 
 John Milton. 1608—1674. 
 For Books are not absolutely dead things, 
 but doe contain a potencie of Life in them 
 to be as active as that Soule was whose pro- 
 geny they are ; nay, they do preserve, as in a 
 vioU the pui-est efficacie and extraction of 
 that living intellect that bred them. I know 
 they are as lively, and as vigorously pro- 
 ductive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; 
 and being sown up and down, may chance 
 to spring up armed men. And yet on the 
 other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd, as 
 good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; 
 who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, 
 Gods Image ; but hee who destroyes a good 
 Booke, kills Keason it selfe, kiUs the Image 
 of God, as it were in the eye. Many a Man 
 lives a bm-den to the Earth; but a good 
 Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master 
 spirit, imbalm'd andtreasur d up on purpose
 
 Milton — Feltham. 31 
 
 to a Life beyond Life. 'Tis true, no age can 
 restore a Life, whereof perhaps there is no 
 great losse; and revolutions of ages doe not 
 oft recover the losse of a rejected Truth, for 
 the want of wliich whole Nations fare the 
 ■worse. We should be wary therefore what 
 persecution we raise against the living 
 labours of publick men, how we spill that 
 season'd Life of Man preserv'd and stor'd up 
 in Boobs ; since we see a kinde of homicide 
 may be thus committed, sometimes a martyi-- 
 dome ; and if it extend to the whole impres- 
 sion, a kinde of massacre, whereof the 
 execution ends not in the slaying of an 
 elementall Life, but strikes at that ethereall 
 and fif t essence, the breath of Keason it self e, 
 slaies an Immortality rather than a Life. — 
 " Areopagitica." [Edition with Notes, &c., 
 by T. Holt White, 1819.] 
 
 Who reads 
 Incessantly, and to his reading brings 
 
 not 
 A spii-it and judgment equal or superior. 
 Uncertain and unsettled still remains ; 
 Deep-versed in books, but shallow in liim- 
 self. 
 
 "Paradise Regained." 
 
 Owen Feltham: 1610—1678, 
 
 All endeavours aspire to eminency: all 
 eminencies do beget an admiration. And 
 this makes me believe that contemplative 
 admiration is a large part of the worship of
 
 32 Felthajn — Menage. 
 
 the Deity. Nothing can carry us so near to 
 God and heaven as this. The mind can 
 walk beyond the sight of the eye ; and 
 (though in a cloud) can lift us into heaven 
 •while we live. Meditation is the soul's per- 
 spective glass: whereby, in her long remove, 
 she discerneth God, as if He were nearer 
 hand. I persuade no man to make it his 
 whole life's business. We have bodies, as 
 well as souls. And even this world, while we 
 are in it, ought somewhat to be cared for : 
 contemplation generates; action propagates. 
 St. Bernard compares contemplation to 
 Rachel, wliich was the more fair ; but action 
 to Leah, which was the more fruitful. I 
 will neither always be busy and doing, nor 
 ever shut up in nothing but thoughts. Yet, 
 that which some would call idleness, I will 
 call the sweetest part of my life : and that 
 is— my thinking.— " Resolves." 
 
 Giles Menage. 1613—1692. 
 The following sentence from Menage 
 ("M6nagiana," vol. ry.) forms part of David 
 Garrick's book-plate, of which the compiler 
 has one :— 
 
 La pr6mi6re chose qu'on doit f aire quand 
 on a emprant<5 un Livre, c'est de le lire, afln 
 de pouvoir le rendre pl(it6t. 
 
 [The fli-st thing one ought to do, after 
 having borrowed a book, is to read it, so as 
 to be able to return it as soon as possible.] 
 
 In the " M^nagiana" is a good pendant 
 to the above :—
 
 Richard Baxter. 33 
 
 M. Toinaid dit que la raison poiir la- 
 quelle on rend si peu les liwes pretez : c'est 
 qu'il est plus ais(5 de les r^tenir que ce qui 
 est dedans. 
 
 [M. Toinard says that the reason why 
 borrowed books are seldom returned, is 
 because it is easier to retain the books them- 
 selves than what is inside of them.] 
 
 Richard Baxter (Nonconformist 
 Divine). 1615—1691. 
 
 But books have the advantage in many 
 other respects: you may read an able 
 preacher, when you have but a mean one to 
 hear. Every congregation cannot hear the 
 most judicious or powerful preachers ; I)ut 
 every single person may read the books of 
 the most powerful and judicious. Preachers 
 may be silenced or banished, when books 
 may be at hand : books may be kept at a 
 smaller charge than preachers: we may 
 choose books which treat of that very sub- 
 ject which we desire to hear of; but we 
 cannot choose what suliject the preacher 
 shall treat of. Books we may have at hand 
 every day and hour; when we can have 
 sermons but seldom, and at set times. If 
 sermons be forgotten, they are gone. But 
 a book we may read over and over until we 
 remember it; and, if we forget it, may again 
 peruse it at our pleasure, or at our leisiu'e. 
 So that good books are a very great mercy 
 to the world.—" Christian Directory," Part 
 1., Chapter ii.
 
 34 Richard Baxter. 
 
 As for play-books, and romances, and 
 idle tales, I have already shewed in my 
 " Book of Self-Denial," how pernicious 
 they are, especially to youth, and to frothy, 
 empty, idle wits, that know not what a 
 man is, nor what he hath to do in the 
 world. They are powerful baits of the 
 devil, to keep more necessary things out of 
 their minds, and better books out of their 
 hands, and to poison the mind so much the 
 mote dangerously, as they are read with 
 more delight and pleasure : and to fill the 
 minds of sensual people with such idle 
 fumes and intoxicating fancies, as may 
 divert them from the serious thoughts of 
 their salvation: and (which is no small 
 loss) to rob them of abundance of that pre- 
 cious time, which was given them for more 
 important business; and which they will 
 wish and wish again at last that they had 
 spent more wisely.— " Christian Directory," 
 Part i., Direction xvi. 
 
 Because God hath made the excellent 
 holy writings of his servants the singular 
 blessing of this land and age, and many 
 an one may have a good book even any 
 day or hour of the week, that cannot at 
 all become a good preacher; I advise all 
 God' 8 servants to be thankful for so great a 
 mercy, and to make use of it, and be much 
 in reading; for reading with most doth 
 more conduce to knowledge than hearing 
 doth, because you may choose what subjects 
 and the most excellent treatises you please
 
 Richard Baxter. 35 
 
 and may be often at it, and may peruse 
 again and again what you forget, and may 
 take time as you go to fix it on your miiid : 
 and with very many it doth more than hear- 
 ing also to move the heart, though hearing 
 of itself, in this hath the advantage ; because 
 lively books may be more easily had, than 
 lively preachers. . . . The truth is, it 
 is not the reading of many books which is 
 necessary to make a man wise or good ; but 
 the well-reading of a few, could he be sure 
 to have the best. And it is not possible to 
 read over many on the same subject in great 
 deal of loss of precious time.— " Christian 
 Directory," Part ii.. Chapter xvi. 
 
 , , . And yet the reading of as 
 many as is possible tendeth much to the 
 increase of knowledge, and were the best 
 way. if greater matters were not that way 
 unavoidably to be omitted; Life therefore 
 being short, and work great, and knowledge 
 being for love and practice, and no man 
 having leism-e to learn all things, a wise 
 man must be sure to lay hold on that which 
 is most useful . , . and the very subjects 
 that are to be understood are numerous, and 
 few men write of all. And on the same 
 subject men have several modes of wi-iting; 
 as one excelleth in accurate method, and 
 another in clear, convincing argumentation, 
 and another in an affectionate, taking style : 
 and the same book that doth one, cannot 
 well do the other, because the same style will 
 not do it.— Chi-istian Directory," Part iii.. 
 Question clsxiv.
 
 36 Sir John Dcnham. 
 
 Great store of all sorts of good books 
 (through the great mercy of God) are com- 
 mon among us : he that cannot buy, may 
 borrow. But take heed that you lose not 
 your time in reading romances, play-books, 
 vain jests, seducing or reviling disputes, 
 or needless controversies. This course of 
 reading Scripture and good books will be 
 many ways to your great advantage. (1.) 
 It will, above all other ways, increase your 
 knowledge. (2.) It will help your resolu- 
 tions and holy affections, and direct your 
 lives. (3.) It will make your lives pleasant. 
 The knowledge, the usefulness, and the 
 variety to be found in these works, -will be 
 a continual recreation to you, unless ^ou 
 are utterly besotted or debauched. (4.) 
 The pleasure of tliis will turn yon from 
 your fleshly pleasures. You will have no 
 need to go for delight to a play-house, a 
 drinking -house . . . (5.) It will keep you 
 from the sinful loss of time, by idleness 
 or unprofitable employment or pastimes. 
 You will cast away cards and dice, when 
 you find the sweetness of youthful learning. 
 —"Compassionate Counsel to Young Men." 
 
 Sir John Dexham. 1615—1668. 
 
 Books should to one of these four ends 
 
 conduce : 
 For wisdom, poetry, delight, or use. 
 
 Translation of "The Four Cardinal 
 Virtues: Of Prudence," by Man- 
 cini, a contemporary of Petrarch.^
 
 Abraham Cowley. 37 
 
 Abraham Cowley. 161S— 1G67. 
 
 ... In the second place he [the man 
 who is to make himself capable of the 
 good of solitude.] must learn the art and 
 get the habit of thinking; for this too, 
 no less than well speaking, depends upon 
 much practice ; and cogitation is the thing 
 which distinguishes the solitude of a god 
 from a wild beast. Now, because the soul 
 of man is not by its Qva\ natm'e or observa- 
 tion furnished with sufficient materials to 
 work upon, it is necessary for it to have 
 contmual recourse to learning and books 
 for fresh supplies, so that the solitary life 
 will grow indigent, and be ready to starve, 
 without them ; but if once we be thoroughly 
 engaged in the love of letters, instead of 
 being wearied with the length of any day, 
 we shall only complain of the shortness of 
 our whole life. 
 
 " O vita, stulto longa, sapienti brevis ! " 
 [0 life, long to the fool, short to the wise !] 
 
 The first minister of state has not so 
 much business in public, as a wise man 
 has in private : if the one have little leisure 
 to be alone, the other has less leisure to be 
 in company; the one has but part of the 
 affau-3 of one nation, the other all the works 
 of God and natm-e under his consideration. 
 There is no saying shocks me so much as 
 that which I hear very often, " that a man
 
 38 Abraham Coivley. 
 
 does not know how to pass his time." It 
 would have been but ill spoken by Methu- 
 salem in the nine hundred sixty-ninth year 
 of his Ufa; so far it is from us, who have 
 not time enough to attain to the utmost 
 perfection of any part of any science, to 
 have cause to complain that we are forced 
 to be idle for want of work. But this, you 
 will say, is work only for the learned; 
 others are not capable either of the employ- 
 ments or divertisements that arrive from 
 letters. I know they are not; and there- 
 fore caimot much recommend solitude to a 
 man totally illiterate. But, if any man be 
 so unlearned, as to want entertainment of 
 the little intervals of accidental soUtude, 
 which frequently occur in almost aU con- 
 ditions (except the very meanest of the 
 people, who have business enough in the 
 necessary provisions for life,) it is truly a 
 great shame both to his parents and him- 
 self; for a very small portion of any inge- 
 nious art will stop up all those gaps of our 
 time : either music, or painting, or design- 
 ing, or chemistry, or history, or gardening, 
 or twenty other things, will do it usefully 
 and pleasantly ; and, if he happen to set his 
 affections upon poetry (which I do not advise 
 him too immoderately), that will over-do it; 
 no wood will be thick enough to hide him 
 from the importunities of company or busi- 
 ness, which would abstract him from his 
 beloved.— "Essays: Of Solitude." 
 
 As far as my memory can return back
 
 Abraham Cowley. 39 
 
 into my past life, before I knew or was 
 capable of guessing, what the world, or 
 the glories or business of it were, the 
 natural affections of my soul gave me a 
 secret bent of aversion from them, as some 
 plants are said to turn away from others, by 
 an antipathy imperceptible to themselves, 
 and inscrutable to man"s understanding. 
 Even when I was a very young boy at 
 school, instead of running about on holy- 
 days, and playing with my fellows, I was 
 wont to steal from them, and walk into the 
 fieMs, either alone with a book, or with some 
 one companion, if I could find any of the 
 same temper. I was then, too, so much an 
 enemy to all constraint, that my masters 
 could never prevail on me, by any persua- 
 sions or encouragements, to learn without 
 book the common rules of grammar; in 
 which they dispensed with me alone, be- 
 cause they found I made a shift to do the 
 usual exercise out of my own reading and 
 observation. That I was then of the same 
 mind as I am now, (which, I confess, I won- 
 der at myself) may appear by the latter end 
 of an ode, which I made when I was but 
 thirteen years old, and which was then 
 printed with many other verses. The begin- 
 ning of it is boyish ; but of this part, which 
 I here set down (if a very little were 
 corrected), I should hardly now be much 
 ashamed. 
 
 This only grant me ; that my means may lie 
 Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
 
 40 Abraham Cowley. 
 
 Some honour I would have, 
 Not from great deeds, but good alone ; 
 The unknown are better than ill known : 
 
 Rumour can ope the grave. 
 Acquaintance I would have, but when 't 
 
 depends 
 Not on the number, but the choice, of 
 friends. 
 
 Books should, not business, entertain the 
 
 light ; 
 And sleep, as undistxirb'd as death, the night. 
 
 My house a cottage more 
 Than palace ; and should fitting be 
 For all my use, not luxm-y. 
 
 My garden painted oer 
 With Nature's hand, not Arfs ; and pleasures 
 
 yield, 
 Horace might envy in his Sabine field. 
 Thus would I double my life's fading space ; 
 For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. 
 
 And in this true delight, 
 These unbought sports, this happy state, 
 I would not fear, nor wish, my fate ; 
 
 But boldly say each night ; 
 To-morrow let my sun his beams displaj", 
 Or in clouds hide them ; I have lived to-day. 
 
 With these afiections of mind, and my 
 heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the 
 university; but was soon torn from thence 
 by that violent public stonn, which would 
 suffer nothing to stand where it did, but 
 rooted up every plant, even from the princely
 
 Abraham Cowley. 41 
 
 cedars to me the hyssop. Yet, I had as good 
 fortune as could have hefalleu me iii such a 
 tempest; for I was cast by it into the family 
 of one of the best persons, and into the court 
 of one of the best princesses, of the world. 
 Now, though I was here engaged in way, 
 most contrary to the original design of 
 my life, that is, into much company, and 
 no small business, and into a daily sight of 
 greatness, both militant and triumphant 
 (for that was the state then of the English 
 and French courts); yet all this was so far 
 from altering my opinion, that it only added 
 the confii-mation of reason to that which was 
 before but natural inclination. I saw plainly 
 all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer 
 I came to it ; and that beauty, which I did 
 not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, 
 it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice 
 me, when I saw that it was adulterate. I 
 met with several great persons, whom I 
 liked very well; but could not perceive that 
 any part of their greatness was to be liked 
 or desired, no more than I would be glad or 
 content to be in a storm, though I saw many 
 ships which rid safely and bravely ia it : a 
 storm would not agree with my stomach, if 
 it did with my coiu-age. Though I was in a 
 crowd of as good company as could be found 
 anywhere ; though I was in business of great 
 and honourable trust ; though I eat at the 
 best table, and enjoyed the best conve- 
 niences for present subsistence that ought 
 to be desired by a man of my condition in 
 banishment and public distresses; yet I
 
 42 Abraham C<nvley. 
 
 could not abstain from renewing my oM 
 school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the 
 same effect : 
 
 "Well then; I now do plainly see 
 
 This busy world and I shall ne'er agree," &c. 
 
 And I never then proposed to myself any 
 other advantage from liis majesty's happy 
 restoration, but the getting into some 
 moderately convenient retreat in the coun- 
 try; which I thought, in that case, I might 
 easily have compassed as well as some 
 others, with no greater probabilities or pre- 
 tences, have arrived to extraordinary for- 
 tunes. . . . However, by the failing of 
 the forces which I had expected, I did not 
 quit the design which I had resolved on ; I 
 cast myself into it a corps perdu, without 
 making capitulations, or taking counsel of 
 fortune. But God laughs at a man who 
 says to his soul, "Take thy ease:" I 
 met presently not only with many little 
 encumbrances and impediments, but •with 
 so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) 
 as would have spoiled the happiness of an 
 emperor as well as mine : yet I do neither 
 repent, or alter my course, " Non ego per- 
 fidum dixi sacramentiim ; " nothing shall 
 separate me from a mistress which I have 
 loved so long, and have now at last married; 
 though she neither has brought me a rich 
 portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as 
 I hoped from her :
 
 Temple — Cotton. 43 
 
 Nee vos, clulcissima mundi 
 
 Nomina, vos, Musae, Libertas, Otia, Libri, 
 Hortique Silvfeciue, anima remanente, re- 
 linquam. 
 
 Nor by me e'er shall you. 
 You, of all names the sweetest and the best, 
 You Muses, books, and liberty, and rest ; 
 You, gardens, fields, and woods, forsaken be 
 As long as life itself forsakes not me. 
 
 But this is a very pretty ^ejaculation ! 
 Because I have concluded all the other 
 chapters with a copy of verses, I will main- 
 taui the hiimour to the last.—" Essays : Of 
 Myself." 
 
 Sir William Temple, 1628—1698. 
 Books, like proverbs, receive their chief 
 value from the stamp and esteem of ages 
 through which they have passed.—" Essays : 
 On Ancient and Modern Learning." 
 
 Charles Cotton. 1630—1687. 
 [The friend of Isaac Walton, and Translator 
 of Montaigne's Essays.] 
 Who from the busy World retires, 
 
 To be more useful to it still. 
 And to no greater good aspires 
 
 But only the eschewing ill. 
 Who, with his Angle, and his Books, 
 
 Can think the longest day well spent. 
 And praises God when back he looks, 
 
 And finds that all was innocent.
 
 44 Locke — La Brtiyere. 
 
 This man is happier far than he 
 
 Whose public Business oft betrays 
 Through labyrinths of Policy, 
 To crooked and forbidden ways. 
 Poems : " Contentation." Directed to 
 my Dear Father, and most Worthy 
 Friend, Mr. Isaac Walton. 
 
 John Locke. 1632—1704. 
 
 Education begins the gentleman, but 
 reading, good company, and reflection must 
 finish him. 
 
 Those who have read of everything are 
 thought to understand everything too; but 
 it is not always so — Eeading fui-nishes the 
 mind only with materials of knowledge ; it 
 is thinking that makes what are read over. 
 We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not 
 enough to cram ourselves with a great load 
 of collections; unless we chew them over 
 agaru, they will not give us strength and 
 nourishment. 
 
 A 
 
 La Bruyere. 1639— 169G. 
 ■WTiere a book raises your spirit, and in- 
 spires yon with noble and coui-ageous feel- 
 ings, seek for no other rule to judge the 
 event by; it is good and made by a good 
 workman. 
 
 jEREirr Collier (Xoxjuring 
 
 Bishop). 1650—1726. 
 The Diversions of Eeading, though they 
 are not always of the strongest Kind, yet
 
 Jeremy Collier. 45 
 
 they generally Leave a better ESect than 
 the grosser Satisfactions of Sense : For 
 if they are well chosen, they neither dull 
 the Appetite, nor strain the Capacity. On 
 the contrary, they refresh the Inclinations, 
 and strengthen the Power, and improve under 
 Experiment : And which is best of all, they 
 Entertain and Perfect at the same time ; and 
 convey Wisdom and linowledge through 
 Pleasui'e. By Reading a Man does as it were 
 Antedate his Life, and makes himself con- 
 temporary with the Ages past. And this way 
 of running up beyond ones Nativity, is much 
 better than Plato's Pre-existence ; because 
 here a Man knows something of the State, 
 and is the wiser for it ; which he is not in the 
 other. 
 
 In conversing with Books we may chuse 
 our Company, and disengage without Cere- 
 mony or Exception. Here we are free from 
 the Formalities of Custom, and Eespect : 
 We need not undergo the Penance of a 
 dull Story, from a Fop of Figui-e ; but may 
 shake off the Haughty, the Impertinent, 
 and thte Yain, at Pleasure. Besides, Authors, 
 like Women, commonly Dress when they 
 make a Visit. Respect to themselves makes 
 them poUsh their Thoughts, and exert the 
 Force of their Understanding more than they 
 wol^ld, or can do, in ordinary Conversation : 
 So that the Reader has as it were the Spurit 
 and Essence in a naiTow Compass ; which 
 was drawn oS from a much larger Propor- 
 tion of Time, Labom-, and Expence. Like 
 an Heir, he is born rather than made Rich
 
 46 Jeremy Collier. 
 
 and comes into a Stock of Sense, with little 
 orno Trouble of Ms o'mi. 'Tis true, a Fortune 
 in Knowledge which Descends in this man- 
 ner, as well as an inherited Estate, is too 
 often neglected, and squandered away ; be- 
 cause we do not consider the Difficulty in 
 Raising it. 
 
 Books are a Guide in Youth, and an 
 Entertainment for Age. They support us 
 under Solitude, and keep us from being a 
 Burthen to oui selves. They help us to for- 
 get the Crossness of Men and Things : com- 
 pose our Cares, and our Passions ; and lay 
 our Disappointments asleep. When we are 
 weary of the Living, we may repair to the 
 Dead, who have nothing of Peevishness, 
 Pride, or Design, in their Conversation. 
 However, to be constantly in the Wheel has 
 neither Pleasure nor Improvement in it. A 
 Man may as well expect to grow stronger by 
 always Eating, as wiser by always Reading. 
 Too much over-charges Nature, and turns 
 more into Disease than Nourishment. 'Tis 
 Thought and Digestion which makes Books 
 serviceable, and gives Health and Vigour to 
 the Mind. Neither ought we to be too Implicit 
 or Resigning to Authorities, but to examine 
 before we Assent, and preserve omx Reason 
 in its just Liberties. To walk always upon 
 Crutches, is the way to lose the Use of our 
 Limbs. Such an absolute Submission keeps 
 us in a perpetual Minority, breaks the Spirits 
 of the Understanding, and lays us open to 
 Imposture. 
 
 But Books well managed afford Direction
 
 Jeremy Collier. 47 
 
 and Discovery. They strengthen the Organ, 
 and enlarge the Prospect, and give a more 
 universal Insight into Things, than can be 
 learned from unlettered Obsei-vation, He 
 who depends only upon his own Experience, 
 has but a few Materials to work upon. He 
 is confined to narrow Limits both of Place 
 and Time: And is not fit to draw a large 
 Model, and to pronounce upon Business 
 which is complicated and unusual. There 
 seems to be much the same difference be- 
 tween a Man of meer Practice, and another 
 of Learning, as there is between an Empi- 
 rick and a Physician. The first may have 
 a good Receipt, or two ; and if Diseases and 
 Patients were very scarce, and all alike, he 
 might do tolerably well. But if you enquire 
 concerning the Causes of Distempers, the 
 Constitution of human Bodies, the Danger 
 of Symptoms, and the Methods of Cm-e, upon 
 which the Success of Medicine depends, he 
 knows little of the Matter. On the other 
 side : To take Measm-es wholly from Books, 
 without looking into Men and Business, is 
 like travelling in a Map, where though 
 Countries and Cities are well enough dis- 
 tinguished, yet Villages and private Seats 
 ai-e either Over-looked, or too generally 
 Marked for a Stranger to find. And there- 
 fore he that would be a Master, must Draw 
 by the Life, as well as Copy from Originals, 
 and joyn Theory and Experience together.— 
 "Essays upon Several Moral Subjects: Of 
 the Entertainment of Books."
 
 48 Fenelon — Steele. 
 
 Archbishop Fenelon. 1651—1715. 
 
 If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the 
 Empire were laid down at my feet in ex- 
 change for my books and my love of reading, 
 I would sporn them all. 
 
 William Congreve. 1670—1729. 
 
 Eead, read, sirrah, and refuse your appe- 
 tite; learn to live upon instruction; feast 
 your mind, and mortify your flesh : read, and 
 take your nourishment in at your eyes, shut 
 up your month, and chew the cud of under- 
 standing.— "Love for Love." 
 
 Sir Richard Steele. 1671—1729. 
 
 Beading is to the mind, what exercise is 
 to the body. As by the one, health is pre- 
 served, strengthened, and invigorated; by 
 the other, virtue (which is the health of the 
 mind) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed. 
 But as exercise becomes tedious and painful, 
 when we make use of it only as the means 
 of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy 
 and burthensome when we apply ourselves 
 to it for our improvement in virtue. For this 
 reason, the virtue which we gather from a 
 fable or an allegory, is like the health we get 
 by hunting; as we are engaged in an agree- 
 able pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, 
 and makes us insensible of the fatigues that 
 accompany it.—" The Tatler," No. 147. *
 
 Joseph Addison. 49 
 
 Joseph Addison, 1672—1719. 
 Aristotle tells us, that tlie world is a 
 copy 01- transcript of those ideas which are 
 in the mind of the first Being, and that 
 those ideas which are in the mind of man, 
 are a transcript of the world. To this we 
 may add, that words are the transcript of 
 those ideas which are in the mind of man 
 and that writing or printing are the tran- 
 script of words. As the Supreme Being has 
 expressed, and as it were printed his ideas 
 in the creation, men express their ideas in 
 books, which by this great invention of 
 these latter ages may last as long as the sun 
 and moon, and perish only in the general 
 wreck of nature. . . . There is no other 
 method of fixing those thoughts which 
 arise and disappear in the mind of man, 
 and transmittmg them to the last periods of 
 time ; no other method of giving a per- 
 manency to our ideas, and preserving the 
 knowledge of any particular period, when 
 his body is mixed with the common mass 
 of matter, and his soul retired into the 
 world of spirits. Books are the legacies 
 that a great genias leaves to mankind, 
 which are delivered down from generation 
 to generation, as presents to the posterity of 
 those who are yet unborn. Knowledge of 
 books in a man of business is a torch in the 
 hands of one who is willing and able to 
 show those who are bewildered, the way 
 which leads to prosperity and welfare. — 
 " Spectator," No. 165.
 
 50 Watts— Middleton. 
 
 Dr. Isaac Watts. 1674—1748. 
 
 By reading, we acquaint ourselves, in a 
 very extensive manner, with the affairs, 
 actions, and thoughts of the living and the 
 dead, in the most remote actions, and in the 
 most distant ages ; and that with as much 
 ease as though they lived in our own age and 
 nation. By reading of books, we may learn 
 something, from all parts, of mankind ; 
 whereas, by observation we learn all from 
 oui'selves, and only what comes within our 
 own direct cognisance. By conversation we 
 can only enjoy the unction of a very few 
 persons, those who are moving, and live at 
 the same time that we do— that is, our 
 neighbours and contemporaries.—" On the 
 Improvement of the Mind." 
 
 Dr. Conyers Middleton. 
 1683-1750. 
 I persuade myself that the life and facul- 
 ties of man, at the best but short and limited, 
 cannot be employed more rationally or 
 laudably than in the search of knowledge; 
 and especially of that sort which relates to 
 our duty, and conduces to our happiness. 
 In these enquiries, therefore, wherever I 
 perceive any glimmering of truth before me, 
 I readily pursue and endeavoiu: to trace it 
 to its source, without any resei-ve or caution 
 of pushing the discovery too far, or opening 
 too great a glare of it to the public. I look 
 upon the discovery of anything which is true
 
 Pope — Montesqtiieu. 5 1 
 
 as a valuable acqtiisition of society, wticli 
 cannot possibly hiut or obstruct the good 
 effect of any other truth whatsoever; for 
 they all partake of one common essence, and 
 necessarily coincide with each other; and 
 like the drops of rain which fall separately 
 into the river, mix themselves at once with 
 the stream, and strengthen the general 
 current.—" Miscellaneous Works." 
 
 Alexander Pope. 168S— 1744. 
 
 At this day, as much company as I have 
 kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading 
 better— I would rather be employed in read- 
 ing than in the most agreeable conversation. 
 — "Spence's Anecdotes." 
 
 Baron Montesquieu. 16S9— 1755. 
 Aimer .a lire, c'est faii-e in dchange des 
 heures d'ennui que Ton doit avoir en sa vie 
 centre des heures delicieuses. 
 
 [Love of reading enables a man to ex- 
 change the weary hours which come to 
 everyone, for hours of deUght.] 
 
 Lady Mary "Wortley Montague. 
 
 1690—1762. 
 
 I yet retain, and carefully cherish my 
 
 love of reading. If relays of eyes were to be 
 
 hired like post-horses, I would never admit 
 
 any but silent companions: they afford a
 
 52 Lady Mary Montagtie. 
 
 constant variety of entertainment, which 
 is almost the only one pleasing in the enjoy- 
 ment, and inoffensive in the consequence. 
 . . . Every woman endeavours to breed 
 lier daughter a fine lady, qualifying her for 
 a station in which she never -ss-ill appear : 
 and at the same time incapacitating her 
 for that retirement, to which she is destined. 
 Learning, if she has a real taste for it, will 
 not only make her contented, but happy 
 in it. No entertainment is so cheap as 
 reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. She 
 will not want new fashions, nor regret the 
 loss of expensive diversions, or variety of 
 company, if she can be amused with an 
 author in her closet. . , . Daughter! 
 daughter ! don't call names; you are always 
 abusing my pleasures, which is what no 
 mortal will bear. Trash, lumber, and stuff, 
 are the titles you give to my favourite 
 amusement. If I called a white staff a 
 stick of wood, a gold key gilded brass, and 
 the ensigns of illustrious orders coloured 
 strings, this may be philosophically true, 
 but would be very ill received. We have 
 all our playthings; happy are they that can 
 be contented with those they can obtain: 
 those hours are spent in the wisest manner 
 that can easiest shade the ills of life, and 
 are the least productive of ill consequences. 
 I think my time better employed in reading 
 the adventures of imaginary people, than 
 the Duchess of Marlborough, who passed 
 the latter years of her life in paddling with 
 her wiU, and contriving schemes of plaguing
 
 Green^Johnson. 53 
 
 some, and extracting praise from others to 
 no purpose; eternally disappointing and 
 eternally fretting. The active scenes are 
 over at my age. I indulge, with all the 
 art I can, my taste for reading. If I could 
 confine it to valuable books, they are almost 
 as rare as valuable men. I must be content 
 with what I can find. As I approach a 
 second childhood, I endeavoiu- to enter into 
 the pleasui-es of it. Yom- youngest son is, 
 perhaps, at this very moment ridmg on a 
 poker with great delight, not at all regret- 
 ting that it is not a gold one, and much 
 less wishing it an Arabian horse, which 
 he could not know how to manage; I am 
 reading an idle tale, not expecting wit or 
 truth in it, and am very glad it is not meta- 
 physics to puzzle my judgment, or history 
 to mislead my opinion : he fortifies his 
 health by exercise; I calm my cares by 
 obUvion. The methods may appear low to 
 busy people; but if he improves his strength, 
 and I forget my infirmities, we both attain 
 very desii-able ends.—" Letters," 1752-7. 
 
 Matthew Green. 1696—1737. 
 
 And shorten tedious hom-s with books. 
 
 "The Spleen." 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson. 1709 — 1784. 
 
 Idleness is a disease which must be com- 
 bated; but I would not advise a rigid 
 adherence to a particular plan of study. I
 
 54 Sa7nuel Johnson. 
 
 myself have never persisted in any plan for 
 two days together. A man ought to read 
 just as inclination leads him; for what he 
 reads as a task will do him little good. A 
 young man should read five hours in the day, 
 and so may acquire a great deal of know- 
 ledge. 
 
 He then took occasion to enlarge on the 
 advantages of reading, and combated the 
 idle, superficial notion, that knowledge 
 enough may be acquired in conversation. 
 " The foundation," said he, " must be laid by 
 reading." General principles must be had 
 from books, which, however, must be brought 
 to the test of real life. In conversation you 
 never get a system. WTiat is said upon a 
 subject is to be gathered from a hundred 
 people. The parts of a truth, which a man 
 gets thus, are at such a distance from each 
 other that he never attains a full view. 
 
 He said, that for general improvement a 
 man should read whatever his immediate 
 inclination prompts him to; though, to be 
 wise, if a man have a science to learn, he 
 must regularly and resolutely advance. He 
 added, " what we read with inclination works 
 a much stronger impression." If we read 
 without inclination, half the mind is em- 
 ployed in fixing the attention; so there is 
 but one half to be employed on what we read. 
 He told us he read Fielding's "Amelia" 
 through without stopping. He said, "If a 
 man begins to read in the middle of a book, 
 and feels an inclination to go on, let bim
 
 Diderot— Walpole. 5 5 
 
 not qiiit it, to go to the beginning. He may 
 perhaps not feel again the inclination." 
 
 Books that can be held in the hand, and 
 carried to the fireside, are the best after all.— 
 [Reported by Boswell.] 
 
 Denis Diderot. 1713—1789. 
 Sentences are like sharp nails, which 
 force truth upon us. 
 
 Laurence Sterne. 1713—1768. 
 Digressions incontestably are the sun- 
 shine; they are the life, the soul of reading. 
 
 William Shenstone. 1714 — 1763. 
 I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is 
 ■wholly flat and regular; that slides along 
 like an eel, and never rises to what one can 
 call an inequality.— " Essays : On Writing 
 and Books." 
 
 Horace Walpole. 1717—1797. 
 
 Without grace no book can live, and with 
 it the poorest may have its life prolonged. 
 . . . I sometimes wish for a catalogue 
 of lounging books— books that one takes up 
 in the gout, low spirits, ennxd, or when in 
 waiting for company. Some novels, gay 
 poetry, odd wliimsical authors, as Rabelais, 
 &c. A catalogue raisonne of such might be 
 itself a good lounging book.
 
 56 Goldsmith— Dodd. 
 
 Oliver Goldsmith. 172S— 1774. 
 
 There is improbable pleasure attending 
 tlie life of a voluntary student. The first 
 time I read an excellent book, it is to me 
 just as if I had gained a new friend; when 
 I read over a book I have perused before, 
 it resembles the meetiag with an old one. 
 — " Citizen of the World." 
 
 " In England, where there are as many 
 new books published as in all the rest of 
 Europe put together, a spirit of freedom 
 and reason reigns among the people; they 
 have been often known to act like fools, they 
 are generally found to think like men. . . . 
 An author may be considered as a merciful 
 substitute to the legislatui-e. He acts not by 
 punishing crimes, but by preventing them." 
 
 Eev. Dr. "William Dodd. 1729— 
 
 1777. 
 
 [Executed for Forgery.] 
 
 Books, dear books. 
 Have been, and are my comforts, mom and 
 
 night. 
 Adversity, prosperity, at home. 
 Abroad, health, sickness,— good or ill report, 
 The same firm friends ; the same refresh- 
 ments rich. 
 And source of consolation. 
 
 "Thoughts in Prison."
 
 D): Moore — Coivper. 57 
 
 Dr. John Moore. 1730— 1S02, 
 
 It can hardly be conceiyecl how life, 
 short as it is, can be passed without many 
 intervals of tediiim, by those who have not 
 their bread to earn, if they conld not call in 
 the assistance of om- worthy mute friends, 
 the Books. Horses, hoimds, the theatres, 
 cards, and the bottle, are all of use occasion- 
 ally, no doiibt; but the weather may forbid 
 the two first ; a kind of nonsense may diive 
 us f rom the thii-d ; the association of otliera 
 is necessary for the fourth, and also for the 
 fifth, unless to those who are already sunk 
 into the lowest state of wretchedness and 
 degradation: but the entertainment which 
 BOOKS afford, can be enjoyed in the worst 
 weather, can be varied as we please, obtained 
 in solitiide, and instead of bliuiting, it 
 sharpens the understanding ; but the most 
 valuable effect of a taste for reading is, that 
 it often preserves us from bad company. 
 For those are not apt to go or remain with 
 disagreeable people abroad, who are always 
 certain of a pleasant party at home.— 
 "Beauties of Dr. John Moore," by the Rev. 
 F. Prevost and F. Blagden, 1803. 
 
 William Cowper. 1731— ISOO. 
 
 Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast, 
 Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round. 
 And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
 
 58 William Cowper. 
 
 Throws up a steamy coliimii, and the cups 
 That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each, 
 So let us welcome peaceful evening in. 
 
 'Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of re- 
 treat 
 To peep at such a world. To see the stir 
 Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd. 
 To hear the •oar she sends through all her 
 
 gates 
 At a safe distance, where the dying sound 
 Falls in soft murmur on the uninjured ear. 
 Thus sitting and siorveying them at ease 
 The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced 
 To some secure and more than niortal height. 
 That liberates and exempts me from them 
 all. 
 
 Oh Winter ! ruler of the inverted year. 
 Thy scatterd hair with sleet-like ashes fiird, 
 Thy breath congeald upon thy lips, thy 
 
 cheeks 
 Fringed with a beard made white with 
 
 other snows 
 Than those of age ; thy forehead wrapt in 
 
 clouds, 
 A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne 
 A sliding car indebted to no wheels. 
 But urged by stonns along its slippery way; 
 I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st 
 And dreaded as thou art. . . . 
 I crown thee King of intimate delight, 
 Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness. 
 And all the comforts that the lowly roof 
 Of undistm-b'd retirement, and the boreas
 
 Edward Gibbon. 59 
 
 Of lonely uninterrupted evening hour. 
 
 Come evening once again, season of peace, 
 Keturn sweet evening, and continue long ! 
 
 Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary 
 
 calm 
 Or make me so. Composui'e is thy gift. 
 And whether I devote thy gentle hours 
 To books, to music, or the poet's toil, 
 
 I slight thee not, but make thee welcome 
 still. 
 
 How calm is my recess ! and how the frost 
 
 Kaging abroad, and the rough wind endear 
 
 The silence and the warmth enjoy' d within. 
 
 "The Task," Book iv.. The Winter 
 
 Evening. 
 
 Books are not seldom talismans and spells. 
 "The Task," Book vi., The 'Winter 
 ■Walk at Noon. 
 
 Edward Gibbon. 1737—1794. 
 
 A taste for books is the pleasure and glory 
 of my life ... I would not exchange it 
 for the wealth of the Indies. . . . The 
 miseries of a vacant life are never known to 
 a man whose hours are insufficient for the 
 inexhaustiblepleasures of study. . . . The 
 love of studj', a passion which derives great 
 vigour from enjoyment, supplies each day,
 
 6o Wyttcnbach — Aikin. 
 
 each hour, with a pei-petnal round of inde- 
 pendent and rational pleasuie.— "Auto- 
 biography." 
 
 Daniel Wtttenbach. 1746— 1S20. 
 
 There is no business, no avocation what- 
 ever, which will not permit a man, who has 
 the inclination, to give a little time, every 
 day, to study. 
 
 Dr. John Aikix, 1747—1822. 
 
 At the head of all the pleasures which 
 oSer themselves to the man of liberal edu- 
 cation, may confidently be placed that 
 derived from hooks. In variety, durability, 
 and facility of attainment, no other can 
 stand in competition with it; and even in 
 intensity it is inferior to few. Imagine that 
 we had it in our power to caU up the shades 
 of the greatest and wisest men that ever 
 existed, and obUge them to converse with 
 US on the most interesting topics— what an 
 inestimable privilege should we think it ! — 
 how superior to all common enjoyments t 
 But in a weU-furnished library we, in fact, 
 possess this power. We can question 
 Xenophon and Csesar on their campaigns, 
 make Demosthenes and Cicero plead before 
 us, join in the audiences of Socrates and 
 Plato, and receive demonstrations from 
 Euclid and Kewton. In books we have 
 the choicest thoughts of the ablest men
 
 Dr. John Aikin. 6 1 
 
 in tlieii- best dress. We can at pleasure ex- 
 clude dulness and impertinence, and open 
 our doors to wit and good sense alone. It is 
 needless to repeat the high commendations 
 that have been bestowed on the study of 
 letters by persons, who had free access to 
 every other source of gratification. Instead 
 of quoting Cicero to you, I shall in plain 
 terms give you the result of my own ex- 
 perience on this subject. If domestic enjoy- 
 ments have contributed in the first degree 
 to the happiness of my life (and I should be 
 ungrateful not to acknowledge that they 
 have), the pleasm-es of reading have beyond 
 all question held the second place. Without 
 books I have never been able to pass a single 
 day to my entire satisfaction: with them, 
 no day has been so dark as not to have its 
 pleasiu-e. Even pain and sickness have for 
 a time been charmed away by them. By 
 the easy provision of a book in my pocket, I 
 have frequently worn through long nights 
 and days in the most disagreeable parts of 
 my profession, with all the difference in my 
 feelings between calm content and fretful 
 impatience. Such occurrences have afforded 
 me full proof both of the possibility of being 
 cheaply pleased, and of the consequence it 
 is of to the sum of human felicity, not to 
 neglect minute attentions to make the most 
 of life as it passes. 
 
 Reading may in every sense be called a 
 cheap amusement. A taste for books, indeed, 
 may be made expensive enough ; but that is 
 a taste for editions, bindings, paper, and
 
 62 William Roscoe. 
 
 type. If yon are satisfied with getting at 
 the sense of an author, in some commodions 
 way, a crown at a stall will supply your 
 wants as well as a guinea at a shop. Learn, 
 too, to distinguish between books to be 
 perused, and books to be possessed. Of the 
 former you may find an ample store in 
 every subscription library, the proper use 
 of wMch to a scholar is to furnish his mind 
 without loading his shelves. No apparsltus, 
 no appointment of time and place, is neces- 
 sary for the enjoyment of reading. From 
 the midst of bustle and business you may, 
 in an instant, by the magic of a book, plunge 
 into scenes of remote ages and countries, 
 and disengage yourself from present care 
 and fatigue. " Sweet pliability of man's 
 spirit, (cries Sterne, on relating an occurrence 
 of this kind in his Sentimental Journey) 
 that can at once surrender itself to illusions 
 which cheat expectation and sorrow of their 
 weary moments ! "—"Letters from a Father 
 to his Son." 
 
 William Roscoe. 1753—1831. 
 
 To my BociliS on Parting with Tliem. 
 As one who, destined from his friends to 
 
 part, 
 Eegrets his loss, yet hopes again erewhile 
 To share their converse and enjoy their 
 
 smile, 
 And tempers as he may affliction's dart,— 
 Thus, loved associates ! chiefs of elder Art !
 
 Williaiii Godwin. 63 
 
 Teacliers of •wisdom ! who could once be- 
 guile 
 
 My tedious hours, and lighten evei-y toil, 
 
 I now resign you : nor with fainting heart ; 
 
 For pass a few short years, or days, or 
 hours. 
 
 And happier seasons may their dawn unfold. 
 
 And all youi- sacred fellowship restore ; 
 
 When, freed from eaith, unlimited its 
 powers, 
 
 Mind shall with mind direct communion 
 hold, 
 
 And kindred spirits meet to part no more. 
 
 Mrs. Inchbald, 1753—1821. 
 
 Here, in the countiy, mf books are my 
 sole occupation ; books my sui-e solace, and 
 refuge from frivolous cares. Books are the 
 calmers as weU as the instruction of the 
 mind.—" Letters." 
 
 William Godwin. 1756— 1S36. 
 
 Books are the depositary of every thing 
 that is most honorurable to man. Litera- 
 tm'e, taken in all its bearings, forms the 
 grand line of demarcation between the 
 human and the animal kingdoms. He that 
 loves reading, has everything within his 
 reach. He has but to desire; and he may 
 possess himself of every species of wisdom 
 to judge, and power to perform. . . . Books 
 gratify and excite om* curiosity in inuumer-
 
 64 Sir S. Egertoii B7ydges. 
 
 able ways. They force us to reflect. They 
 htirry ns from point to point. They present 
 direct ideas of various kinds, and they sug- 
 gest indirect ones. In a well--n-ritten book 
 we are presented with the maturest reflec- 
 tions, or the happiest flights, of a mind of 
 iincommon excellence. It is impossible 
 that we can be much accustomed to such 
 companions, without attaining some re- 
 semblance of them. When I read Thomson, 
 I become Thomson; when I read Milton, I 
 become Milton. I find myself a sort of in- 
 tellectual cameleon, assuming the colour of 
 the substances on which I rest. He that 
 revels in a well-chosen library, has innu- 
 merable dishes, and all of admirable flavour. 
 His taste is rendered so acute, as easily to 
 distinguish the'nicest shades of difference. 
 His mind becomes ductile, susceptible to 
 every impression, and gaining new refine- 
 ment from them all. His varieties of 
 thinking baffle calculation, and his powers, 
 whether of reason or fancy, become emi- 
 nently vigorous.— " The Enquirer: Of an 
 Early Taste for Reading." 
 
 Sir S. Egerton Brydges. 
 
 1762—1837. 
 
 Are books, in truth, a dead letter? To 
 those who have no bright mirror in their 
 own bosoms to reflect their images, they 
 are ! but the lively and active scenes, which 
 they call forth in well-framed minds, exceed
 
 Sir S. Egerton Brydges. 65 
 
 the liveliness of realitj'. Heads and hearts 
 of a coarser grain requii-e the substance of 
 material objects to put them in motion. 
 Books instruct us calmly, and without 
 intermingling with then- instruction any of 
 those painful impressions of superiority, 
 which we must necessarily feel fi'om a 
 living instructor. They wait the pace of 
 each man's capacity; stay for his want of 
 perception, without reproach ; go backward 
 and forward with him at his wish; and 
 furnish inexhaustible repetitions. How 
 is it possible to express what owe we, as 
 intellectual bemgs, to the art of printing ? 
 When a man sits in a well furnished library, 
 surrounded by the collected wisdom of 
 thousands of the best endowed minds, of 
 various ages and countries, what an amazing 
 extent of mental range does he command. 
 Every age, and every language, has some 
 advantages, some excellencies peculiar to 
 itself ! I am not sure, that skill in a 
 variety of tongues is always wisdom ; but an 
 acquaintance with various forms of expres- 
 sion, and the operations and results of 
 minds at various tunes, and under various 
 circumstances of climate, manners and 
 government, must necessarily enrich and 
 strengthen our opinions. A person, who is 
 only conversant with the literature of his 
 own coimtry, and that dui-ing only the last 
 ten or twenty years, contracts so narrow a 
 taste, that every other form of phrase, or 
 mode of composition, every other fashion of 
 sentiment, or intellectual process, appears
 
 66 Sir S. Egerton Brydges. 
 
 to him repulsive, dull and worthless. He 
 reads Spenser, and MUtou, if he reads them 
 at all, only as a task; and he tiunswith 
 disgust from the eloquence of Sydney, 
 Hooker, and Jeremy Taylor. . . . Above 
 aU, there is this value in books, that they 
 enable us to converse with the dead. There 
 is something in this beyond the mere in- 
 trinsic worth of what they have left us. 
 When a person's body is mouldering, cold 
 and insensible, in the grave, we feel a sacred 
 sentiment of veneration for the living 
 memorials of his mind.— "The Euminator," 
 No. 22, "Books." 
 
 The contempt of many of the innocent 
 trifles of life, which the generality of the 
 world betray, arises from the weakness and 
 narrowness, and not from the superiority, 
 of their understandings. Most of the empty 
 baubles, which mankind pm'sue as objects 
 of high consideration, are suffered to eclipse 
 those simple amusements which are in no 
 respect less important, and which are so 
 far more valuable as they are more com- 
 patible with piurity of heart and conduct! 
 It is from an undue estimate of the points 
 of ordinary ambition, that health, liberty, 
 carelessness of mind, and ease of conscience 
 are sacrificed to the attainment of distinc- 
 tions, which in the opinion of the truly 
 wise are mere vanity. A just appreciation 
 on the contrary wiU deem every pursuit, 
 that affords amusement without derogating 
 from virtue, praiseworthy. Of all the
 
 Jean P. F. Richter. 67 
 
 human relaxations which are free from 
 guilt, perhaps there is none so dignified as 
 reading. It is no little good to while away 
 the tediousness of existence in a gentle and 
 harmless exercise of the intellectual facul- 
 ties. If we build castles in the aii- that 
 vanish as quickly as the passmg clouds, 
 still some beneficial result has been ob- 
 tained; some hours of weariness have been 
 stolen from us ; and probably some cares 
 have been robbed of their sting. I do not 
 here mean to discuss the scale of excellence 
 among the various studies that books afford. 
 It is my purpose to shew that even the most 
 trifling books, which give harmless pleasure, 
 produce a good far exceeding what the world 
 ascribes to more high-sounding occupations. 
 When we recollect of how many it is the lot, 
 even against choice, to pass their days in 
 solitude, how admirable is the substitute for 
 conversation, which the powers of genius 
 and arts of printing bestow !— " The Rimii- 
 nator," No.24, "On the Pleasures of Read- 
 ing." 
 
 Jean Paul F. Richter. 1763—1825. 
 
 A scholar has no ennui. ... In this 
 bridal-chamber of the mind (such are our 
 study-chambers), in this concert-hall of the 
 finest voices gathered from all times and 
 places— the esthetic and philosophic en- 
 joyments almost overpower the faculty of 
 choice.—" Hesperus."
 
 68 Dr. Ferriar — Soiithey. 
 
 Dr. John- Ferriar. 1764—1815. 
 Like Poets, born, in vain Collectors strive 
 To cross their Fate, and learn tlie art to 
 
 thrive. 
 Like Cacus, bent to tame their struggling 
 
 wUl, 
 The tyrant-passion drags them backward 
 
 still: 
 Ev"n I, debarr'd of ease, and studious hours, 
 Confess, mid' anxious toil, its lurking pow'rs. 
 How pure the joy, whan first my hands 
 
 unfold 
 
 The small, rare volume, black with tarnishd 
 
 gold. 
 
 " The Bibliomania." [Annotated 
 
 edition, by Mr. J. E. Bailey, in 
 
 the Pcd itine Note-book, March, 
 
 Robert Southey. 1774— 1843. 
 
 A reader of books is the inheritor of 
 whatever has been discovered by persevering 
 labour, or created by inventive genius. The 
 wise of all ages have heaped up a treasure 
 for him, " which rust doth not corrupt, and 
 which thieves cannot break thi-ough and 
 steal."—" Sir Thomas More— Colloquies.' 
 
 My days among the Dead are pass'd ; 
 
 Around me I behold. 
 Where'er these casual eyes are cast. 
 
 The mighty minds of old; 
 My never -failing friends are they. 
 With whom I converse day by day.
 
 Charles Lamb. 69 
 
 With tliem I take delight in weal, 
 
 And seek relief in woe ; 
 And while I understand and feel 
 
 How much to them I owe. 
 My cheeks have often been bedew' d 
 With tears of thoughtful gratitude. 
 
 My thoughts are with the Dead : with them 
 
 I live in long-past years ; 
 Theu- virtues love, their faults condemn, 
 
 Partake then- hopes and fears. 
 And from their lessons seek and find 
 Instruction with an humble mind. 
 
 My hopes are with the Dead, anon 
 
 My place with them will be, 
 And I with them shall travel on 
 
 Through all Futurity ; 
 Yet leaving here a name, I trust. 
 That will not perish in the dust. 
 Keswick, 1818. 
 
 Charles Lamb. 1775— 183i. 
 
 Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, 
 what do most arride and solace me, are thy 
 repositories of mouldering learning, thy 
 shelves— 
 
 What a place to be in is an old library ! 
 It seems as though all the souls of all the 
 writers, that have bequeathed their labours 
 to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as 
 in some dormitory, or middle state. I do 
 not want to handle, to profane the leaves, 
 their winding-sheets. I could as soon dis- 
 lodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning,
 
 70 Charles Lamb. 
 
 walking amid their foliage ; and the odour 
 of their old moth-scented coverings is 
 fragrant as the first bloom of those sciential 
 apples which grew amid the happy orchard. 
 — " Elia's Essaj-s : Oxford in the Vacation." 
 
 To one like Elia, whose treasures are 
 rather cased in leather covers than closed in 
 iron coffers, there is a class of alienators 
 more formidable than that which I have 
 touched upon; I mean your borrowers 
 of books— those mutilators of collections, 
 spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and 
 creators of odd volumes. There is Com- 
 berbatch [Coleridge], matchless in his de- 
 predations ! 
 
 That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing 
 you, like a great eye-tooth knocked out— 
 (you are now with me in my little back study 
 
 in Bloomsbury, reader :) with the huge 
 
 Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the 
 Guildhall giants, in their reformed posture, 
 guardant of nothing) once held the tallest 
 of my folios. Opera EoTiaventurce, choice 
 and massy divinity, to which its two 
 supporters (school divinity also, but of 
 a lesser calibre,— BeUarmine, and Holy 
 Thomas), showed but as dwarfs,— itself an 
 Ascapart ! — f/mt Comberbatch abstracted 
 upon the faith of a theory he holds, which 
 is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by 
 than to refute, namely, that "the title to 
 property in a book (my Bonaventm-e, for 
 instance), is in exact ratio to the claimant's 
 powers of understanding and appreciating
 
 Charles Lamb. 71 
 
 the same." Should he go on acting upou 
 this theory, which of our shelves is safe ? 
 
 The slight vacuum in the left-hand case 
 —two shelves from the ceiling— scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable but by the quick eye of a loser 
 was whilom the commodious resting- 
 place of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will hardly 
 allege that he knows more about that 
 treatise than I do, who introduced it to him, 
 and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to 
 discover its beauties— but so have I known 
 a foolish lover to praise his mistress in the 
 presence of a rival more qualified to carry 
 her off than himself .—Just below, Dodsley's 
 dramas want their fomlh volume, where 
 "Vittoria Corombona is! The remainder 
 nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse 
 sons, when the Fates borrowed Hector. 
 Here stood the Anatomy of Melancholy, in 
 sober state.— There loitered the Complete 
 Angler; quiet as in life, by some stream 
 side.- In yonder nook, John Buncle, a 
 widower-volume, with " 65X3 closed," mourns 
 his ravished mate.— " Elia's Essays: The 
 Two Races of Men." 
 
 I own that I am disposed to say grace 
 upon twenty other occasions in the course 
 of the day besides my dinner. I want a 
 form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, 
 for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meet- 
 ing, or a solved problem. Why have we 
 none for books, those spiritual repasts— a 
 grace before Milton— a grace before Shak- 
 speare— a devotional exercise proper to be
 
 72 Charles Lamb. 
 
 said before reading the Fairy Queen?— 
 " Elia's Essays : Grace Before Meat." 
 
 In the depth of college shades, or in his 
 lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk 
 from observation. He found shelter among 
 books, which insult not ; and studies, that 
 ask no questions of a youth's finances.— 
 " Elia's Essays : Poor Relations." 
 
 I must confess that I dedicate no in- 
 considerable portion of my time to other 
 people's thoughts. I dream away my life in 
 others' speculations. I love to lose myself in 
 other men's minds. When I am not vralking, 
 I am reading ; I cannot sit and think. Books 
 think for me. 
 
 I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is 
 not too genteel for me, nor Jonathan Wild 
 too low. I can read anything which I call 
 a "book. There are things in that shape which 
 I cannot allow for such. 
 
 In this catalogue of hoo\is which are no 
 boohs— biUia a-biblia—I reckon Court Calen- 
 dars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught 
 Boards boimd and lettered at the back. 
 Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, Statutes at 
 Large ; the works of Hume, Gibbon, Robert- 
 son, Beattie, Soame Jenyns, and, generally, 
 all those volumes which "no gentleman's 
 library should be without : " the Histories 
 of Flavins Josephus (that learned Jew), and 
 Paleys Moral Philosophy. With these 
 exceptions, I can read almost any thing. I 
 bless my stars for a taste so catholic, so 
 nnexcluding.
 
 Charles Lamb. y-^ 
 
 I confess that it moves my spleen to see 
 these things in books' clothing perched upon 
 shelves, like false saints, usurpers of true 
 shrines, intruders iuto the sanctuary, thrust- 
 ing out the legitimate occupants. To reach 
 down a well-bound semblance of a volume, 
 and hope it some kind-hearted play-book, 
 then, opening what "seem its leaves," to 
 come bolt upon a withering Topulation 
 Essay. To expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, 
 and find— Adam Smith. To view a well- 
 ari'anged assortment of blocklieaded En- 
 cycloptedias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) 
 set out in an array of Kussia or Morocco, 
 when a tithe of that good leather would 
 comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios; 
 would renovate Paracelsus himself, and en- 
 able old Eaymund Lully to look like him- 
 self again in the world. I never see these 
 impostors, but I long to strip them, to wai-m 
 my ragged veterans in their spoils. 
 
 To be strong-backed and neat-bound is 
 the desideratum of a volume. Magnificence 
 comes after. This, when it can be afforded, 
 is not to be lavished upon all kinds of books 
 indiscriminately. I would not dress a set 
 of Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The 
 dishabille, or half-binding (with Russia 
 backs ever) is our costume. A Shakspeare, or 
 a Milton (unless the first editions), it were 
 mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. 
 The possession of them confers no distinc- 
 tion. The exterior of them (the things 
 themselves being so common), strange to 
 say, raises no sweet emotions, no tickJing
 
 74 Charles Lamb. 
 
 sense of propertj- in tlie owner. Thomson's 
 Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain it) a 
 little torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful 
 to a genuine lover of reading are the sullied 
 leaves, and worn out appearance, nay, the 
 very odour (beyond Russia,) if we would not 
 forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an 
 old " Circulating Library " Tom Jones, or 
 Vicar of Wakefield ! How they speak of the 
 thousand thumbs, that have turned over 
 theu- pages with delight !— of the lone semp- 
 stress, whom they may have cheered (mil- 
 liner, or harder-working mantua-maker) 
 after her long day's needle-toil, running far 
 into midnight, when she has snatched an 
 hour, ill spai-ed from sleep, to steep her cares, 
 as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out theii" 
 enchanting content ! Who would have them 
 a whit less soiled ? What better condition 
 could we desire to see them in ? 
 
 In some respects the better a book is, the 
 less it demands from binding. Fielding, 
 Smollet, Sterne, and all that class of per- 
 petually self-reproductive volumes— Great 
 Nature's Stereotypes— we see them indi- 
 vidually perish with less regret, because we 
 know the copies of them to be " eterne." 
 But where a book is at once both good and 
 rare— where the individual is almost the 
 species, and when that perishes, 
 
 We know not where is that Promethean 
 
 torch 
 That can its light relumine— 
 
 such a book, for instance, as the Life of the
 
 Charles Lamb. 75 
 
 Duke of Newcastle, by his Duchess— no 
 casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently 
 durable, to honour and keep safe such a 
 jewel. . . . 
 
 I do not know a more heartless sight than 
 the reprint of the Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 What need was there of unearthing the 
 bones of that fantastic old great man, to 
 expose them in a winding-sheet of the 
 newest fashion to modern censure ? what 
 hapless stationer could dream of Bm-ton 
 ever becoming popular ? — The wretched 
 Malone could not do worse, when he bribed 
 the sexton of Stratford church to let him 
 white-wash the painted effigy of old Shak- 
 speare, which stood there, in rude but 
 lively fashion depicted, to the very colour 
 of the cheek, the ej-e, the eye-brow, hair, 
 the very di'ess he used to wear— the only 
 authentic testimony we had, however im- 
 perfect, of these cui-ious parts and parcels 
 of him. They covered him over with a coat 
 
 of white paint. By , if I had been a 
 
 justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would 
 have clapt both commentator and sexton 
 fast in the stocks, for a pair- of meddling 
 saciilegious varlets. 
 
 I think I see them at their work— these 
 sapient trouble-tombs. . . . 
 
 Much depends upon xclien and tchcre you 
 read a book. In the five or six impatient 
 minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, 
 who would think of taking up the Fairy 
 Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop 
 Andrewes' sermons ?
 
 76 Charles Lamb, 
 
 Milton almost requii-es a solemn service 
 of music to be played before you enter upon 
 him. But he brings his music, to which, who 
 listens, had need bring docUe thoughts, 
 and purged ears. 
 
 Winter evenings— the world shut out— 
 with less of ceremony the gentle Shakspeare 
 enters. At such a season, the Tempest, or 
 his o-vsTi Winter's Tale— . . . 
 
 Coming in to an inn at night— having 
 ordered your supper— what can be more 
 delightful than to find lying in the window- 
 seat, left there time out of mind by the 
 carelessness of some fonner guest— two or 
 three numbers of the old To^vn and Country 
 Magazine, with its amusing tcfe-u-tete pic- 
 tures—" The Royal Lover and Lady G ; " 
 
 "The Melting Platonic and the old Beau,"— 
 and such like antiquated scandal ? Would 
 you exchange it— at that time, and in that 
 place— for a better book ? . . . 
 
 I am not much a friend to out-of-doors 
 reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I 
 knew a Unitarian minister, who was gene- 
 rally to be seen upon Snow-hill (as yet 
 Skinner's-street was not), between the hours 
 of ten and eleven in the morning, studying 
 a volume of Lardner. I own this to have 
 been a strain of abstraction be j-ond my reach. 
 I used to admu-e how he sidled along, keep- 
 ing clear of secular contacts. An illiterate 
 encounter with a porter's knot, or a bread 
 basket, would have quickly put to flight all 
 the theology I am master of, and have left 
 me worse than indifferent to the five points.
 
 Charles Lamb. 77 
 
 There is a class of street-readers, wlioin I 
 can never contemplate without affection— 
 the poor gentry, who, not having where- 
 withal to buy or hire a book, filch a little 
 learning at the open stalls— the owner, with 
 his hard eye, casting envious looks at them 
 all the while, and thinking when they will 
 have done. Venturing tenderly, page after 
 page, expecting every moment when he 
 shall interpose his interdict, and yet unable 
 to deny themselves the gratification, they 
 " snatch a fearful joy." Martin B— , in this 
 way, by daily fragments, got through two 
 volumes of Clarissa, when the stall-keeper 
 damped his laudable ambition, by asking 
 him (it was in his younger days) whether he 
 meant to purchase the work. M. declares, 
 that under no circumstances of his life did 
 he ever peruse a book with half the satisfac- 
 tion which he took in those xuieasy snatches. 
 — "Elia's Essays: Detached Thoughts on 
 Books and Reading." 
 
 [Bridget Elia lociuitur\ " I wish the good 
 old times would come again, when we were 
 not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I 
 want to be poor: but there was a middle 
 state;" so she was pleased to ramble on,— 
 " in which I am sure we were a great deal 
 happier. A purchase is but a pui-chase, now 
 that you have money enough and to spare. 
 Formerly it used to be a triumph. When 
 we coveted a cheap luxury (and, ! how 
 much ado I had to get you to consent in 
 those times !) we were used to have a debate
 
 78 Charles Latnb. 
 
 two or thi-ee days before, and to weigh the 
 Jor and against, and think what we might 
 spare it out of, and what saving we could 
 hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A 
 thing was worth buying then, when we felt 
 the money that we paid for it. 
 
 "Do you remember the bro-mi suit, 
 which you made to hang upon you, till all 
 your friends cried shame upon you, it grew 
 so thi'ead-bare— and all because of that folio 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, which yon dragged 
 home late at night from Barker's in Covent- 
 garden ? Do you remember how we eyed it 
 for weeks before we could make up our 
 minds to the purchase, and had not come 
 to a detei-mination till it was near ten 
 o'clock of the Saturday night, when you 
 set off from Islington, fearing you should 
 be too late— and when the old bookseller 
 with some grumbling opened his shop, and 
 by the twinkling taper (for he was setting 
 bedwards) lighted out the relic from his 
 dusty treasures— and when yon lugged it 
 home, wishing it were twice as cumber- 
 some—and when you presented it to me — 
 and when we were exploring the perfect- 
 ness of it (.collating you called it)— and 
 while I was repairing some of the loose 
 leaves with paste, which your impatience 
 would not suffer to be left till day-break— 
 was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? 
 or can those neat black clothes which you 
 wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, 
 since we have become rich and finical, give 
 you half the honest vanity, with which you
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 79 
 
 flaunted it about in that over-worn suit— 
 your old corbeau— for four or five weeks 
 longer than you should have done, to pacify 
 your conscience for the mighty siun of 
 fifteen— or sixteen shillings was it ?— a great 
 affair we thought it then— which you had 
 lavished on the old folio. Now you can 
 aSord to buy any book that pleases you, but 
 I do not see that you ever bring me home 
 any nice old purchases now." — " Elia's 
 Essays : Old China." 
 
 Walter Satage Landoe. 
 
 1775—1864. 
 
 Andrew ! Although our learning raiseth 
 up against us many enemies, among the 
 low, and more among the powerful, yet 
 doth it invest us with grand and glorious 
 privileges, and grant to us a largess of beati- 
 tude. We enter oiu* studies, and enjoy a 
 society which we alone can bring together. 
 We raise no jealousy by conversing with 
 one in preference to another; we give no 
 offence to the most illustrious by question- 
 ing him as long as we wUl, and leaving him 
 as abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises 
 no tumult in our presence; each interlo- 
 cutor stands before us, speaks, or is silent, 
 and we adjoiun or decide the business at 
 our leisiu-e. Nothing is past which we 
 desire to be present; and we enjoy by 
 anticipation somewhat like the power 
 which I imagine we shall possess hereafter
 
 8o William Hazlitt. 
 
 of sailing on a wish from world to world.— 
 " Imaginary Conversations : Milton in con- 
 versation with Andrew MarveU." 
 
 Logic, however unperverted, is not for 
 boys; argument is among the most dan- 
 gerous of early practices, and sends away 
 both fancy and modesty. The young mind 
 should be nourished with simple and grate- 
 ful food, and not too copious. It should be 
 little exercised until its nerves and muscles 
 show themselves, and even. then rather for 
 air than anything else. Study is the bane 
 of boyhood, the aliment of youth, the indul- 
 gence of manhood, and the restorative of 
 age.— "Pericles and Aspasia, Ivii. : Cleone 
 to Aspasia." 
 
 The writings of the wise are the only 
 riches our posterity cannot squander. 
 
 "William Hazlitt. 1778—1830. 
 
 They [Books] are the nearest to our 
 thoughts : they wind into the heart ; the 
 poet's verse slides into the current of our 
 blood. We read them when young, we 
 remember them when old. We read there of 
 what has happened to others ; we feel that 
 it has happened to ourselves. They are to 
 be had every where cheap and good. We 
 breathe but the air of books : we owe every 
 thing to their authors, on this side bar- 
 barism ; and we pay them easily with con- 
 tempt, while living, and with an epitaph,
 
 William Hazlitt. 
 
 when dead ! . . . there are neither picture- 
 galleries nor theatres-royal on Salisbui-y- 
 plain, where I write this; but here, even 
 here, with a few old authors, I can manage 
 to get through the summer or the winter 
 months, without ever knowing what it is to 
 feel ennui. Xhey sit with me at breakfast ; 
 they w^alk out with me before dinner. After 
 a long walk through unfrequented tracks, 
 after starting the hare from the fern, or hear- 
 ing the wing of the raven rustling above my 
 head, or being gi-eeted by the woodman's 
 "stern good-night," as he strikes into his 
 narrow homeward path, I can " take mine 
 ease at mine inn," beside the blazing hearth, 
 and shake hands with Signer Orlando Pris- 
 cobaldo [a character in one of Dekkar's 
 Plays], as the oldest acquaintance I have, 
 Ben Jonson, learned Chapman, Master Web- 
 ster, and Master He3rwood, are there; and 
 seated round, discoui'se the silent hours 
 away. Shakespear is there himself, not in 
 Gibber's manager's coat. Spenser is hardly 
 yet returned from a ramble through the 
 woods, or is concealed behind a group of 
 nymphs, fawns, and satyrs. Milton lies on 
 the table, as on an altar, never taken up or 
 laid down without reverence. Lyly's Endy- 
 mion sleeps with the moon, that shines in 
 at the window; and a breath of wind 
 stirring at a distance seems a sigh from the 
 tree under which he grew old. Faustus 
 disputes in one comer of the room with 
 fiendish faces, and reasons of divine astro- 
 logy. Bellafront soothes Matheo, Vittoria 
 I.
 
 82 William HazUtt. 
 
 triumphs over her judges, and old Chapman 
 repeats one of the hymns of Homer, in his 
 own fine translation ! I should have no 
 objection to pass my life in this manner 
 out of the world, not tliinking of it, nor it 
 of me ; neither abused by my enemies, nor 
 defended by my friends; careless of the 
 future, but sometimes dreaming of the past 
 •which might as well be forgotten !—" Lec- 
 tures on the Dramatic Literature of the 
 Age of Elizabeth." 
 
 I do not think altogether the worse of 
 a book for having survived the author a 
 generation or two. I have more confidence 
 in tfie dead than the living. Contemporary 
 wTiters may generally be divided into two 
 classes— one's friends or one's foes. Of 
 the fii-st we are compelled to think too well, 
 and of the last we are disposed to think 
 too ill, to receive much genuine pleasure 
 from the perusal, or to judge fairly of the 
 merits of either. - One candidate for literary 
 fame, who happens to be of our acquain- 
 tance, writes finely, and like a man of 
 genius; but unfortunately has a foolish 
 face, which spoils a delicate passage:— 
 another inspires us with the highest respect 
 for his personal talents and character, but 
 does not quite come up to our expectations 
 in print. All these contradictions and petty 
 details interrupt the calm cui-rent of our re- 
 flections. If you want t > know what any of 
 the author-; were who livel before our time, 
 and are still objects of anxious inquiry,
 
 William Hazlitt. 83 
 
 you have only to look into their works. 
 But the dust and smoke and noise of modern 
 literature have nothing m common with the 
 pure, silent ah- of immortality. 
 
 When I take up a work that I have read 
 before (the oftener the better) I know what 
 I have to expect. The satisfaction is not 
 lessened by being anticipated. When the 
 entertainment is altogether new, I sit down 
 to it as I should to a strange dish,— turn 
 and pick out a bit here and there, and am 
 in doubt what to think of the composition. 
 There is a want of confidence and security 
 to second appetite. New-fangled books are 
 also like made-dishes in this respect, that 
 they are generally little else than hashes 
 and riiaccimenti of what has been served 
 up entire and ui a more natiual state at 
 other times. Besides, in thus turning to a 
 well-known author, there is not only an 
 assurance that my time will not be thro-u-n 
 away, or my palate nauseated with the 
 most insipid or vilest trash,— but I shake 
 hands with, and look an old, tried, and 
 valued friend in the face,— compare notes, 
 and chat the hours away. It is true, we 
 form dear friendships with such ideal 
 guests — dearer, alas! and more lastmg, 
 than those with our most intimate acquain- 
 tance. In reading a book which is an old 
 favourite with me {say the first novel I ever 
 read) I not only have the pleasure of imagi- 
 nation and of a critical relish of the work, 
 but the pleasures of memory added to it. It 
 recalls the same feelings and associations
 
 84 William Hazlitt. 
 
 which I had in first reading it, and which I 
 can never have again in any other way. 
 Standard productions of this kind are links 
 in the chain of our conscious being. They 
 bind together the different scattered divi- 
 sions of our personal identity. They 
 are landmarks and guides in our journey 
 tlu-ough life. They are pegs and loops on 
 which we can hang up, or from which we 
 can take down, at pleasure, the ward- 
 robe of a moral imagination, the relics 
 of our best affections, the tokens and 
 records of oiir happiest hours. They are 
 " for thoughts and for remembrance : " 
 They are like Fortunatus's Wishing-Cap — 
 they give us the best riches— those of 
 Fancy; and transport us, not over half 
 the globe, but (which ia better) over half 
 our lives, at a word's notice ! 
 
 My father Shandy solaced himself with 
 Bruscambille. Give me for this purpose a 
 volume of "Peregrine Pickle" or "Tom 
 Jones." Open either of them anywhere 
 —at the "Memoirs of Lady Vane," or 
 the adventures at the masquerade with 
 Lady Bellaston, or the disputes between 
 Thwackum and Square, or the escape of 
 Molly Seagrim, or the incident of Sophia 
 and her muff, or the edifying prolisity of 
 her aunt's lecture— and there I find the 
 same delightful, busy, bustling scene as 
 ever, and feel myself the same as when 
 I was first introduced into the midst 
 of it. Nay, sometimes the sight of an odd
 
 William Haditt. 85 
 
 volume of these good old English authors 
 on a stall, or the name lettered on the back 
 among others on the shelves of a librarj% 
 answers the purpose, revives the whole train 
 of ideas, and sets "the puppets dallying." 
 Twenty years are struck off the list, and I 
 am a child again. A sage philosopher, who 
 was not a very wise man, said, that he 
 should like very well to be young again, if 
 he could take his experience along with 
 him. This ingenious person did not seem 
 to be aware, by the gravity of his remark, 
 that the great advantage of being young is 
 to be without this weight of experience, 
 which he would fain place upon the shoul- 
 ders of youth, and which never comes too 
 late with years. Oh ! what a privilege to 
 be able to let this hump, like Christian's 
 bin-then, drop from off ones back, and 
 transport oneself, by the help of a little 
 musty duodecimo, to the time when "igno- 
 rance was bliss," and when we first got 
 a peep at the raree-show of the world, 
 through the glass of fiction — gazing at 
 manldnd, as we do at wild beasts in 
 a menagerie, through the bars of their 
 cages, — or at curiosities in a museum, 
 that we must not touch ! For myself, not 
 only are the old ideas of the contents of 
 the work brought back to my mind in aU 
 their vividness, but the old associations of 
 the faces and persons of those I then knew, 
 as they were in their lifetime— the place 
 where I sat to read the volume, the day when 
 I got it, the feeling of the air, the fields, the
 
 86 William Hazlitt. 
 
 sky— return, and all my early impressions 
 with them. This is better to me— those 
 places, those times, those persons, and 
 those feelings that come across me as 
 I retrace the story and devour the page, 
 are to me better far than the wet sheets 
 of the last new novel from the Ballan- 
 tyne press, to say nothing of the Minerva 
 press in Leadenhall Street. It is like 
 visiting the scenes of early youth. I 
 think of the time "when I was in my 
 father's house, and my path ran do-mi with 
 butter and honey,"— when I was a little, 
 thoughtless child, and had no other wish 
 or care but to con my daily task, and be 
 happy!— "Tom Jones," I remember, was the 
 first work that broke the spell. It came 
 do-«Ti in numbers once a fortnight, in 
 Cooke's pocket-edition, embellished with 
 cuts. I had hitherto read only in school- 
 books, and a tiresome ecclesiastical history 
 (with the exception of Mrs. Radcliffe's 
 " Romance of the Forest ") : but this had a 
 different relish with it,— "sweet in the 
 mouth," though not "bitter in the belly." 
 It smacked of the world I lived in, and in 
 which I was to live— and showed me groups, 
 " gay creatures " not "of the element," but 
 of the earth; not "living in the clouds," 
 tout travelling the same road that I did ;— 
 some that had passed on Ijefore me, and 
 others that might soon overtake me. My 
 heart had palpitated at the thoughts of a 
 boarding-school ball, or gala-day at Mid- 
 flummer or Christmas : but the world I had
 
 William Hazlitt. 87 
 
 found out in Cooke's edition of the " British 
 Novelists" was to me a dance through 
 life, a perpetual gala-day. The sixpenny 
 numbers of this work regularly contrived 
 to leave off just in the middle of a sentence, 
 and in the nick of a story. . . . With 
 what eagerness I used to look forward to 
 the next number, and open the prints ! Ah ! 
 never again shall I feel the enthusiastic 
 delight with which I gazed at the figures, 
 and anticipated the story and adventures of 
 Major Bath and Commodore Trunnion, of 
 Trim and my Uncle Toby, of Don Qiiisote 
 and Sancho and Dapple, of Gil Bias and 
 Dame Lorenza Sephora, of Laura and the 
 fair Lucretia, whose lips open and shut like 
 buds of roses. To what nameless ideas did 
 they give rise,— with what airy delights I 
 filled up the outlines, as I hung in silence 
 over the page!— Let me still recall them, 
 that they may breathe fresh life into me, 
 and that I may live that birthday of thought 
 and romantic pleasiue over again ! Talk of 
 the ideal ! This is the only true ideal— the 
 heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in the 
 bubbles that float upon the spring-tide of 
 human life. 
 
 O Memory ! sliield me from the world's poor 
 
 strife, 
 And give those scenes thine everlasting 
 
 life! 
 
 — "The Plain Speaker: On Beading Old 
 Books."
 
 88 William Hazlitt. 
 
 I cannot understand the rage manifested 
 by the greater part of the world for reading 
 New Books. If the public had read all those 
 that have gone before, I can conceive how 
 they should not wish to read the same work 
 twice over ; but when I consider the count- 
 less volumes that lie unopened, unregarded, 
 unread, and unthought-of, I cannot enter 
 into the pathetic complaints that I hear 
 made that Sir Walter writes no more— that 
 the press is idle— that Lord Byron is dead. 
 If I have not read a book before, it is, to all 
 intents and purposes, new to me, whether 
 it was printed yesterday or three hundred 
 years ago. If it be urged that it has no 
 modern, passing incidents, and is out of 
 date and old-fashioned, then it is so much 
 the newer ; it is farther removed from other 
 works that I have lately read, from the 
 familiar routine of ordinary life and makes 
 so much more addition to my knowledge. 
 But many people woiild as soon think of 
 putting on old armour as of taking up a 
 book not published within the last month, 
 or year at the utmost. There is a fashion 
 in reading as well as in dress, which lasts 
 only for the season. One would imagine 
 that books were, like women, the worse for 
 being old ; that they have a pleasure in 
 being read for the first time; that they open 
 their leaves more cordially; that the spirit 
 of enjoyment wears out ■w'ith the spirit of 
 novelty ; and that, after a certain age, it is 
 high time to put them on the shelf. This 
 conceit seems to be followed up in practice.
 
 Dr. W. E. Chamiing. 89 
 
 What is it to me that another— that hun- 
 dreds or thousands have in all ages read a 
 work ? Is it on this account the less likely 
 to give me pleasui-e, because it has delighted 
 so many others ? Or can I taste this pleasure 
 by proxy ? Or am I in any degree the wiser 
 for their knowledge ? Yet this might appear 
 to be the inference.—" Sketches and Essays : 
 On Reading New Books." 
 
 [In the Appendix wiU be found some 
 opinions regarding Hazlitt as a Critic and 
 Essayist. The object in giving these is to 
 direct attention to the works of an original 
 and vigorous thinker, too little known by 
 readers of the present generation.] 
 
 Dr. William Ellery Channing. 
 1780— 1S42. 
 It is chiefly through books that we enjoy 
 intercourse ■with superior minds ; and these 
 invaluable means of communication are in 
 the reach of all. In the best books, great 
 men talk to us, give us their most precious 
 thoughts, and pom- their souls into ours. 
 God be thanked for books ! They are the 
 voices of the distant and the dead, and 
 make us heirs of the spuitual life of past 
 ages. Books are the trae levellers. They 
 give to all who will faithfully use them, the 
 society, the spiritual presence of the best 
 and greatest of our race. No matter how 
 
 M
 
 90 Dr. W. E. Channing. 
 
 poor I am; no matter though the prosperous 
 of my o\sTi time -^oQ not enter my obscure 
 dwelling; if the sacred writers will enter 
 and take up their abode under my roof— if 
 Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me 
 of Paradise ; and Shakspeare to open to me 
 the worlds of imagination and the workings 
 of the human heart ; and Franklin to enrich 
 me with his practical wisdom— I shall not 
 pine for want of intellectual companionship, 
 and I may become a cultivated man, though 
 excluded from whatis called the best society 
 in the place where I live. 
 
 To make this means of culture effectual, 
 a man must select good books, such as have 
 been written by right-minded and strong- 
 minded men, real thinkers ; who, instead of 
 diluting by repetition what others say, have 
 something to say for themselves, and write 
 to give relief to full earnest souls : and 
 these works mtist not be skimmed over for 
 amusement, but read with fixed attention, 
 and a reverential love of truth. In selecting 
 books, we may be aided much by those who 
 have studied more than ourselves. But 
 after all, it is best to be determined in this 
 particular a good deal by our own tastes. 
 The best books for a man are not always 
 those which the wise recommend, but 
 oftener those which meet the peculiar 
 •wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and 
 therefore awaken interest and xivet thought. 
 Aud here it may be well to observe, not only 
 in regard to books, but in other respects, 
 that self-culture must vary with the indi-
 
 Dr. W. E. Channing. 91 
 
 vidual. All means do not equally suit us all. 
 A man must unfold himself freely, and 
 should respect the peculiar gifts or biasses 
 by which nature has distinguished him 
 from others. Self-culture does not demand 
 the sacrifice of individuality; it does not 
 regularly apply an established macliinei-y; 
 for the sake of torturing every man into one 
 rigid shape, called perfection. As the human 
 countenance, with the same featui-es in us 
 aU, is diversified without end in the race, 
 and is never the same in any two indi- 
 viduals ; so the human soul, with the same 
 grand powers and law, expands into an 
 infinite variety of forms, and would be 
 wof ully stinted by modes of culture requir- 
 ing all men to learn the same lesson, or to 
 bend to the same rules. 
 
 I know how hard it is to some men, 
 especially to those who spend much time 
 in manual labour, to fix attention on books. 
 Let them strive to overcome the difficulty, 
 by choosing subjects of deep interest, or by 
 reading in company with those whom they 
 love. Nothing can supply the place of 
 books. They are cheering or soothing 
 companions in solitude, illness, aiHiction. 
 The wealth of both continents would not 
 compensate for the good they impart. Let 
 every man, if possible, gather some good 
 books under his roof, and obtain access for 
 himself and family to some social Library. 
 Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to 
 this. 
 
 One of the very interesting features of
 
 92 Dr. IF. E. Chaiining. 
 
 our times, is the mnltiplication of books, 
 and their distribution throiagh all con- 
 ditions of society. At a small expense, a 
 man can now possess himself of the most 
 precious treasures of EngUsh literature. 
 Books, once confined to a few by their cost- 
 liness, are now accessible to the multitude ; 
 and in this way a change of habits is going 
 on in society, highly favourable to the cul- 
 ture of the people. Instead of depending 
 on casual rumour and loose conversation 
 for most of their knowledge and objects of 
 thought; instead of forming their judg- 
 ments in crowds, and receiving their chief 
 excitement from the voice of neighbours, 
 men are now learning to study and reflect 
 alone, to follow out subjects continuously, 
 to determine for themselves what shall 
 engage their minds, and to call to their aid 
 the knowledge, original views, and reason- 
 ings of men of all countries and ages ; and 
 the results must be, a deliberateness and 
 independence of judgment, and a thorough- 
 ness and extent of information, unknown in 
 former times. The difEusion of these silent 
 teachers, books, through the whole com- 
 munity, is to work greater effects than 
 artiUery, machinery, and legislation. Its 
 peaceful agency is to supersede stormy 
 revolutions. The culture, which it is to 
 spread, whilst an tmspeakable good to the 
 individual, is also to become the stability 
 of nations. — " Self -Culture : An Address 
 introductory to the Franklin Lectures, at 
 Boston," 1838.
 
 Iiijmg — Hunt. 93 
 
 Washington Irving. 1783—1859. 
 The scholar only knows how dear these 
 silent, yet eloquent, companions of pure 
 thoughts and innocent hours become in the 
 season of adversity. When all that is worldly 
 tm-ns to dross around us, these only retain 
 their steady valine. When friends grow cold, 
 and the converse of intimates langiushes 
 into vapid civility and common-place, these 
 only continue the unaltered countenance of 
 happier days, and cheer us with that true 
 friendship which never deceived hope nor 
 deserted sorrow.— "The SketchjBook." 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 1784—1859. 
 
 Sitting last winter among my books, and 
 walled round with all the comfort and pro- 
 tection which they and my fire-side could 
 afford me,— to wit, a table of high-piled 
 books at my back, my writing-desk on one 
 side of me, some shelves on the other, and 
 the feeling of the warm fire at my feet,— 
 I began to consider how I loved the 
 authors of those books ; how I loved them too, 
 not only for the imaginative pleasures they 
 afforded me, but for their making me love 
 the very books themselves, and delight to be 
 in contact with them. I looked sideways at 
 my Spenser, my Theocritus, and my Arabian 
 Nights; then above them at my Italian 
 Poets ; then behind me at my Dryden and 
 Pope, my Romances, and my Boccaccio;
 
 94 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 then on my left side at my Chancer, who lay 
 on my -writing-desk; and thought how 
 natural it was in Charles Lamb to give a 
 kiss to an old folio, as I once saw him do to 
 Chapman's Homer. . . . 
 
 I entrench myself in my books, equally 
 against sorrow and the weather. II the 
 •wind comes through a passage, I look about 
 to see how I can fence it off by a better 
 disposition of my moveables; if a melan- 
 choly thought is importunate, I give another 
 glance at my Spenser. When I speak of 
 being in contact with my books, I mean it 
 literally. I like to be able to lean my head 
 against them. . . . 
 
 I like a great library next my study ; but 
 for the study itself, give me a small snug 
 place almost entirely walled with books. 
 There should be only one window in it, 
 looking upon trees. Some prefer a place 
 with few or no books at all; nothing but 
 a chair or a table, like Epictetus: but I 
 should say that these were philosophers, 
 not lovers of books, if I did not recollect 
 that Montaigne was both. He had a study 
 in a round tower, walled as aforesaid. It 
 is true, one forgets one's books while 
 •writing : at least they say so. For my part, 
 I think I have them in a sort of sidelong 
 minds eye; like a second thought, which 
 is none; like a waterfall, or a whispering 
 •wind. . . , 
 
 The very perusal of the backs is a " dis- 
 cipline of humanity." There Mr. Southey 
 takes his place again with an old Radical
 
 Leigh Hunt. 95 
 
 friend: there Jeremy Collier is at peace 
 with Dryden : there the lion, Martin Luther, 
 lies down with the Quaker lamb, Sewell: 
 there Guzman d'Alfarache thinks himself 
 fit company for Sir Charles Grandison, and 
 has his claims admitted. Even the "high 
 fantastical ' ' Duchess of Newcastle, with her 
 laurel on her head, is received with grave 
 honom-s, and not the less for declining to 
 trouble herself with the constitutions of her 
 maids. . . . 
 
 How pleasant it is to reflect that the 
 greatest lovers of books have themselves 
 become books ! "What better metamorphosis 
 could Pythagoras have desired ! How Ovid 
 and Horace exulted iu anticipating theirs ! 
 And how the world have justified their exul- 
 tation! They had a right to triumph over 
 brass and marble. It is the only visible 
 change which changes no frnther; which 
 generates, and yet is not destroyed. Con- 
 sider : mines themselves are exhausted ; 
 cities perish; kingdoms are swept away, 
 and man weeps with indignation to think 
 that his o^-n body is not immortal. . . . 
 
 Yet this little body of thought that lies 
 before me in the shape of a book has existed 
 thousands of years ; nor since the invention 
 of the press, can any thing short of an uni- 
 versal convulsion of nature, abolish it. To 
 a shape like this, so small, yet so compre- 
 hensive, so slight, yet so lasting, so insig- 
 nificant, yet so venerable, turns the mighty 
 activity of Homer, and so turning, is en- 
 abled to live and warm us for ever. To a
 
 96 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 sliape like this turns the placid sage of 
 Academus : to a shape like this the grandeur 
 of Milton, the exuberance of Spenser, the 
 pungent elegance of Pope, and the volatility 
 of Prior. In one small room, like the com- 
 pressed spii-its of Milton, can be gathered 
 togetlier 
 
 "The assembled souls of all that men 
 held wise." 
 
 May I hope to become the meanest of these 
 existences ? This is a question which every 
 author, who is a lover of books, asks him- 
 self some time in his life ; and which must 
 be pardoned, because it cannot be helped. 
 I know not. I cannot exclaim with the 
 poet, 
 
 "Oh that my name were numbered among 
 
 theirs, 
 Then gladly would I end my mortal days." 
 
 For my mortal days, few and feeble as the 
 rest of them may be, are of consequence to 
 others. But I should like to remain visible 
 in this shape. The little of myself that 
 pleases myself, I could wish to be accounted 
 worth pleasing others. I should like to 
 survive so, were it only for the sake of those 
 who love me in private, knowing as I do what 
 a treasure is the possession of a friend's 
 mind, when he is no more. At all events, 
 nothing, while I live and think, can deprive 
 me of my value for such treasures. I can
 
 Leigh Hunt. 97 
 
 help the appreciation of them while I. last, 
 and love them till I die; and perhaps, if 
 fortune tiu-ns her face once more in kindness 
 upon me before I go, I may chance, some 
 quiet day, to lay my over-beating temples 
 on a book, and so have the death I 
 most envy.—" The Literary Examiner : My 
 Books," 1823. 
 
 [The following passages are from the 
 Preface and Introduction to "A Book for a 
 Corner; or Selections in Prose and Verse 
 from Authors the best suited to that mode 
 of enjoyment: with Comments on each, and 
 a General Introduction," 2 vols., 1849.] 
 
 The book, for the most part, is a col- 
 lection of passages from such authors as 
 retain, if not the highest, yet the most 
 friendly and as it were domestic hold upon 
 us during life, and sympathize with us 
 through all portions of it. Hence the first 
 extract is a Letter adth-essed to an Infant, 
 the last the Elegy in the Chm-chyard, and 
 the inteiTuediate ones have something of 
 an analogous reference to the successive 
 stages of existence. It is therefore intended 
 to be read by intelligent persons of all 
 times of life, the youthful associations in 
 it being such as the oldest readers love to 
 call to mind, and the oldest such as all 
 would gladly meet with in their decline. 
 It has no politics in it, no polemics, nothing 
 to ofi'end the delicatest mmd. The inno- 
 centest boy and the most cautious of his 
 seniors might alike be glad to look over the
 
 98 
 
 Leizh Hunt. 
 
 other's shoulder, and find him in his corner 
 perusing it. This may he speaking in a 
 boastful manner; biit an Editor has a right 
 to boast of his originals, especially when 
 they are such as have comforted and de- 
 lighted bim throughout bis o-mi life, and 
 are for that reason recommended by liim 
 to others.— " Preface. " 
 
 This compilation is intended for all 
 lovers of books, at every time of Life, 
 from childhood to old age, particularly 
 Buch as are fond of the authors it quotes, 
 and -who enjoy their perusal most in the 
 quietest places. It is intended for the 
 boy or girl who loves to get with a book into 
 a corner— for the youth who on entering 
 life finds his advantage in having become 
 acquainted -with books— for the man in the 
 thick of life, to whose spare moments books 
 are refreshments— and for persons in the 
 decline of life, who reflect on what they have 
 experience'1, and to whom books and gar- 
 dens afford their tranquillest pleasures. It 
 is a book (not to say it immodestly) intended 
 to lie in old parlour windows, in studies, in 
 cottages, in cabins aboard ship, in country- 
 inns, in country-houses, in summer-houses, 
 in any houses that have wit enough to like 
 it, and are not the mere victims of a table 
 covered with books for show. . . . 
 
 Some of the most stirring men in the 
 world, persons in the thick of business of 
 all kinds, and indeed with the business of 
 the world itself on their hands,— Lorenzo
 
 Leigh Hiint. 99 
 
 de Medici, for instance, who was at once 
 the great merchant and the political arbiter 
 of his time,— have comljined with their 
 other energies the greatest love of books, 
 and found no recreation at once so whole- 
 some and so useful. We hope many a man 
 of business will refresh himself with the 
 short pieces in these volumes, and retuin 
 to Ills work the .fitter to baffle craft, 
 and yet retain a reverence for simplicity. 
 Every man who has a right sense of busi- 
 ness, whether his business be that of the 
 world or of himself, has a respect for 
 ail right things apart from it; because 
 business with him is not a mindless and 
 merely instinctive industry, like that of a 
 beetle rolling its ball of clay, but an exer- 
 cise of faculties congenial with the other 
 powers of the human being, and all working 
 to some social end. Hence he approves of 
 judicious and refreshing leisure— of domestic 
 and social evenings— of suburban retreats 
 —of gardens— of ultimate retirement "for 
 good "—of a reading and reflective old age. 
 Such retii'ements have been longed for, and 
 in many instances realized, by wise and 
 great men of all classes, from the Diocletians 
 of old to the Foxes and Burkes of oui- own 
 days. Warren Hastings, who had ruled 
 India, yearned for the scenes of his boy- 
 hood ; and lived to be happy in them. The 
 wish to possess a country-house, a retreat, a 
 nest, a harbour of some kind from the 
 storms and even from the agitating plea- 
 sures of life, is as old as the sorrows and
 
 lOO Leigh Hunt. 
 
 joys of civilization. The child feels it 
 when he " plays at house;" the schoolboy, 
 when he is reading in his corner ; the lover, 
 when he thinks of his mistress. Epicurus 
 felt it in his garden; Horace and Virgil 
 expressed their desire of it in passages 
 which the sympathy of mankind has ren- 
 dered immortal. It was the end of all the 
 wisdom and experience of Shakspeare. He 
 retired to his native town, and built himself 
 a house in wliich he died. And who else 
 does not occasionally "flit" somewhere 
 meantime if he can ? The country for many 
 miles round London, and indeed in most 
 other places, is adorned with houses and 
 grounds of men of business, who are whirled 
 to and fro on weekly or daily evenings, and 
 who would all find something to approve in 
 the closing chapters of our work. . . . 
 
 It is Books that teach us to refine on our 
 pleasures when young, and which, having 
 so taught us, enable us to recall them with 
 satisfaction when old. For let the half- 
 witted say what they will of delusions, no 
 thorough reader ever ceased to believe in 
 liis books, whatever doubts they might 
 have taught him by the way. They are 
 pleasures too palpable and habitual for 
 him to deny. The habit itself is a pleasure. 
 They contain his young dreams and his old 
 discoveries; all that he has lost, as well as 
 all that he has gained; and, as he is no 
 surer of the gain than of the loss, except 
 in proportion to the strength of his per- 
 ceptions, the dreams, in being renewed,
 
 Leigh Hunt. loi 
 
 become truths again. He is again in com- 
 munion with the past ; again interested 
 in its adventui'es, grievmg with its griefs, 
 laughing with its merriment, forgetting 
 the very chair and room he is sitting in. 
 Who, in the mysterious operation of tilings, 
 shall dare to assert in what unreal corner 
 of time and space that man's mind is ; or 
 what better proof he has of the existence 
 of the poor goods and chattels about him, 
 which at that moment (to him) are non- 
 existent •? " Oh ! " people say, " but he wakes 
 up, and sees them there." Well; he woke 
 down then, and saw the rest. What we dis- 
 tinguish into dreams and realities, are, in 
 both cases, but representatives of impres- 
 sions. Who shall know what diSerence 
 there is in them at all, save that of degree, 
 till some higher state of existence help us 
 to a criterion? 
 
 For our part, such real things to us are 
 books, that, if habit and perception make 
 the difference between real and unreal, we 
 may say that we more frequently wake out 
 of common life to them, than out of them to 
 common life. Yet we do not find the life 
 the less real. We only feel books to be a 
 constituent part of it; a world, as the poet 
 says, 
 "Bound which, with tendrils strong as flesh 
 
 and blood. 
 Our pastime and our happiness may grow." 
 
 . . . And yet, when readers wake up to 
 that other dream of life, called real life (and
 
 102 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 we do not mean to deny its palpability), 
 they do not find their enjoyment of it 
 diminished. It is increased— increased by 
 the contrast— by the variety— by the call 
 upon them to show the faith which books 
 have originally given them in all true and 
 good things, and which books, in spite of 
 contradiction and disappointment, have 
 constantly maintained. Mankind are the 
 creatures of books, as well as of other 
 circumstances; and such they etenially 
 remain ; proofs, that the race is a noble and 
 believing race, and capable of whatever 
 books can stimulate. 
 
 The volumes now offered to our fellow 
 readers originated in this kind of passion 
 for books. They were suggested by a wish 
 we had long felt to get up a book for our 
 private enjoyment, and of a very par- 
 ticular and unambitious nature. It was to 
 have consisted of favourite passages, not 
 out of the authors we most admired, but 
 those whom we most loved ; and it was to 
 have commenced, as the volumes do, with 
 Shenstone's " Schoolmistress," and ended 
 with Gray's "Elegy." It was to have con- 
 tained indeed little which the volumes do 
 not comprise, though not intended to be half 
 so big, and it was to have proceeded on the 
 same plan of beginning with childhood and 
 ending with the church-yard. We did not 
 intend to omit the greatest authors on 
 account of their being the greatest, but 
 because they moved the feelings too strongly. 
 What we desired was not an excitement,
 
 Leigh Hunt. 103 
 
 but a balm. Keaders, who have led stirring 
 lives, have such men as Shakspeare with 
 them always, in their very struggles and 
 sufferings, and in the tragic spectacles of the 
 world. Great crowds and great passions are 
 Shakspeares ; and we, for one (and such we 
 take to be the case with many readers), are 
 sometimes as willing to retire from their 
 "infinite agitation of wit," as from strifes 
 less exalted; and retreat into the placider 
 corners of genius more humble. It is out of 
 no disrespect to their greatness ; neither, we 
 may be allowed to saj', is it from any fear 
 of being unable to sustain it; for we have 
 seen perhaps as many appalling faces of 
 things in our time as they have,. and we are 
 always ready to confront more if duty de- 
 mand it. But we do not choose to be always 
 suffering over again in books wliat we have 
 suffered in the world. We prefer, when 
 in a state of repose, to renew what we 
 have enjoyed— to possess wholly what we 
 enjoy still— to discern in the least and 
 gentlest things the greatest and sweetest 
 intentions of Natm-e— and to cultivate those 
 soothing, serene, and affectionate feelings, 
 which leave us in peace with all the world, 
 and in good hope of the world to come. 
 The very greatest genius, after all, is not 
 the greatest thing in the world, any more 
 than the greatest city in the world is the 
 country or the sky. It is a concentration 
 of some of its greatest powers, but it is not 
 the greatest diffusion of its might. It is 
 not the habit of its success, the stability of
 
 104 Leigh Htint. 
 
 its sereneness. And this is what readers 
 like ourselves desire to feel and know. The 
 greatest use of genius is but to subserve to 
 that end; to farther the means of enjoying 
 it, and to freshen and keep it pure ; as the 
 winds and thunders, which come rarely, 
 are purifiers of the sweet fields, which are 
 abiding. . • . 
 
 We have imagined a book-loving man, or 
 man able to refresh himself with lx)oks, at 
 every successive period of his life;— the 
 child at his primer, the sanguine boy, the 
 youth entering the world, the man in the 
 thick of it, the man of alternate busraess 
 and repose, the retired man calmly con- 
 sidering his birth and his death ; and in this 
 one human being we include, of course, the 
 whole race and both sexes, mothers, wives, 
 and daughters, and all which they do to 
 animate and sweeten existence. Thus our 
 invisible, or rather many -bodied hero (who 
 is the reader himself ,i, is in the first instance 
 a baby ; then a chUd under the " School- 
 mistress" of Shenstone; then the school- 
 boy -with Gray and Walpole, reading poetry 
 and romance; then "Gil Bias" entering the 
 world; then the sympatliiser with the 
 "John Buncles " who enjoy it, and the 
 "Travellers" who fill it ^sith enterprise; 
 then the matured man beginning to talk 
 of disappointments, and standing in need 
 of admonition "Against Inconsistency in 
 his Expectations " [the title of an admii-- 
 able Essay by Mrs. Barbauld]; then the 
 reassured man comforted by his honesty and
 
 Leigh Hunt. 105 
 
 his just hopes, and refreshing himself with 
 his Clxih or his country-lodging, his pictures, 
 or his theatre ; then the retiring, or retired, 
 or finally old man, looking back with 
 tenderness on his enjoyments, with regret 
 for his errors, with comfort in his virtues, 
 and -with a charity for all men, which gives 
 him a right to the comfort ; loving all the 
 good things he ever loved, particularly the 
 books which have been his companions and 
 the childhood which he meets again in the 
 fields; and neither wishing nor fearing to 
 be gathered into that kindly bosom of 
 Nature, which covers the fields with flowers, 
 and is encircled with the heavens. . . . 
 
 A universalist, in one high bibliographical 
 respect, may be said to be the only true 
 reader ; for he is the only reader on whom 
 no writing is lost. Too many people approve 
 no books but such as are representatives 
 of some opinion or passion of their own. 
 They read, not to have human nature 
 reflected on them, and so be taught to know 
 and to love everything, bat to be reflected 
 themselves as in a pocket mirror, and so 
 interchange admiring looks with their o\\-n 
 narrow cast of countenance. The univer- 
 salist alone puts up with difierence of 
 opinion, by reason of his o^^•n very difference ; 
 because his difference is a right claimed by 
 liim in the spirit of universal allowance, 
 and not a privilege arrogated by conceit. 
 He loves poetry and prose, fiction and mat- 
 ter of fact, seriousness and mu'th, because 
 he is a thorough human being, and contains
 
 io6 Leigh Hiint. 
 
 portions of all the faculties to which they 
 appeal. A man who can be nothing but 
 serious, or nothing but merry, is but half a 
 man. The lachrymal or the risible organs 
 are wanting in him. He has no business to 
 have eyes or muscles like other men. The 
 universalist alone can put up with him, by 
 reason of the very sympathy of his antipathy. 
 He understands the defect enough to pity, 
 while he dislikes it. The universalist is the 
 only reader who can make something out of 
 books for wMch he has no predilection. 
 He sees differences in them to sharpen his 
 reasoning; sciences wliioh impress on him 
 a sense of his ignorance ; nay, languages 
 which, if they can do nothing else, amuse 
 his eye and set him thinking of other 
 countries. . . . 
 
 Our compilation, therefore, though de- 
 sirous to please all who are willing to be 
 pleased, is ambitious to satisfy this sort of 
 person most of all. It is of his childhood 
 we were mostly thinking when we extracted 
 the " Schoolmistress." He will thoroughly 
 understand the wisdom lurking beneath 
 the playfulness of its author. He will 
 know how wholesome as well as amusing 
 it is to become acquainted with books like 
 "Gil Bias" and "Joseph Andrews." fl'ewill 
 derive agreeable terror from " Sir Bertram" 
 and the "Haunted Chamber;" will assent 
 with delighted reason to every sentence in 
 " Mrs. Barbaulds Essay ; " will feel himself 
 wandering into solitudes with " Gray ; " 
 shake honest hands with " Sir Roger de
 
 Leigh Hunt. 107 
 
 Coveiiey;" be ready to embrace "Parson 
 Adams," and to chuck " Pounce " out of 
 window, instead of the hat ; will travel with 
 "Marco Polo" and " Mungo Park;" stay 
 at home with " Thomson ;" retii-e with 
 "Cowley;" be industrious with "Hutton;" 
 sympathizing with " Gay and Mrs. Inch- 
 bald;" laughing with (and at) "Buncle;" 
 melancholy, and forlorn, and self-restored, 
 with the shipwi-ecked mariner of " De Foe." 
 There are " Eobinson Crusoes " in the 
 moral as well as physical world, and even 
 a luiiversalist may be one or them ;— men, 
 cast on desert islands of thought and specu- 
 lation ; without companionship ; without 
 worldly resoiurces; forced to arm and clothe 
 themselves out of the remains of ship- 
 wrecked hopes, and to make a home for 
 theu' solitary hearts in the nooks and 
 corners of imagination and reading. It 
 is not the worst lot in the world. Turned 
 to account for others, and embraced witli 
 patient cheerfulness, it may, with few 
 exceptions, even be one of the best. We 
 hope our volume may light into the hands 
 of such men. Every extract which is made 
 in it, has something of a like second- 
 purpose, beyond what appears on its face. 
 There is amusement for those who require 
 nothing more, and instruction in the shape 
 of amusement for those who choose to 
 find it. . . . 
 
 Our book may have little novelty in the 
 least sense of the word ; but it has the 
 best in the greatest sense; that is to say,
 
 lo8 Leigh Bunt. 
 
 never-dying 7?ore»i/;— antiquity hung with 
 ivy -blossoms and rose-buds ; old friends with 
 the ever-new faces of wit, thought, and 
 affection. Time has proved the genius with 
 which it is filled. "Age cannot wither it," 
 nor " custom stale its variety." We ourselves 
 have read, and shall continue to read it to 
 our dying day; and we should not say thus 
 much, especially on such an occasion, if we 
 did not know, that hundreds and thousands 
 would do the same, whether they read it in 
 this collection or not.— Introduction to "A 
 Book for a Corner." 
 
 On Booksellers' Catalogues.— X Catalogue 
 is not a mere catalogue or list of saleables as 
 the uninitiated may fancy. Even a common 
 auctioneer's catalogue of goods and chattels, 
 suggests a thousand reflections to a peruser 
 of any knowledge; judge then what the case 
 must be with a catalogue of Books; the very 
 titles of which run the rounds of the whole 
 world, visible and invisible ; geographies- 
 biographies— histories— loves — hates —joys 
 — sorrows — cookeries— sciences— fashion,— 
 and eternity ! We speak on this subject 
 from the most literal experience ; for often 
 and often have we cut open a new catalogue 
 of old books, with all the fervour and ivory 
 folder of a first love ; often read one at tea ; 
 nay, at dinner : and have put crosses against 
 dozens of volumes in the list, out of the pure 
 imagination of buying them, the possibility 
 being out of the qtiestion / "
 
 Thomas de Qitincey. 109 
 
 [The reader is referred to tlie Appendix 
 for an array of opinions of some of the 
 most distinguished Book-Lovers and Book- 
 Writers regarding Leigh Hunt, his genius 
 and works. This author takes a high 
 rank among our best Essayists, and his 
 criticisms, on English poetry especially, are 
 remarkable for theii- geniality and reflued 
 appreciation. He was the finest belles- 
 lettrist of his day, and a typical Man of 
 Letters. Mr. Carlyle's beautiful greeting to 
 Leigh Hunt on the appearance of his " Auto- 
 biography " (given in the Appendix), is, 
 perhaps, the most cordial and touching 
 letter to be found in the annals of Literary 
 Correspondence.] 
 
 Thomas de Quincey. 1786—1859. 
 
 A great scholar, in the highest sense of 
 the term, is not one who depends simply on 
 an infinite memory, but also on an infinite 
 and electrical power of combination ; bring- 
 ing together from the four winds, like the 
 Angel of the Eesm-rection, what else were 
 dust from dead men's bones, into the unity 
 of breathing life. 
 
 And of this let every one be assured— 
 that he owes to the impassioned books 
 which he has read, many a thousand more 
 of emotions than he can consciously trace
 
 no Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 back to them. Dim by their origination, 
 these emotions yet arise in him, and mould 
 him through life like the forgotten incidents 
 of childhood. 
 
 Books teach by one machinery, conversa- 
 tion by another ; and if these resources were 
 trained into correspondence to their own 
 separate ideals, they might become recipro- 
 cally the complements of each other. 
 
 At this hour, five hundred years since 
 their creation, the tales of Cliaucer, never 
 equalled on this earth for their tenderness, 
 and for life of picturesqueness, are read 
 familiarly by many in the charming lan- 
 guage of their natal day, and by others in 
 the modernisations of Dryden, of Pope, and 
 Wordsworth. At this liour, one thousand 
 eight hundred years since their creation, the 
 Pagan tales of Ovid, never equalled on this 
 earth for the gaiety of their movement and 
 the capricious graces of their narrative, are 
 readbyallCliristendom. This man' s people 
 and their monuments are dust; but he is 
 alive : he has survived them, as he told us 
 that he had it in his commission to do, by a 
 thousand years; "and shall a thousand 
 more. "— " Essay on Pope." 
 
 Bryan Waller Procter (Barry 
 
 Cornwall). 1787—1874. 
 
 All round the room my silent servants 
 
 wait,— 
 My friends in every season, bright and dim 
 Angels and seraphim
 
 ''Barry Cornwall. 
 
 Come down and murmur to me, sweet and 
 low, 
 
 And spirits of the skies all come and go 
 
 Early and late ; 
 
 From the old world's divine and distant 
 date. 
 
 From the sublimer few, 
 
 Hoyro. to the poet who but yester-eve 
 
 Sang sweet and made us grieve, 
 
 All come, assembling here in order due. 
 
 And here I dwell with Poesy, my mate, 
 
 With Erato and all her vernal sighs, 
 
 Great Clio with her victories elate. 
 
 Or pale Urania's deep and starry eyes. 
 
 Oh friends, whom chance and change can 
 never harm 
 
 Wliom Death the tyrant cannot doom to die 
 
 Within whose folding soft eternal charm 
 
 I love to lie, 
 
 And meditate upon your verse that flows. 
 
 And fertUizes wheresoe'er it goes, 
 
 Whether .... 
 
 "Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Corn- 
 wall): An Autobiographical Frag- 
 ment and Biographical Notes, with 
 Personal Sketches of Contempo- 
 raries, Unpublished Lyrics, and 
 Letters of Literary Friends," 1877. 
 
 Arthur Schopenhauer. 
 6. 1788- cZ. 1860. 
 It is the case with literatvure as with life ; 
 wherever we turn we come upon the in- 
 corrigible mob of humankind, whose name is
 
 112 Arthur Schopenha tier. 
 
 Legion, swarming everywhere, damaging 
 everything, as flies in summer. Hence the 
 multiplicity of bad books, those exuberant 
 weeds of literature -which choke the true 
 com. Such books rob the public of time, 
 money, and attention, which ought properly 
 to belong to good literature and noble aims, 
 and they are written with a view merely to 
 make money or occupation. They are there- 
 fore not merely useless, but injurious. 
 Nine-tenths of our current literature has no 
 other end but to inveigle a thaler or two out 
 of the public pocket, for which purpose 
 author, publisher, and printer are leagued 
 together. A more pernicious, subtler, and 
 bolder piece of trickery is that by which 
 penny-a-liners and scribblers succeed in 
 destroying good taste and real culture. . . 
 Hence, the paramount importance of acquir- 
 ing the art not to read ; in other words, 
 of not reading such books as occupy the 
 public mind, or even those which make a 
 noise in the world, and reach several edi- 
 tions in their first and last year of existence. 
 "We should recollect that he who wTites for 
 fools finds an enormous audience, and we 
 should devote the ever scant leisure of 
 our circumscribed existence to the master- 
 spirits of all ages and nations, those who 
 tower over humanity, and whom the voice 
 of Fame proclaims : only such writers cul- 
 tivate and instruct us. Of bad books we 
 can never read too li:tle : of the good never 
 too much. The bad are intellectual poison 
 and undermine the understanding. Because
 
 Love Peacock. 113 
 
 people insist on reading not tlae best books 
 written for all time, but the newest contem- 
 porary literature, writers of the day remain 
 in the narrow circle of the same perpetually 
 revolving ideas, and the age contmues to 
 •wallow in its own mire. . . . Mere ac- 
 quired knowledge belongs to us only like a 
 wooden leg and a wax nose. Knowledge 
 attained by means of thinking resembles 
 our natm-al limbs, and is the only kind that 
 really belongs to us. Hence the difference 
 between the thinker and the pedant. The 
 intellectual possession of the independent 
 thinker is like a beautiful pictiue which 
 stands before us, a living thing with fitting 
 light and shadow, sustained tones, perfect 
 harmony of colour. That of the merely 
 learned man may be compared to a palette 
 covered with bright colours, perhaps even 
 arranged with some system, but wanting in 
 harmony, coherence and meaning. . , . 
 Only those writers profit us whose under- 
 standing is quicker, more lucid than oiu: 
 own, by whoso braru w-e indeed think for a 
 time; who qmcken oiu- thoughts, and lead 
 us whither alone we could not find oui- way. 
 — [An account of the Life and Philosophy 
 of this remarkable pessimist thinker was 
 published by Miss Helen Zimmem in 1876.] 
 
 Love Peacock. 6. 17S5— fZ. 1866. 
 
 [Dr. Folliott loquitur] There is nothing 
 more fit to be looked at than the outside of a 
 book. It is, as I may say from repeated ex-
 
 114 Dr. Ai-nott. 
 
 perience, a piue and unmixed pleastu'e to 
 have a goodly volume lying before you, and 
 to know that you may open it if you please, 
 and need not open it unless you please. It 
 is a resource against ennui, if ennui should 
 come upon you. To have the resource and 
 not to feel the ennui, to enjoy your bottle in 
 the present, and your book in the indefinite 
 future, is a delightful condition of human 
 existence.— " Crotchet Castle," Chap, vii., 
 The Sleeping Venus. 
 
 Dr. Arxott. 1788—1874. 
 In remote times the inhabitants of the 
 earth were divided into small states or 
 societies, often at enmity among themselves, 
 and whose thoughts and interests were 
 confined much within their o^-n narrow 
 territories and rude habits. In succeeding 
 ages men found themselves belonging to 
 larger communities, as when the English 
 heptarchy became united, or more lately 
 when England, Scotland, and Ireland have 
 become one; but still distant kingdoms and 
 quarters of the world were of no interest to 
 them, and often were totally unknown. 
 Now, however, a man feels that he is a 
 member of one vast more civilized society 
 whilh covers the face of the earth, and no 
 part of the earth is indifferent to him. In 
 England, for instance, a man of small 
 fortune, nay, even a journeyman mechanic 
 who is honest, sober, and intelligent, may 
 cast his regards around him, and say, with
 
 Dr. Arnott. 115 
 
 truth and exultation, " I amlodged in a house 
 that affords me conveniences and comforts 
 which some centuries ago even a king could 
 not command. Ships are crossing the seas 
 in every direction to bring -what is useful 
 to me from all parts of the earth ; in China 
 men are gathei-ing the tea leaf for me, in 
 the West India Islands and elsewhere they 
 are preparing my sugar and my coffee; in 
 America they are cultivating cotton for me ; 
 elsewhere they are [shearing the sheep to 
 give me abundance of warm clotliing ; at 
 home powerful steam-engines are spinning 
 and weaving for me and making cutlery, and 
 pumping the mines that minerals useful to 
 me may be procured. My patrimony was 
 small, yet I have railway-trains nmning 
 day and night on all the roads to carry my 
 correspondence and to bring the coal for my 
 winter fire ; nay, I have protecting fleets 
 and armies around my happy country, to 
 render secm-e my enjoyments and repose. 
 Then I have editors and printers, who daily 
 send me an account of what is going on 
 throughoiit the world, among these people 
 who serve me. And in a corner of my house 
 I have BOOKS— the miracle of all my posses- 
 sions, more wonderful than the wishing-cap 
 of the Arabian tales, for they transport me 
 instantly, not only to all places, but to all 
 times. By my books I can conjm-e up before 
 me to a momentary existence many of the 
 great and good men of past ages, and for my 
 individual satisfaction they seem to act 
 again the most renowned of theii- achieve-
 
 Ii6 Sir John Herschel. 
 
 inents ; the orators declaim for me, the 
 liistorians recite, the poets sing." This 
 picture is not overcharged, and might be 
 much extended; such being the goodness 
 and providence which devised tliis world, 
 that each individual of the civilized millions 
 that cover it, if his conduct be prudent, may 
 have nearly the same happiness as if he 
 were the single lord of all.—" The Elements 
 of Physics." 
 
 Sir John Serschel. 1792—1871. 
 
 There is a want too much lost sight of 
 in our estimate of the privations of the 
 humbler classes, though it is one of the 
 most incessantly craving of all our wants, 
 and is actually the impelling power which, 
 in the vast majority of cases, urges men 
 into vice and crime. It is the want of 
 amusement. It is in vain to declaim against 
 it.— Equally with any other principle of our 
 nature, it calls for its natural indulgence, 
 and cannot be permanently debarred from 
 it, without souring the temper, and spoiling 
 the character. Like the indulgence of all 
 other appetites, it only requii-es to be kept 
 within due bounds, and turned upon inno- 
 cent or beneficial objects, to become a spring 
 of happiness ; but gratified to a certain 
 moderate extent it must be, in the case of 
 every man, if we desire him to be either 
 a useful, active, or contented member of 
 society. Now I would ask, what provision 
 do we find for the cheap and innocent and
 
 Sir John Herschd. II7 
 
 daily amusements of the mass of the labour- 
 ing population of tliis country ? What sort 
 of resoiirces have they to call up the cheer- 
 fulness of their spirits, and chase away the 
 cloud from their brow after the fatigue of a 
 day's hard work, or the stupefying monotony 
 of some sedentary occupation ? Why, really 
 very little— I hardly like to assume the ap- 
 pearance of a wish to rip up grievances by 
 saying /loic little. The pleasant field walk 
 and the village green are becoming rarer 
 and rarer every year. Blusic and dancing 
 (the more's the pity) have become so closely 
 associated with ideas of riot and debauchery 
 among the less cultivated classes, that a 
 taste for them for their own sakes can hardly 
 be said to exist, and before they can be 
 recommended as mnocent or safe amuse- 
 ments, a very g^eat change of ideas must 
 take place. The beer-shop and the public - 
 house, it is true, are always open, and 
 always full, but it is not by those institutions 
 that the cause of moral and intellectual 
 culture is advanced. The truth is, that 
 under the pressui-e of a continually con- 
 densing population, the habits of the city 
 have crept into the village— the demands 
 of agriculture have become sterner and more 
 imperious, and while hardly a foot of ground 
 is left uncultivated, and unappropriated, 
 there is positively not space left for many 
 of the cheerful amusements of rural life. 
 Now, since this appears to be unavoidable, 
 and as it is physically impossible that the 
 amusements of a condensed population
 
 ir8 STr John HerscheL 
 
 should continue to be those of a scattered 
 one, it behoves us strongly to consider of 
 some substitutes. But perhaps it may 
 appear to some almost preposterous to enter 
 on the question. "SMiy, the veiT name of a 
 labourer has something about it with which 
 amusement seems out of character. Labour 
 is work, amusement is play— and though 
 it has passed into a proverb, that one 
 without the other will make a dull boy, we 
 seem to have altogether lost sight of a thing 
 equally obvious— that a community of " dull 
 boys" in this sense, is only another word 
 for a society of ignorant, headlong, and 
 ferocious men. 
 
 I hold it, therefore, to be a matter of 
 vei-y great consequence, independent of the 
 kindness of the thing— that those who are 
 at their ease in this world^hould look about 
 and be at some pains to furnish available 
 means of harmless gratification to the in- 
 dustrious and well-disposed classes, who 
 are worse provided for than themselves in 
 every respect, but who, on that very account, 
 are prepared to prize more highly every ac- 
 cession of true enjoyment, and who really 
 want it more. To do so is to hold out a 
 bonus for the withdrawal of a man from 
 mischief in his idle hours— it is to break that 
 strong tie which binds many a one to evil 
 associates and brutal habits— the want of 
 something better to amuse Idm,— by actually 
 making his abstinence become its own re- 
 ward. 
 
 Now, of all the amusements which can
 
 Sir John Het'schel. 119 
 
 possibly be imagined for a hard-working 
 man, after his daily toil, or in its intervals, 
 there is nothing like reading an entertain- 
 ing book, supposing him to have a taste for 
 it, and supposing him to have the book to 
 read. It calls for no bodily exertion, of 
 ■which he has had enough or too much. It 
 relieves his home of its dullness and same- 
 ness, which, in nine cases out of ten, is 
 what drives him out to the ale-house, to his 
 own ruin and his family's. It transports him 
 into a livelier, and gayer, and more diver- 
 sified and interesting scene, and while he 
 enjoys himself there he may forget the evils 
 of the present moment, fully as much as if 
 he were ever so cU-unk, with the great ad- 
 vantage of finding himself the next day 
 with his money in his pocket, or at least 
 laid out in real necessaries and comforts for 
 himself and his family,— and without a 
 headache. Xay, it accompanies him to his 
 next day's work, and if the book he has been 
 reading be anything above the very idlest 
 and lightest, gives liim something to think 
 of besides the mere mechanical drudgery of 
 his every day occvipation,— something he 
 can enjoy wliile absent, and look forward 
 with pleasui-e to return to. 
 
 But supposing him to have been for- 
 tunate in the choice of his book, and to have 
 alighted upon one really good and of a good 
 class. What a source of domestic enjoyment 
 is laid open ! '\\Tiat a bond of family union ! 
 He may read it aloud, or make his wife read 
 it, or his eldest boy or girl, or pass it round
 
 120 Sir John Herschel. 
 
 from hand to hand. All have the benefit of 
 it— all contribute to the gratification of the 
 rest, and a feeling of common interest and 
 pleasure is excited. Nothing unites people 
 like companionship in intellectual enjoy- 
 ment. It does more, it gives them mutual 
 respect, and to each among them self- 
 respect— that corner-stone of all virtue. . . 
 While thus leading him to look within his 
 own bosom for the ultimate sources of his 
 happiness, warns him at the same time to 
 be cautious how he defiles and desecrates 
 that inward and most glorious of temples. 
 
 I recollect an anecdote told me bj' a late 
 highly-respected inhabitant of Windsor as 
 a fact which he could personally testify, 
 having occurred in a village where he resided 
 several years, and where he actually was at 
 the time it took place. The blacksmith of 
 the village had got hold of Richardson's 
 novel of " Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," and 
 used to read it aloud in the long summer 
 evenings, seated on his anvil, and never 
 failed to have a large and attentive audience. 
 It is a pretty long-winded book— but their 
 patience was fully a match for the author's 
 prolixity, and they fairly listened to it all. 
 At length, when the happy turn of fortune 
 arrived, which brings the hero and heroine 
 together, and sets them living long and 
 happily according to the most approved 
 rules— the congregation were so delighted 
 as to raise a great shout, and procuring the 
 church keys, actually set the parisli bell- 
 ringing. Now let any one say whether it i>
 
 Sir John Herschel. 121 
 
 easy to estimate the amoimt of good done 
 in this simple case. Not to speak of the 
 number of hours agreeably and innocently 
 spent— not to speak of the good-fellowship 
 and hai-mony promoted— here was a whole 
 rustic population fairly won over to the side 
 of good— charmed— and night after night 
 spell-bound within that magic circle which 
 genius can trace so effectually, and com- 
 pelled to bow before that image of virtue 
 and purity which, (though at a great expence 
 of words) no one knew better how to body 
 forth with a thousand life-like touches than 
 the author of that work. 
 
 If I were to pray for a taste which should 
 stand me in stead under every variety of 
 circumstances, and be a source of happiness 
 and cheerfulness to me through life, and a 
 shield against its ills, however things might 
 go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it 
 would be a taste for reading. I speak of 
 it of coiu-se only as a worldly advantage, 
 and not in the slightest degree as super- 
 seding or derogating from the higher office 
 and siu-er and stronger panoply of religious 
 principles— but as a taste, an instrument 
 and a mode of pleasurable gratification. 
 Give a man this taste, and the means of 
 gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of 
 making a happy man, unless, indeed, you 
 put into his hands a most perverse selec- 
 tion of books. You place liim in contact 
 with the best society in every period of 
 history— T^'ith the wisest, the wittiest— with 
 the tenderest, the bravest, and the pui-est 
 Q
 
 122 Sir John Herschel. 
 
 characters who have adorned humanity. 
 You make him a denizen of all nations— 
 a cotemporary of all ages. The -world has 
 been created for him. It is hardly possible 
 but the character should take a higher 
 and better tone from the constant habit 
 of associating in thought with a class of 
 thinkers, to say the least of it, above the 
 average of httmaiuty. It is morally im- 
 possible but that the manners should take 
 a tinge of good breeding and civilization 
 from having constantly before one's ej-esthe 
 ■way in which the best-bred and the best- 
 informed men have talked and conducted 
 themselves in their intercourse with each 
 other. There is a gentle, but perfectly 
 irresistible coercion in a habit of reading 
 well directed, over the whole tenor of a 
 man's character and conduct, which is not 
 the less effectual because it works insen- 
 sibly, and because it is reaUy the last thing 
 he dreams of. It caimot, in short, be better 
 summed up, than in the words of the Latin 
 poet— 
 
 " Emollit mores, nee nnxX esse feros." 
 
 It civilizes the conduct of men— and suffers 
 them not to remain barbarous. 
 
 The reason why I have dwelt so strongly 
 upon the point of amusement, is this— that 
 it is really the only handle, at least the only 
 innocent one, by which we can gain a fair 
 grasp of the attention of those who have
 
 Sir John Herschel. 123 
 
 grown up in a want of instruction, and in 
 a carelessness of theii- own improvement. 
 Those who cater for the passions, especially 
 the base or malignant ones, find an easy 
 access to the ignorant and idle of every 
 rank and station— but it is not so with 
 sound knowledge or rational instruction. 
 The very act of sitting down to read a book 
 is an effort, it is a kind of ventm-e— at all 
 events, it involves a certain expenditure of 
 time which we think might be otherwise 
 pleasantly employed— and if this is not in- 
 stantly and in the very act repaid ^\'ith 
 positive pleasure, we may rest assured it 
 will not be often repeated— and what is 
 worse, every failm-e tends to originate and 
 confinn a distaste. If then we would gene- 
 rate a taste for reading, we must, as our only 
 chance of success, begin by pleasing. And 
 what is more, this must be not only the 
 ostensible, but the real object of the works 
 we offer. Thelistlessness and want of sym- 
 pathy with which most of the works written 
 expressly for circulation among the labour- 
 ing classes, are read by them, if read at all, 
 arises mainly from this— that the story told, 
 of the lively or friendly style assumed, is 
 manifestly and palpably only a cloak for the 
 instruction intended to be conveyed— a sort 
 of gilding of what they cannot well help 
 fancying must be a pill, when they see so 
 much and such obvious pains taken to wrap 
 it up. 
 
 But try it on the other tack. Ft^-nish 
 them liberally with books not written ex-
 
 124 Sir John HerscheL 
 
 pressly for them as a class— but published 
 for their betters (as the phrase is), and those 
 the best of their kind. You will soon find 
 that they haTe the same feelings to be in- 
 terested by the varieties of fortune and 
 incident— the same discernment to perceive 
 the shades of character— the same relish for 
 striking contrasts of good and evil in moral 
 conduct, and the same irresistible propensity 
 to take the good side— the same perception 
 of the sublime and beautiful in nature and 
 art, when distinctly placed before them by 
 the touches of a master— and what is most 
 of all to the present purpose, the same 
 desire having once been pleased, to be 
 pleased again. In short, you will find that 
 in the higher and better class of works of 
 fiction and imagination duly circulated, 
 you possess all you require to strike your 
 grappling-ii-on into their souls, and chain 
 them, willing followers, to the car of ad- 
 vancing civilization. . . . 
 
 The novel, in its best form, I regard as 
 one of the most powerful engines of civili- 
 zation ever invented— but not the foolish 
 romances which used to be the terror of our 
 maiden aunts ; not the insolent productions 
 which the press has lately teemed with 
 under the title of fashionable novels— nor 
 the desperate attempts to novelize historj' 
 whic)i the herd of Scott's imitators have put 
 forth, which have left no epoch since the 
 creation untenanted by modern antiques 
 — and no character in history unfalsifled— 
 but the novel as it has been put forth by
 
 Sir John Herschel. 125 
 
 Cervantes and Eicliaidson, by Goldsmith, 
 by Edgeworth, and Scott. In the wTitings 
 of these and svich as these, we have a stock 
 of works in the highest degree enticing and 
 interesting, and of the utmost purity and 
 morality— full of admii-able lessons of con- 
 duct, and calculated in every respect to 
 create and cherish that invaluable habit of 
 resorting to books for pleasure. Those who 
 have once experienced the enjoyment of 
 such works will not easily learn to abstain 
 from reading, and will not willingly descend 
 to an inferior grade of intellectual pri- 
 vilege — they have become prepared for 
 reading of a higher order— and may be 
 expected to relish the finest strains of 
 poetry, and to draw with advantage from 
 the pui-est wells of history and philosophy. 
 Nor let it be thought ridiculous or over- 
 strained to associate the idea of poetry, his- 
 tory or philosophy, with the homely garb 
 and penurious fare of the peasant. . . , 
 There is always this advantage in aiming 
 at the highest results— that the failure is 
 never total, and that though the end accom- 
 plished may fall far short of that proposed, 
 it cannot but reach far in advance of the 
 point from which we start. There never was 
 any great and permanent good accomplished 
 but by hoping for and aiming at something 
 still greater and better. 
 
 A taste for readmg once created, there 
 can be little difficulty in directing it to its 
 proper objects. . . . But the first step 
 necessary to be taken is to set seriously
 
 126 Archdeacon Hare. 
 
 about arousing the dormant appetite by 
 applying the stimulant ; to awaken the tor- 
 pid intellectual being from its state of in- 
 action to a sense of its existence and of its 
 wants. The after-task, to gratify them, and 
 while gratifying to enlarge and improve 
 them, will prove easy in comparison.—" An 
 Address to the Subscribers to the Windsor 
 and Eton Public Library and Reading 
 Room," 29th January, 1833. 
 
 Archdeacon Jclius C. Hare. 
 
 1795—1855. 
 For my own part, I have ever gained the 
 most profit, and the most pleasure also, from 
 the books which have made me think the 
 most; and when the difBculties have once 
 been overcome, there are the books which 
 have struck the deepest root, not only in 
 my memory and understanding, but like- 
 wise in my affections. . . . Above all, in 
 the present age of light reading, that is, of 
 reading hastily, thoughtlessly, indiscrimi- 
 nately, unfruitfully, when most books are 
 forgotten as soon as they are finished, and 
 vei-y many sooner, it is weU if something 
 lieavier is cast now and then into the midst 
 . :.f the literary public. These may scare and 
 repel the trash, it will rouse and attract the 
 stronger, and increase their strength, by 
 making them exert it. In the sweat of the 
 brow, is the mind as well as the body to eat 
 its bread, mi sine magna Musa labore 
 dedit mortalibtir. . . . Desultory reading
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 127 
 
 is indeed very mischievous, by fostering 
 habits of loose, discontinuous thought, by 
 turning the memory into a common sewer 
 for rubbish of all thoughts to flow through, 
 and by relaxing the power of attention, 
 which of all our faculties most needs care, 
 and is most improved by it. But a well- 
 regulated com-se of study will no more 
 weaken the mind than hard exercise will 
 weaken the body ; nor will a strong under- 
 standing be weighed down by its knowledge, 
 any more than oak is by its leaves, or than 
 Samson was by his locks. He whose smews 
 are drained by his hau-, must ali-eady be a 
 weakling.—" Guesses at Truth." 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 1795—1881. 
 Excepting one or two individuals I have 
 little society that I value very highly ; but 
 books are a ready and effectual resource. 
 May blessings be upon the head of Cadmus, 
 the Phffiuicians, or whoever it was that 
 invented books ! I may not detain you with 
 the praises of an art that carries the voice of 
 man to the extremity of the earth and to the 
 latest generations ; but it is lawf lU for the 
 solitary wight to express the love he feels 
 for those companions so steadfast and un- 
 presuming, that go or come without reluc- 
 tance, and that, when his fellow-animals are 
 proud or stupid or peevish, are ever ready to 
 cheer the languor of his soul, and gild the 
 barrenness of life with the treasures of by- 
 gone times.— " Letter to Robert Mitchell"
 
 128 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 (an intimate college-friend), Kirkcaldy, Feb- 
 ruary 16th, 1818 (in his 23rd year). 
 
 Yet -wherefore should -we murmur ? A 
 share of evil, greater or less (the difference 
 of shares is not worth mentioning) is the 
 unalterable doom of mortals, and the mind 
 may be taught to abide in peace. Complaint 
 is generally despicable, always worse than 
 unavailing. It is an instructive thing, I 
 think, to observe Lord Byron, surrounded 
 with the voluptuousness of an Italian se- 
 raglio, chanting a mournful strain over the 
 wretchedness of human life— and then to 
 contemplate the poor but lofty-minded 
 Epictetas, the slave of a cruel master too ; 
 and to hear him lifting up his voice to far- 
 distant generations in these imforgotten 
 words. [Quotation from the "Enchiridion."] 
 But a truce to moralising ; suffice it with 
 our Stoic, to suffer and abstain.— " Letter 
 to Thomas Murray" (another intimate 
 friend), Kirkcaldy, 28th July, 1818. 
 
 Do not fear that I shaU read yon a homily 
 on that hackneyed theme — contentment. 
 Simply I wish to tell you that in days of 
 darkness— for there are days when my sup- 
 port (pride, or whatever it is) has enough to 
 do — I find it useful to remember that 
 aeanthes, whose memorable words may 
 last yet other two thousand years, never 
 mtirmtired when he laboured by night, as a 
 street-porter, that he might hear the lectures 
 of Zeno by day ; and that Epictetus, the ill-
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 129 
 
 used slave of a cruel tj-rant's as -wi-etched 
 minion, wrote that "Enchiridion" which 
 may fortify the soul of the latest inhabitant 
 of the earth.—" Letter to Robert Mitchell," 
 Kirkcaldy, 6th November, 1818. 
 
 I thank Heaven I have still a boundless 
 appetite for reading. I have thoughts of 
 lying buried alive here for many years, for- 
 getting all stuff about "reputation," success, 
 and so forth, and resolutely setting myself 
 to gain iQsight by the only method not shut 
 out from me— that of books. Two articles 
 (of fifty pages) in the year will keep me 
 living; employment in that kind is open 
 enough. For the rest, I really find almost 
 that I do 6esi when forgotten by men, and 
 nothing above or around me but the im- 
 perishable Heaven. It never wholly seems 
 to me that I am to die in this wilderness ; a 
 feeling is always dimly with me that I am 
 to be called out of it, and have work fit for 
 me before I depart, the rather as I can do 
 either icay. Let not solitude, let not silence 
 and unparticipating isolation make a savage 
 of thee— these, too, have their advantages.— 
 "Journal, Craigenputtock, September 3rd, 
 1832." (See Froude's " Life of Carlyle," vol. 
 ii., p. 309.) 
 
 [Thomas k Kempis, " De Imitatione 
 Christi."] None, I believe, except the 
 Bible, has been so universally read and 
 loved by Chiistians of all tongues and 
 sects. It gives me pleasure to think that
 
 130 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 the Christian heart of ovir good mother 
 may also derive nourishment and strength 
 from what has already nourished and 
 strengthened so many. [He had sent his 
 mother a copy of the book in February, 
 1833.]— Fronde's "Life of Carlyle," vol. ii., 
 p. 337. 
 
 "Visible and tangible products of the 
 past, again, I reckon up to the extent of 
 three: Cities, with their cabinets and ar- 
 senals; their tUled Fields, to either or to 
 both of which divisions roads with their 
 
 bridges may belong; and thirdly Books. 
 
 In which third, truly, the last invented, lies 
 a worth far surpassing that of the two 
 others. Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a 
 true book ! Not like a dead city of stones, 
 yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair ; 
 more like a tilled field, but then a spiritual 
 field ; like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, 
 it stands from year to year, and from age to 
 age (we have books that already number 
 some hundred and fifty human ages) ; and 
 yearly comes its new produce of leaves 
 (commentaries, deductions, philosophical, 
 political systems ; or were it only sermons, 
 pamphlets, journalistic essays), every one of 
 which is talismanic and thanmaturgic, for 
 it can persuade men. O thou who art able 
 to write a book, which once in the two cen- 
 turies or oftener there is a man gifted to do, 
 envy not him whom tliey name city-builder, 
 and inexpressibly pity him whom they name 
 conqueror or city-burner ! Thou, too, ai-t a
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 131 
 
 conqueror and victor ; but of the true sort, 
 namely, over the Devil. Thou, too, hast 
 built what will outlast all marble and metal, 
 and be a wonder-bringing city of the mind, 
 a temple and seminai-y and prophetic mount, 
 whereto all kindreds of the earth -nill pil- 
 grim."—" Sartor Eesartus," 1833. 
 
 Our pious Fathers, feeling well what 
 importance lay in the speaking of man to 
 men, founded chiu-ches, made endowments, 
 regulations ; everywhere in the civilised 
 world there is a Pulpit, euvii-oned with aU 
 manner of complex dignified appiurtenances 
 and furtherances, that therefrom a man 
 with the tongue may, to best advantage, 
 address his fellow-men. They felt that this 
 was the most important thing ; that without 
 this there was no good thing. It is a right 
 pious work, that of theirs ; beautiful to 
 behold ! But now with the art of Writing, 
 with the art of Printing, a total change has 
 come over that business. The Writer of a 
 Book, is not he a Preacher preaching not to 
 this parish or that, on this day or that, but 
 to all men in all times and places ? . . . 
 
 Certainly the Ait of Writing is the most 
 mkaculous of all things man has devised. 
 Odin's Txunes were the first form of the work 
 of a Hero; BooI;s, written words, are still 
 miraculous Eunes, the latest form ! In Books 
 lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the 
 articulate audible voice of the Past, when 
 the body and material substance of it has 
 altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty
 
 132 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 fleets and armies, harbours and arsenals, 
 vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,— 
 they are precious, great : but what do they 
 become ? Agamemnon, the many Agamem- 
 nons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is 
 gone now to some ruined fragments, dumb 
 mournful wrecks and blocks : but the Books 
 of Greece ! There Greece, to evei-y thinker, 
 still very literally lives; can be called-up 
 again into Ufe. Ko magic Rune is stranger 
 than a Book. All that Mankind has done, 
 thought, gained or been: it is lying as in 
 magic preservation in the pages of Books. 
 They are the chosen possession of men. 
 
 Do not Books still accomplish miracles 
 as Runes were fabled to do ? They per- 
 suade men. Not the wretchedest circu- 
 lating-library novel, which foolish girls 
 thumb and con in remote villages, but 
 will help to regulate the actual practical- 
 weddings and households of those foolish 
 girls. So "CeUa" felt, so "Clifford" acted: 
 the foolish Theorem of Life, stamped into 
 those young brains, comes out as a solid 
 Practice one day. Consider whether any 
 Rune in the wildest imagination of Mytho- 
 logist ever did such wonders as, on the 
 actual firm Earth, some Books have done! 
 What built St. Pauls Cathedral ? Look at 
 the heart of the matter, it was that divine 
 Hebrew Book,— the word partly of the man 
 Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish 
 herds, four thousand years ago, in the 
 wildernesses of Sinai ! It is the strangest 
 of things, yet nothing is truer. With the
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 133 
 
 art of Writing, of which Priating is a simple, 
 an inevitable and comparatively insignifi- 
 cant corollary, the true reign of miracles 
 for mankind commenced. It related, with 
 a wondrous new contiguity and perpetual 
 closeness, the Past and Distant with the 
 Present in time and place ; all times and all 
 places with this our actual Here and Now. 
 All things were altered for men ; all modes 
 of important work of men : teaching, preach- 
 ing, governing and all else. . . . 
 
 Once invent Printing, you metamor- 
 phosed all Universities, or superseded 
 them I The Teacher needed not now to 
 gather men personally round him, that 
 he might s'^eak to them what he knew ; 
 print it in a Book, and all learners, far and 
 wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own 
 fireside, much more effectually to learn 
 it ! ... If we think of it, all that a 
 University, or final highest School can do for 
 us, is stUl but what the first School began 
 doing,— teach us to read. We learn to read, 
 in various languages, in various sciences; 
 we leam the alphabet and letters of all 
 manner of Books. But the place where we 
 are to get knowledge, even theoretic know- 
 ledge, is the Books themselves ! It depends 
 on what we read, after all mamier of Pro- 
 fessors have done their best for us. The true 
 University of these days is a Collection of 
 Books. . . . 
 
 Coleridge remarks very pertinently some- 
 where, that wherever you find a sentence 
 musically worded, of true rhythm and
 
 134 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 melody in the words, there is something 
 deep and good in the meaning too. For 
 body and soul, word and idea, go strangely 
 together here, as everywhere. 
 
 I many a time say, the writers of News- 
 papers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books, these 
 are the real working effective Chm'ch of 
 a modem country. Nay not only onr 
 preaching, but even our worship, is not 
 it too accomplished by means of Printed 
 Books? The noble sentiment which a 
 gifted soul has clothed for us in melodious 
 words, which brings melody into our hearts, 
 —is not this essentially, if we will rmder- 
 Btand it, of the natm-e of worship ? There 
 are many, in all cormtries, who, in this 
 confused time, have no other method of 
 worship. He who, in any way, shows us 
 better than we knew before that a Uly of 
 the fields is beautiful, does he not show it 
 us as an effluence of the Fountain of all 
 Beauty; as the handwriting, made visible 
 there, of the great Maker of the Universe ? 
 He has sung for us, made us sing with him 
 a little verse of a sacred Psalm. Essentially 
 80. How much more he who sings, who 
 says, or in any way brings home to our 
 heart the noble doings, feelings, darings 
 and endurances of a brother man ! He has 
 verily touched our hearts as with a live 
 coal from the altar. Perhaps there is no 
 worship more authentic. . . . 
 
 On aU sides, are we not driven to the 
 conclusion that, of the things which man 
 can do or make here below, by far the most
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 135 
 
 momentous, wonderful and worthy are tlie 
 things we call Books ! Those poor bits 
 of rag-paper with black ink on them ;— from 
 the Daily Newspaper to the sacred Hebrew 
 Book, what have they not done, what are 
 they not doing !— For indeed, whatever be 
 the outward form of the thing (bits of paper, 
 as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at 
 bottom, the highest act of man's faculty 
 that produces a Book ? It is the Tliouglit 
 of man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by 
 which man works all things whatsoever. 
 All that he does, and brings to pass, is the 
 vesture of a Thought. This London City, 
 with all its houses, palaces, steam engines, 
 cathedi-als, and huge immeasurable trafiSc 
 and tumult, what is it but a Thought, but 
 millions of Thoughts made into One ;— a 
 huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought, 
 embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust. 
 Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney .Coaches, 
 Katherine Docks, and the rest of it ! Not 
 a brick was made but some man had to think 
 of the making of that brick.— The thing we 
 called "bits of paper with traces of black 
 ink," is the purest embodiment a Thought of 
 man can have. No wonder it is, in all ways, 
 the activest and noblest.— " Lectures on 
 Heroes : The Hero as Man of Letters," 1840. 
 
 Possibly too you may have heard it said 
 that the course of centuries has changed all 
 this; and that "the true University of our 
 days is a Collection of Books." And beyond 
 doubt, all this is greatly altered by the
 
 136 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 invention of Printing, which took place about 
 midway between us and the origin of Uni- 
 versities. Men have not now to go in person 
 to where a Professor is actuallj' speaking; 
 because in most cases you can get his 
 doctrine out of him through a book ; and 
 can then read it, and read it again and 
 again, and study it. That is an immense 
 change, that one fact of Printed Books. And 
 I am not sure that I know of any University 
 in which the whole of that fact has yet been 
 completely taken in, and the studies moulded 
 in complete conformity with it. . . . 
 
 It remains, however, practically a most 
 important truth, what I alluded to above, 
 that the main use of Universities in the 
 present age is that, after you have done with 
 all your classes, the nest thing is a collection 
 of books, a great library of good books, 
 which you proceed to study and to read. 
 What th^ Universities can mainly do for 
 yon,— what I have found the University 
 did for me, is. That it taught me to read, 
 in various languages, in various sciences ; 
 so that I could go into the books which 
 treated of these things, and gradually 
 penetrate into any department I wanted 
 to make myself master of, as I found it 
 suit me. 
 
 Whatever you may think of these histori- 
 cal points, the clearest and most imperative 
 duty lies on every one of you to be assiduous 
 in your reading. Leam to be good readers,— 
 which is perhaps a more difficult thing than 
 yon imagine. Leam to be discriminative
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 137 
 
 in your reading; to read faithfully, and 
 with youi- best attention, all kinds of things 
 which you have a real interest in, a real 
 not an imaginary, and which you find to be 
 really fit for what you are engaged in. . . . 
 The most unhappy of all men is the man 
 who cannot tell what he is going to do, who 
 has got no work cut-out for him in the world, 
 and does not go into it. For work is the 
 grand cure of all the maladies and miseries 
 that ever beset mankind,— honest work, 
 which you intend getting done. . . . 
 
 I do not know whether it has been suffi- 
 ciently brought home to you that there are 
 two kinds of books. When a man is read- 
 ing on any kind of subject, in most depart- 
 ments of books,— in all books, if you take 
 it in a wide sense,— he will find that there 
 is a division into good books and bad 
 books. Everywhere a good kind of book 
 and a bad kind of book. I am not to assume 
 that you are unacquainted, or ill-acquainted 
 with this plain fact ; but I may remind you 
 that it is becoming a very important con- 
 sideration in our day. And we have to cast 
 aside altogether the idea people have, that 
 if they ai'o reading any book, that if an 
 ignorant man is reacUng any book, he is 
 doing rather better than nothing at aU. I 
 must entii'ely call that in question : I even 
 venture to deny that. It would be much 
 safer and better for many a reader, that he 
 had no concern with books at all. There is 
 a number, a frightfully increasing number, 
 of books rhat are decidedly, to the readers
 
 138 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 of them, not useful. But an ingenious 
 reader will learn, also, that a certain num- 
 ber of books were written by a supremely 
 noble kind of people,— not a very great 
 number of books, but still a number fit to 
 occupy all youi- reading industry, do adhere 
 more or less to that side of things. In 
 short, as I have written it down somewhere 
 else, I conceive that books are like men's 
 souls ; divided into sheep and goats. Some 
 few are going up, and carrying us up, 
 heavenward; calculated, I mean, to be of 
 priceless advantage in teaching,— in for- 
 warding the teaching of all generations. 
 Others, a frightful multitude, are going 
 down, down ; doing ever the more and the 
 wider and the wilder mischief. Keep a 
 strict eye on that latter class of books, my 
 young fiiends !— And for the rest, in regard 
 to aU your studies and readings here, and 
 to whatever you may learn, you are to re- 
 member that the object is not particular 
 knowledges,— not that of getting higher and 
 higher in technical perfections, and aU that 
 sort of thing. There is a higher aim lying 
 at the rear of all that, especially among those 
 who are intended for literary or speaking 
 pursuits, or the sacred profession. You are 
 ever to bear in mind that there lies behind 
 that the acquisition of what may be called 
 wisdom ;— namely, sound appreciation and 
 just decision as to aU the objects that come 
 roimd you, and the habit of behaving with 
 justice, candour, clear insight, and loyal 
 adherence to fact. Great is wisdom ; infinite
 
 Bishop Thirkvall. 139 
 
 is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exag- 
 gerated; it i3 the highest acliievement of 
 man : " Blessed is he that getteth under- 
 standing." And that, I believe, on occasion, 
 may be missed very easUy ; never more 
 easily than now, I sometimes think. If 
 that is a failm-e, all is failure !— However, I 
 wUl not touch further upon that matter.— 
 "Miscellanies: Inaugural Addi-ess at Edin- 
 burgh, 2nd April, 1866, on being installed as 
 Rector of the University there." 
 
 Bishop Thirlwall. 1797— 1S75. 
 
 I flatter myself that I can sympathise 
 with your enjoyment of a quiet day. A life 
 of constant society would to me be perfectly 
 intolerable, while I was never yet tired by 
 what is called solitude (being indeed some 
 of the choicest society to one who liies a 
 book).—" Letters to a Friend." 
 
 A. Bronson Alcott (American 
 Essayist). 6. 1799 [Living]. 
 Good books, like good friends, are few 
 and chosen; the more select the more enjoy- 
 able; and like these are approached with 
 diffidence, nor sought too familiarly nor too 
 often, having the precedence only when 
 friends tii-e. The most mannerly of com- 
 panions, accessible at all times, in all 
 moods, they frankly declare the author's 
 mind, without giving offence. Like living 
 friends they too have their voice and phy-
 
 140 A. Broiison Alcott. 
 
 siognomies, and their company is prized as 
 old acquaintances. We seek them in our 
 need of counsel or of amusement, nvithout 
 impertinence or apology, sure of having our 
 claims allowed. A good book justifies oui- 
 theory of personal supremacy, keeping this 
 fresh in the memory and perennial. What 
 were days without such fellowship ? We 
 were alone in the world without it. Nor 
 does our faith falter though the secret we 
 search for and do not find in them will not 
 commit itself to literature, still we take up 
 the new issue with the old expectation, and 
 again and again, as we try our friends after 
 many failures at conversation, believing 
 this visit will be the favored hour and all 
 will be told us. Nor do I know what book I 
 can well spare, certainly none that has ad- 
 mitted me, though it be but for the moment 
 and by the most obhque glimpse, into the 
 mind and personality of its author ; though 
 few there are that prefer such friendly 
 claim to one's regard, and satisfy expecta- 
 tion as he turns their leaves. Oui- favorites 
 are few; since only what rises from the 
 heart reaches it, being caught and carried 
 on the tongues of men wheresoever love and 
 letters journey. 
 
 Nor need we wonder at their scarcity or 
 the value we set upon them; life, the 
 essence of good letters as of friendship, 
 being its o'sv'n best biographer, the artist 
 that portrays the persons and thoughts we 
 are, and are becoming. And the most that 
 even he can do, is but a chance stroke or two
 
 A, Bronson Alcott. 141 
 
 at tMs fine essence housed in the hand- 
 some dust, but too fugitive and coy to be 
 caught and held fast for longer than the 
 passing glance; the master touching ever 
 and retouching the picture he leaves un- 
 finished. 
 
 " My life has been the poem I would have 
 
 writ, 
 But I could not both live and utter it." 
 
 . . . Any library is an attraction. And 
 there is an indescribable delight — who 
 has not felt it that deserves the name of 
 scholar— in mousing at choice among the 
 alcoves of antique book-shops especially, 
 and finding the oldest of these sometimes 
 newest of the new, fresher, more suggestive 
 than the book just published and praised in 
 the reviews. Nor is the pleasure scarcely 
 less of cutting the leaves of the new volume, 
 opening by preference at the end rather 
 than title-page, and seizing the author's 
 conclusions at a glance. Very few books 
 repay the reading in course. Nor can we 
 excuse an author if his page does not tempt 
 us to copy passages into oui- common 
 places, for quotation, proverbs, meditation, 
 or other uses. A good book is fruitful of 
 other books ; it perpetuates its fame from 
 age to age, and makes eras in the lives of 
 its readers.—" Tablets: Books." 
 
 Next to a friend's discourse, no morsel 
 is more delicious than a ripe book, a book 
 whose flavor is as refreshing at the thou-
 
 142 A. Brojison Alcott. 
 
 sandth tasting as at the first. Books when 
 friends weary, conversation flags, or nature 
 fails to inspire. The best books appeal to 
 the deepest in us and answer the demand. 
 A book loses if wanting the personal element, 
 gains when this is insinuated, or comes to 
 the front occasionally, blending history with 
 m3rthology. 
 
 My favorite books have a personality 
 and complexion as distinctly drawn as if 
 the author's portrait were framed into the 
 paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read 
 his illustrated pages. Nor could I spare 
 them from my table or shelves, though I 
 should not open the leaves for a twelve- 
 month;— the sight of them, the knowledge 
 that they are within reach, accessible at 
 any moment, rewards me when I invite 
 their company. Borrowed books are not 
 mine while in hand. I covet ownership in 
 the contents, and fancy that he who is con- 
 versant with these is the rightful owner, 
 and moreover, that the true scholar owes to 
 scholars a catalogue of his chosen volumes, 
 that they may learn from whence his 
 entertainment during leisure moments. 
 Nest to a personal introduction, a list of 
 one's favourite authors were the best admit- 
 tance to his character and manners. . . . 
 
 Without Plutarch, no library were com- 
 plete. Can we marvel at his fame, or 
 overestimate the surpassing merits of his 
 writings? It seems as I read as if none 
 before, none since, had written lives, as if 
 he alone were entitled to the name of bio-
 
 A. Bronson Alcott, 143 
 
 grapher,— such intimacy of insight is his, 
 laying open the springs of character, and 
 through his parallels portraying his times 
 as no historian had done before : not Plato, 
 even, in the Livelier way of dialogue with his 
 friends. Then his morals are a statement of 
 the virtues for all times. And I read the list 
 of his lost writings, not without a sense of 
 personal wrong done to me, with emotions 
 akin to what the merchant might feel in 
 perasing the bill of freight after the loss 
 of his vessel. Hercules, Hesiod, Pindar, 
 Leonidas, Scipio, Augustus, Claudius, 
 Epaminondas, minds of mark, all these and 
 other precious pieces gone to the bottom : 
 his books on the Academy of Plato, The 
 Philosophers, and many more of this im- 
 perial freight, to be read by none now. 
 Still, there remains so much to be grateful 
 for ; so many names sui-viving to pei-petuate 
 vii-tue and all that is splendid in fame, with 
 his own. I for one am his debtor, not for 
 noble examples alone, but for portraits of 
 the possibilites of virtue, and all that is 
 dearest in friendship, in his attractive 
 pages. It is good exercise, good medicine, 
 the reading of his books,— good for to-day, 
 as in times it was preceding oui-s, salutary 
 reading for all times. 
 
 Montaigne also comes in for a large 
 share of the scholar's regard. Opened 
 anywhere, his page is sensible, marrowy, 
 quotable. He may be taken up, too, 
 and laid aside carelessly without loss, 
 so inconsequent is his method, and he so
 
 144 ^' Branson Alcott. 
 
 careless of his wealth. Professing nature 
 and honesty of speech, his page has the 
 suggestions of the landscape, is good for 
 striking out in any direction, suited to 
 any mood, sure of yieldmg variety of 
 information, wit, entertainment,— not to be 
 commanded, to be sure, without grave 
 abatements, to be read with good things 
 growing side by side with things not such 
 and tasting of the apple. StiU, with every 
 abatement, his book is one of the ripest 
 and mellowest, and, bulky as it is, we wish 
 there were more of it. He seems almost the 
 only author whose success warrants in 
 every stroke of his pen his right to guide 
 it; he of the men of letters, the prince of 
 letters; since writing of life, he omits 
 nothing of its substance, but tells all with a 
 courage unprecedented. His frankness is 
 charming. So his book has indescribable 
 attractions, being as it were a Private Book, 
 —his diary self -edited, and oSered with an 
 honesty that wins his readers, he never 
 having done bestowing his opulent hospi- 
 talities on him, gossiping sagely, and 
 casting his •ss'isdom in sport to any who care 
 for it. Everywhere his page is alive and 
 rewarding, and we are disappointed at 
 finding his book comes to an end like other 
 books.—" Concord Days : Books." 
 
 One cannot celebrate books sufficiently. 
 After saying his best, still something better 
 remains to be spoken in their praise. As 
 with friends, one finds new beauties at every
 
 A. Branson Alcott. 145 
 
 interview, and would stay long in the pre- 
 sence of those choice companions. As 
 with friends, he may dispense with a wide 
 acquaintance. Few and choice. The richest 
 minds need not large libraries. That is a 
 good book which is opened with expectation 
 and closed with profit. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, writing of the litera- 
 tiu-e of his time, thus happily portrays the 
 qualities of a good book. " No work of wit," 
 he says, " can be esteemed perfect without 
 that strength and boldness of hand which 
 give it body and proportion. A good piece, 
 the painters say, must have good muscling, 
 as well as coloring and drapery. And surely 
 no writing or discourse of any great moment 
 can seem other than enervated, when neither 
 strong reason, nor antiquity, nor the record 
 of things, nor the natural history of man, 
 nor anything which can be called knowledge, 
 dares accompany it except in some ridicu- 
 lous habit which may give it an air of play 
 and dalliance." ... 
 
 "Were I to be judge and no other to bo 
 gratified," says Howell, " I tliink I should 
 silence whole libraries of authors and reduce 
 the world of books into a parcel ; whereas, 
 were another to sit censor, it may be all 
 those I had spared would be condemned to 
 darkness and obtain no exemption from 
 those ruins ; and were all to be suppressed 
 which some think unworthy of the light, no 
 more would be left than were before Moses 
 and Trismegistus." . . . 
 
 An author who sets his reader on sound-
 
 146 Dr. Thos. Arnold. 
 
 ing the depths of his own thoughts serves 
 him begt, and at the same time teaches the 
 modesty of authorship. 
 
 The more life embodied in the book, the 
 more companionable. Like a friend, the 
 volume salutes one pleasantly at every 
 opening of its leaves, and entertains ; we 
 close it with charmed memories, and come 
 again and again to the entertainment. The 
 books that charmed us in youth recall the 
 delight ever afterwards ; we are hardly per- 
 suaded there are any like them, any deserv- 
 ing equally our afiections. Fortunate if the 
 best fall in our way dm-ing this susceptible 
 and forming period of our lives. 
 
 I value books for their suggestiveneas 
 even more than for the information they 
 may contain, works that may be taken in 
 hand and laid aside, read at moments, con- 
 taining sentences that quicken my thoughts 
 and prompt to following these into their 
 relations with life and things. I am stimu- 
 lated and exalted by the perusal of books of 
 this kind, and should esteem myself for- 
 tunate if I might add another to the few 
 which the world shall take to its affections. 
 —"Table Talk: Learning." 
 
 Dr. Thos. Arnold, b. 1795— d. 1842. 
 It is a very hard thing, I suppose, to read 
 at once passionately and critically, by no 
 means to be cold, captious, sneering, or 
 scoffing ; to admire greatness and goodness 
 with an intense love and veneration, yet to
 
 Macaiilay. 147 
 
 judge all things ; to be the slave neither of 
 names nor of parties, and to sacrifice even 
 the most beautiful associations for the sake 
 of truth. I would say, as a good general 
 rule, never read the works of any ordinary 
 man, except on scientific matters, or when 
 they contain simple matters of fact. Even 
 on matters of fact, silly and ignorant men, 
 however honest and industrious in their 
 pai'ticular subject, require to be read with 
 constant watchfulness and suspicion ; where- 
 as great men are always instructive, even 
 amidst much of error on particular points. 
 In general, however, I hold it to be certain, 
 that the truth is to be foimd in the great 
 men and the error in the little ones.— 
 "Stanley's Life of Arnold "—Letter to 0. J. 
 Vaughan, Febniary 23, 1833. 
 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay. 
 
 h. ISOO— (?. 1859. 
 There is scarcely any delusion which has 
 a better claim to be indulgently treated than 
 that under the iafluence of which a man 
 ascribes every moral excellence to those 
 who have left imperishable monuments of 
 their genius. The causes of this error Ue 
 deep in the inmost recesses of human nature. 
 We are all inclined to judge of others as we 
 find them. Our estimate of a character 
 always depends much on the manner in 
 which that character affects our own 
 interests and passions. We find it difficult
 
 14S Macmday. 
 
 to think well of those by whom we are 
 thwarted or depressed; and we are ready 
 to admit every excuse for the vices of those 
 who are useful or agreeable to us. This is, 
 we believe, one of those illusions to which 
 the whole hiunan race is subject, and which 
 experience and reflection can only partially 
 remove. It is, in the phraseology of Bacon, 
 one of the idola iribus. Hence it is that 
 the moral character of a man eminent in 
 letters or in the fine arts is treated often by 
 contemporaries, almost always by posterity, 
 with extraordinary tenderness. The world 
 derives pleasm-e and advantage from the 
 performances of such a man. The number 
 of those who suffer by his personal vices is 
 small, even in his own time, when compared 
 with the number of those to whom his 
 talents are a source of gratification. In a 
 few years all those whom he has injured 
 disappear. But his works remain, and ai'e a 
 source of delight to millions. The genius 
 of Sallust is still with us. But the Niunidians 
 whom he plundered, and the mifortunate 
 husbands who caught him in their houses at 
 unseasonable hours, are forgotten. We 
 suffer ourselves to be delighted by the keen- 
 ness of Clarendon's observation, and by the 
 sober majesty of his style, till we forget the 
 oppressor and 'the bigot in the historian, 
 FalstaS and Tom Jones have survived the 
 gamekeepers whom Shakspeare cudgelled, 
 and the landladies whom Fielding bilked. 
 A great writer is the friend and benefactor 
 of his readers; and they cannot but judge
 
 Macaulay. 149 
 
 of him imder the deluding influence of 
 friendship and gratitude. We all know 
 how unwilling we are to admit the truth 
 of any disgraceful story aboui a person 
 whose society we like, and from whom 
 we have received favours ; how long we 
 struggle against evidence, how fondly, 
 when the facts cannot be disputed, we 
 cling to the hope that there may be some 
 explanation or some extenuating cii'cum- 
 stance with which we are nnactiuainted. 
 Just such is the feeling which a man of 
 liberal education naturally entertains 
 towards the great minds of former ages. 
 The debt which he owes to them is in- 
 calculable. They have guided him to truth. 
 They have filled his mind with noble and 
 graceful images. They have stood by him 
 in all vicissitudes, comforters in sorrow, 
 nurses in sickness, companions in solitude. 
 These friendships are exposed to no danger 
 from the occurrences by which other 
 attachments are weakened or dissolved. 
 Time glides on; fortune is inconstant; 
 tempers are som-ed; bonds which seemed 
 indissoluble are daily sundered by interest, 
 by emulation, or by caprice. But no such 
 cause can affect the silent converse which 
 we hold with the highest of human ia- 
 teUects. That placid intercom-se is dis- 
 turbed by no jealousies or resentments. 
 These are the old friends who are never 
 seen with new faces, who are the same in 
 wealth and in poverty, in glory and in 
 obscurity. With the dead there is no
 
 150 Lord Lytton( Bukuer). 
 
 rivalry. In the dead there is no change. 
 Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never 
 petulant. Demosthenes never comes un- 
 seasonably. Dante never stays too long. 
 No difference of political opinion can 
 alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the 
 horror of Bossuet.— " Critical and Histori- 
 cal Essays: Lord Bacon." 
 
 Lord Lytton (Bulwer). 1803 — 1873, 
 "I say, then, that books, taken indis- 
 criminately, are no cure to the diseases and 
 afiOictions of the mind. There is a world 
 of science necessary in the taking them. I 
 have known some people in great sorrow 
 fly to a novel, or the last light book in 
 fashion. One might as well take a rose- 
 draught for the plague! Light reading 
 does not do when the heart is really heavy. 
 I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, 
 took to study a science that was new to 
 him. Ah ! Goethe was a physician who 
 knew what he was about. In a great grief 
 like that, you cannot tickle and divert the 
 mind; you must wrench it away, abstract, 
 absorb— bury it in an abyss, hurry it into a 
 labyrinth. Therefore, for the irremediable 
 sorrows of middle life and old age, I re- 
 commend a strict chronic course of science 
 and hard reasoning — Counter-irritation. 
 Bring the brain to act upon the heart ! If 
 science is too much against the grain (for 
 we have not all got mathematical heads,) 
 something in the reach of the humblest
 
 Lord Lytton (Btikver). 151 
 
 understanding, but sufficiently searching 
 to the highest— a new language — Greek, 
 Arabic, Scandinavian, Chinese, or Welch ! 
 For the loss of fortune, the dose should be 
 applied less directly to the undei-standing. 
 —I would administer something elegant 
 and cordial. For as the heart is crushed 
 and lacerated by a loss in the affections, so 
 it is rather the head that aches and suffers 
 by the loss of money. Here we find the 
 higher class of poets a very valuable remedy. 
 For obsei-ve that poets of the grander and 
 more comprehensive kind of genius have in 
 them two separate men, quite distinct from 
 each other— the imaginative man, and the 
 practical, circumstantial man ; and it is the 
 happy mixture of these that suits diseases 
 of the mind, half imaginative and half 
 practical. There is Homer, now lost -n-ith 
 the gods, now at home with the homeliest, 
 the vei*y 'poet of circumstance,' as Grey 
 has finely called him ; and yet with imagi- 
 nation enough to seduce and coax the 
 dullest into forgetting, for a while, that 
 little spot on his desk which his banker's 
 book can cover. There is Virgil, far below 
 him, indeed— 
 
 ' Vh-gil the wise. 
 Whose verse walks highest, but not flies,' 
 
 as Cowley expresses it. But Virgil still has 
 genius enoiigh to be two men— to lead you 
 into the fields, not only to listen to the 
 pastoral reed, and to hear the bees hum, 
 but to note how you can make the most of
 
 152 Lord Lyiton ( Bulwer ) . 
 
 the glebe and the vineyard. There is 
 Horace, charming man of the world, who 
 will condole with you feelingly on the loss 
 of yonr fortune, and by no means under- 
 value the good things of this life ; but who 
 wUl yet show you that a man may be happy 
 with a vile modicum or iparva rura. There 
 is Shakspeare, who, above all poets, is the 
 mysterious dual of hard sense and empy- 
 real fancy— and a great many more, whom 
 I need not name ; but who, if you take to 
 them gently and quietly, will not, like yonr 
 mere philosopher, your unreasonable stoic, 
 teU you that you have lost nothing ; but 
 who will insensibly steal you out of this 
 world, with its losses and crosses, and slip 
 you into another world, before you know 
 where you are !— a world where you are just 
 as welcome, though you carry no more earth 
 of your lost acres with you than covers the 
 sole of your shoe. Then, for hypochondria 
 and satiety, what is better than a brisk 
 alterative course of travels — especially 
 early, out-of-the-way, mai-vellous, legendary 
 travels ! How they freshen up the spirits ! 
 How they take you out of the humdrum 
 ya^^Tiing state you are in. See, with Hero- 
 dotus, young Greece spring up into life ; or 
 note with liimhow already the wondrous old 
 Orient world is crumbling into giant decay; 
 or go with Cai-pini and Kubruquis to Tar- 
 tary, meet ' the carts of Zagathai laden 
 with houses, and think that a great city is 
 travelling towards you.' Gaze on that vast 
 wild empire of the Tartar, where the descen-
 
 Lord Lytton ( Bzikver). 153 
 
 dants of Jenghis 'multiply and disperse 
 over the immense waste desert, which is as 
 boundless as the ocean.' Sail with the 
 early northern discoverers, and penetrate 
 to the heart of winter, among sea-serpents 
 and bears, and tusked morses, with the faces 
 of men. Then, what think you of Colum- 
 bus, and the stern soul of Cortes, and the 
 kingdom of Mexico, and the strange gold 
 city of the Peruvians with that audacious 
 brute, Pizarro ? and the Polynesians, just 
 for all the world like the ancient Britons ? 
 and the American Indians, and the South- 
 Sea Islanders ? how petulant, and yoimg, 
 and adventiuous, and frisky your hypo- 
 chondriac must get upon a regimen like 
 that! Then, for that vice of the muad 
 ■which I call sectarianism — not in the 
 religious sense of the word, but little, 
 narrow prejudices, that make you hate 
 your next-door neighbour, because he has 
 his eggs roasted when you have youi's 
 boUed; and gossiping and prying into 
 people's affairs, and backbiting, and think- 
 ing heaven and earth are coming together, 
 if some broom touch a cobweb that you 
 have let grow over the window-sill of yoiu: 
 brains— what like a large and generous, 
 mildly aperient (I beg your pardon, my dear) 
 coui'se of history ! How it clears away all 
 the fumes of the head !— better than the 
 hellebore with which the old leeches of the 
 middle ages purged the cerebellum. There, 
 amidst all that great whirl and sturmbad 
 (storm-bath), as the Germans say, of king-
 
 154 Lord Lytton (Buliver). 
 
 doms and empires, and races and ages, how 
 your mind enlarges beyond that little, 
 feverish animosity to John Styles ; or that 
 unfortunate prepossession of yours, that all 
 the world is interested in your grievances 
 against Tom Stokes and his wife ! 
 
 " I can only touch, you see, on a few in- 
 gredients in this magnificent pharmacy — 
 its resources are boundless, but require the 
 nicest discretion. I remember to have 
 cured a disconsolate widower, who obsti- 
 nately refused every other medicament, by a 
 strict course of geology. I dipped him deep 
 into gneiss and mica schist. Amidst tho 
 first strata, I suffered the watery action 
 to expend itself upon cooling crystallised 
 masses; and, by the time I had got him 
 into the tertiary period, amongst the tran- 
 sition chalks of Maestricht, and the con- 
 chiferous marls of Gosau, he was ready 
 for a new wife. Kitty, my dear! it is no 
 laughing matter. I made no less notable a 
 cure of a young scholar at Cambridge, who 
 was meant for the church, when he sud- 
 denly caught a cold fit of freethinking, 
 with great shiverings, from wading out 
 of his depth in Spinosa. None of the 
 divines, whom I first tried, did him the 
 least good in that state ; so I turned over 
 a new leaf, and doctored him gently upon 
 the chapters of faith in Abraham Tucker's 
 book, (you should read it, Sisty;) then I 
 threw in strong doses of Fichte ; after that 
 I put him on the Scotch metaphysicians, 
 with plunge-baths into certain German
 
 Lord Lytton( Buhoer). 155 
 
 transcendentalists ; and having convinced 
 Tiim that faith is not an unphilosophical 
 state of mind, and that he might believe 
 without compromising his understandings 
 for he was mightily conceited on that score— 
 I thi'ew in my divines, which he was now fit 
 to digest ; and his theological constitution, 
 since then, has become so robust, that he 
 has eaten up two livings and a deanery ! In 
 fact, I have a plan for a library that, instead 
 of heading its compartments, 'Philology, 
 Natural Science, Poetoy,' &c., one shall head 
 them according to the diseases for which 
 they are severally good, bodUy and mental — 
 up from a dire calamity, or the pangs of the 
 gout, down to a fit of the spleen or a slight 
 catarrh ; for which last your light reading 
 comes in with a whey-posset and barley- 
 water. But," continued my father, more 
 gravely, " when some one soitow, that is 
 yet reparable, gets hold of your mind like 
 a monomania— when you think, because 
 heaven has denied you this or that, on 
 which you had set your heart, that all your 
 life must be a blank— oh ! then diet yourself 
 well on biography— the biography of good 
 and great men. See how little a space one 
 sorrow really makes in life. See scarce a 
 page, perhaps, given to some grief similar 
 to your own ; and how triumphantly the 
 life saUs on beyond it! You thought the 
 wing was broken !— Tut— tut— it was but a 
 bruised feather ! See what life leaves behind 
 it when aU is done !— a summary of positive 
 facts far out of the region of sorrow and
 
 156 Lord Lytton (Bulwer) . 
 
 suffering, linking themselves -svith the being 
 of the -world. Yes, biography is the medi- 
 cine here! Eoland, you said you would 
 try my prescription— here it is,"— and my 
 father took up a book, and reached it to 
 the Captain. 
 
 My uncle looked over it — "Life of the 
 Eeverend Robert HaU." " Brother, he was 
 a Dissenter, and, thank heaven ! I am a 
 church-and-state man, to the back-bone !" 
 
 "Robert Hall was a brave man, and a 
 true soldier under the Great Commander," 
 said my father, artfully. 
 
 The Captain mechanically carried his 
 forefinger to liis forehead in military 
 fashion, and saluted the book respectfully. 
 
 " I have anotlier copy for you, Pisis- 
 tratus— that is mine which I have lent 
 Roland. This, which I bought for you to- 
 day, you will keep." 
 
 " Thank you, sir," said I, listlessly, not 
 seeing what great good the " Life of Robert 
 Hall" could do me, or why the same medi- 
 cine should suit the old weather-beaten 
 uncle, and the nephew yet in his teens. 
 
 " I have said nothing," resumed my 
 father, slightly bowing his broad temples, 
 " of the Book of Books, for that is the 
 Ugnnm titm, the cardinal medicine for all. 
 These are but the subsidiaries."—" The Cax- 
 tons: A Family Picture." 
 
 . . . Take away the sword ; 
 States can be saved without it; bring the 
 pen. 
 
 " Richelieu."
 
 Ralph Waldo Einci'son. 157 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 1803— 18S2, 
 
 But it is not less true that there are 
 hooks which are' of that importance in a 
 man's private experience, as to verify for 
 him the fables of Cornelius Agrippa, of 
 Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus of 
 Thi-ace,— books -which take rank in our life 
 with parents and lovers and passionate ex- 
 periences, so medicinal, so stringent, so 
 revolutionary, so authoritative, — books 
 which are the work and the proof of 
 faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal 
 to the world which they paint, that, though 
 one shuts them with meaner ones, he feels 
 his exclusion from them to accuse his way 
 of living. 
 
 Consider what you have in the smallest 
 chosen library. A company of the wisest 
 and wittiest men that could be picked 
 out of all civil countries, in a thousand 
 years, have set in best order the results of 
 their learning and wisdom. The men them- 
 selves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, 
 impatient of interruption, fenced by eti- 
 quette ; but the thought which they did not 
 uncover to their bosom friend is here written 
 out in transparent words to us, the strangers 
 of another age. We owe to books those 
 general benefits which come from high intel- 
 lectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe 
 to them the perception of immortality. They 
 impart sympathetic activity to the moral
 
 158 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 power. Go with mean people, and you think 
 life is mean. Then read Plutarch, and the 
 world is a proud place, peopled with men of 
 positive quality, with heroes and demigods 
 standing around us, who will not let us sleep. 
 Then they address the imagination : only 
 poetry inspires poetry. They become the 
 organic culture of the time. College educa- 
 tion is the reading of certain books which the 
 common sense of all scholars agrees will 
 represent the science already accumulated. 
 If you know that,— for instance, in geometry, 
 if you have read Euclid and Laplace,— your 
 opinion has some value ; if you do not know 
 these, yon are not entitled to give any 
 opinion on the subject. Whenever any 
 sceptic or bigot claims to be heard on the 
 questions of intellect and morals, we ask if 
 he is familiar with the books of Plato, where 
 all liis pert objections have once for all been 
 disposed of. If not, he has no right to our 
 time. Let him go and find himself answered 
 there. 
 
 Meantime the colleges, whilst they pro- 
 vide us with libraries, furnish no professor 
 of books ; and, I think, no chair is so much 
 wanted. In a Ubrary we are surrounded by 
 many hundreds of dear friends, but they 
 are imprisoned by an enchanter in these 
 paper and leathern boxes ; and though they 
 know us, and have been waiting two, ten, 
 or twenty centuries for us,— some of them,— 
 and are eager to give us a sign, and unbosom 
 themselves, it is the law of their limbo that 
 they must not speak until spoken to ; and
 
 Ralph Waldo Einejson. 159 
 
 as the enchanter has dressed them, like bat- 
 talions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one 
 cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your 
 Chance of hitting on the right one is to be 
 computed by the arithmetical rule of Per- 
 mutation and Combination,— not a choice 
 out of thi-ee caskets, but out of half a 
 million caskets all alike. But it happens, 
 in our experience, that in this lottery there 
 are at least fifty or a hmidred blanks to a 
 prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable 
 soul, after losing a great deal of time among 
 the false books, and alighting upon a few 
 true ones which made liim happy and wise, 
 would do a right act in naming those which 
 have been bridges or ships to carry him 
 safely over dark morasses and barren oceans, 
 into the heart of sacred cities, into palaces 
 and temples. This would be best done by 
 those great masters of books who from time 
 to time appear, — the Fabricii, the Sel- 
 dens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, lilirandolas, 
 Bayles, Johnsons, whose eyes sweep the 
 whole horizon of learning. But private 
 readers, reading purely for love of the 
 book, would serve us by leaving each the 
 shortest note of wTiat he found.— " Society 
 and Solitude." 
 
 In the highest civilization the book is 
 still the highest delight. He who has once 
 known its satisfactions is provided with a 
 resource against calamity. Like Plato's 
 disciple who has perceived a truth, "he ia 
 preserved from harm until another period."
 
 i6o Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 . . . We find in Southey's "Common- 
 place Book" this said of the Earl of Straf- 
 ford : " I learned one mle of him," says Sir 
 G. Kadcliffe, "which I think worthy to be 
 remembered. When he met with a well- 
 penned oration or tract upon any subject, 
 he framed a speech upon the same argu- 
 ment, inventing and disposing what seemed 
 fit to be said upon that subject, before he 
 read the book; then, reading, compared his 
 own with the author's, and noted his own 
 defects and the author's art and fulness; 
 whereby he drew all that ran in the author 
 more strictly, and might better judge of his 
 own wants to supply them." . . . 
 
 Original power is usually accompanied 
 with assimilating power, and we value 
 in Coleridge his excellent knowledge and 
 quotations perhaps as much, possibly more, 
 than his original suggestions. If an author 
 give us just distinctions, inspiring lessons, 
 or imaginative poetry, it is not so impor- 
 tant to us whose they are. If we are fired 
 and guided by these, we know him as a 
 benefactor, and shall return to him as long 
 as he serves us so well. We may like well 
 to know what is Plato's and what is Mon- 
 tesquieu's or Goethe's part, and what thought 
 was always dear to the writer himself ; but 
 the worth of the sentences consists in their 
 radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelli- 
 gence. They fit all our facts like a charm. 
 We respect ourselves the more that we know 
 them. 
 
 Kext to the originator of a good sentence
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. i6i 
 
 is the first quoter of it. Many will read the 
 book before one thinks of quoting a passage. 
 As soon as he has done this, that line will be 
 quoted east and west. Then there are great 
 ways of borro'uang. Genius borrows nobly. 
 When Shakspeare is charged with debts to his 
 authors, Landor replies : "Yet he was more 
 original than his originals. He breathed 
 upon dead bodies and brought them into 
 life." And we must thank Karl Ottfried 
 MUller for the just remark, " Poesy, drawing 
 within its circle all that is glorious and in- 
 spiring, gave itself but little concern as to 
 where its flowers originally grew." So Vol- 
 taire usually imitated, but with such supe- 
 riority that Dubuc said : "He is like the false 
 Amphitryon ; although the stranger, it is 
 always he who has the air of being master 
 of the house." Wordsworth, as soon as he 
 heard a good thing, caught it up, medi- 
 tated upon it, and very soon reproduced 
 it in his conversation and writing. If De 
 Quincey said, " That is what I told yon," he 
 replied, "No; that is mine— mine, and not 
 yours." On the whole, we like the valor of 
 it. 'T is on Marmontel's piinciple, " I 
 pounce on what is mine, wherever I find 
 it;" and on Bacon's broader rule, "I take 
 all knowledge to be my province." It be- 
 trays the consciousness that truth is the 
 property of no individual, but is the trea- 
 siu-e of all men. And inasmuch as any 
 writer has ascended to a just view of man's 
 condition, he has adopted this tone. In so 
 far as the receiver's aim is on life, and not 
 
 V
 
 1 62 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 on literature, will be his indifEerence to the 
 source. The nobler the truth or sentiment, 
 the less imports the question of authorship. 
 It never troubles the simple seeker from 
 whom he derived such or such a sentiment. 
 Whoever expresses to us a just thought 
 makes ridiculous the pains of the critic who 
 should tell him where such a word had been 
 said before. " It is no more according to 
 Plato than according to me." Truth is 
 always present : it only needs, to lift the 
 iron lids of the mind's eye to read its oracles. 
 But the moment there is the purpose of dis- 
 play, the fraud is exposed. In fact, it is 
 as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of 
 others, as it is to invent. Always some 
 steep transition, some sudden alteration of 
 temperature, of potat or of view, betrays the 
 foreign interpolation. . . . 
 
 We are as much informed of a writer's 
 genius by what he selects as by what he 
 originates. We read the quotation with his 
 eyes, and find a new and fervent sense ; as 
 a passage from one of the poets, well re- 
 cited, borrows new interest from the ren- 
 dering. As the journals say, "the italics 
 are ours," The profit of books is according 
 to the sensibility of the reader. The pro- 
 foundest thought or passion sleeps as in a 
 mine, until an equal mind and heart finds 
 and publishes it. . . . 
 
 In hoturs of high mental activity we 
 sometimes do the book too much honor, 
 reading out of it better things than the 
 author wrote,— reading, as we say, between
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 163 
 
 the liBes. You have had the like experience 
 in conversation: the wit was in what yon 
 heai'd, not in what the speakers said. Our 
 best thought came from others. We heard 
 in their words a deeper sense than the 
 speakers put into them, and could express 
 ourselves in other people's phi-ases to finer 
 purpose than they knew. . . . 
 
 We cannot overstate oui* debt to the Past, 
 but the moment has the supreme claim. The 
 Past is for us ; but the sole tenns on which 
 it can become ours are its subordination to 
 the Present. Only an inventor knows how 
 to borrow, and every man is or should be an 
 inventor. We must not tamper with the 
 organic motion of the soul. 'T is certain 
 that thought has its own proper motion, and 
 the hints which flash from it, the words 
 overheard at imawares by the free mind, are 
 trustworthy and fertile, when obeyed, and 
 not perverted to low and selfish account. 
 This vast memory is only raw material. 
 The divine gift is ever the instant life, which 
 receives and uses and creates, and can well 
 bury the old in the omnipotency with which 
 Natui-e decomposes aU her hai-vest for re- 
 composition.— " Letters and Social Aims: 
 Quotation and Originality." 
 
 "Literature is the record of the best 
 thoughts. Every attainment and discipline 
 which increases a man's acquaintance with 
 the invisible world, lifts his being. Every 
 thing that gives him a new perception of 
 beauty, multiplies his pure enjoyments. A
 
 164 Ralph Waldo E7?ierson. 
 
 river of thought is always rnrming out of 
 the invisible world iato the mind of man. 
 Shall not they who received the largest 
 streams spread abroad the heaUng waters ? 
 "Homer and Plato and Pindar and 
 Shakspere serve many more than have 
 heard their names. Thought is the most 
 volatile of all things. It can not be con- 
 tained in any cup, though you shut the lid 
 never so tight. Once brought into the world, 
 it runs over the vessel which received 
 it iato all minds that love it. The very 
 language we speak thinks for us by the 
 subtle distinctions which already are 
 marked for us by its words, and every one 
 of them is the contribution of the wit of 
 one and another sagacious man in all the 
 centuries of time. Consider that it is our 
 own state of mind at any time that makes 
 our estimate of life and the world. . . . 
 Now, if you can kindle the imagination bj' 
 a new thought, by heroic histories, by up- 
 lifting poetry, instantly you expand,— are 
 cheered, inspu-ed, and become wise, and 
 even prophetic. Music works this mii-acle 
 for those who have a good ear ; what omni- 
 science has music ! so absolutely impersonal, 
 and yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow 
 reached. Yet to a scholar the book is as 
 good or better. There is no hour of vexation 
 which, on a little reflection, will not find 
 diversion and relief in the librarj*. His com- 
 panions are few; at the moment he has 
 none; but, year by year, these silent friends 
 supply their place. Many times the reading
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 165 
 
 of a book has made the fortune of the man,— 
 has decided his way of life. It makes 
 friends. 'Tis the tie between men to have 
 been delighted with the same book. Every 
 one of us is always in search of his friend ; 
 and when, unexpectedly, he finds a stranger 
 enjoying the rare poet or thinker who is 
 dear to his own solitude, it is like finding a 
 brother. 
 
 "In books I have the history or the 
 energy of the past. Angels they are to us of 
 entertainment, sympathy, and provocation. 
 With tliem many of us spend the most of our 
 life,— these silent guides, these tractable 
 prophets, historians, and singers, whose em- 
 balmed life is the highest feat of art; who 
 now cast their moonlight illumination over 
 solitude, weariness, and fallen fortunes. 
 You say 'tis a languid pleasure. Yes ; but its 
 tractableness, coming and going like a dog 
 at your bidding, compensates the quietness, 
 and contrast with the slowness of fortune, 
 and the inaccessibleness of persons. You 
 meet with a man of science, a good thinker 
 or good wit; but you do not know how to 
 draw out of him that which he knows. But 
 the book is a sm-e friend, always ready at 
 your first leisure, opens to the very page you 
 desire, and shuts at your first fatigue, as 
 possibly your professor might not. 
 
 " It is a tie between men to have read 
 he same book; and it is a disadvantage 
 not to have read the book your mates have 
 read, or not to have read it at the same time, 
 80 that it may take the place in your culture
 
 1 66 Ralph IValao Emerson. 
 
 it does in theirs, and you shall understand 
 their allusions to it, and not give it more 
 or less emphasis than they do. . . . 
 
 " In saying these things for books, I do 
 not for a moment forget that they are se- 
 condary, mere means, and only used in the 
 off-hours, only in the pause, and, as it were, 
 the sleep, or passive state, of the mind. The 
 intellect reserves all its rights. Instantly, 
 •when the mind itself wakes, all books, all 
 past acts are forgotten, huddled aside as 
 impertinent in the august presence of the 
 creator. Their costliest benefit is that they 
 set us free from ourselves; for they wake 
 the imagination and the sentiment, and in 
 their inspirations we dispense with books. 
 Let me add, then, read proudly,— put the 
 duty of being read invariably on the author. 
 If he is not read, whose fault is it ? I am 
 quite ready to Vie charmed, but I shall not 
 make believe I am charmed."—" Address on 
 the Dedication of the Free Library In 
 Concord," May, 1873. 
 
 " Let us not forget the genial miraculous 
 force we have known to proceed from a 
 book. We go musing into the vault of day 
 and night ; no constellation shines, no muse 
 descends, the stars are white points, the 
 roses brick-colored dust, the frogs pipe, 
 mice peep, and wagons creak along the 
 road. We return to the house and take up 
 Plutarch or Augustine, and read a few sen- 
 tences or pages, and lo ! the air swims with 
 life; the front of heaven is full of fiery
 
 Ralph Waldo Emei'son. 167 
 
 shapes ; secrets of magnanimity and gran- 
 deur invite us on evei-y baud ; life is made 
 up of them. Such is our debt to a book."— 
 " The Dial," 1840 : " Thoughts on Modern 
 Literature." 
 
 " Whenever I have to do with young men 
 and women, he said, I always wish to know 
 what their books are; I wish to defend them 
 from bad : I wish to introduce them to good ; 
 I wish to speak of the immense benefit which 
 a good mind derives from reading, probably 
 much more to a good mind from reading 
 than from conversation. It is of first im- 
 portance, of course, to select a friend; for 
 a young man should find a friend a little 
 older than himself, or whose mind is a little 
 older than his o-mi, in order to wake up his 
 genius. That service is performed oftener 
 for us by books. I think, if a very active 
 mind, if a young man of ability, should give 
 you his honest experience, you would find 
 that he owed more impulse to books than to 
 living minds. The great masters of thought, 
 the Platos,— not only those that we call 
 sacred writers, but those that we call pro- 
 fane,— have acted on the mind with more 
 energy than any companions. I think that 
 every remarkable person whom you meet 
 will testify to sometliing like that, that 
 the fast-opening mind has found more 
 inspiration in his book than in his friend. 
 We take the book under great advantages. 
 We read it when we are alone. We read it 
 with an attention not distracted. And,
 
 1 68 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 perhaps, we find there our owu thought, a 
 little better, a little maturer, than it is in 
 ourselves." — " Address to the Students 
 (coloured) of Howard University," Wash- 
 ington, January, 1872, 
 
 He [Emerson] thinks the stock-writers 
 outnumber the thinking men ; the larger 
 share of our authors are merely men of 
 talent, who have some feat to perform 
 ■with words. " Talent amuses ; wisdom 
 instructs. Talent shows what another 
 man can do ; genius acquaints me with the 
 spacious circuits of the common nature. 
 The one is cai-pentry ; the other is growth." 
 Our senses are yet too strong for us, usurp 
 our attention from the ideal world ; so 
 that we lead lives of routine, instead of 
 those of constant moral inspiration. In 
 books Emerson finds the record of the 
 great inspirations of the past, but they are 
 to be used only as aids to new ones of 
 our own. The moment any book, even the 
 greatest, takes the place to us of insight and 
 inward seeing of the truth, that moment it 
 becomes an injury. Eightly used, books 
 serve us a great purpose as educators, 
 guides, and inspirers. They show us the 
 way other men have gone, help us towards 
 the truth we ourselves wish to reach ; but 
 they are the helps, not the source or the end, 
 of cultiure. Books can not take the place 
 of the soul, and when we have nothing 
 more we are but poorly furnished. To sit 
 in silence with God, in the temple of a free 
 mind, or to wander with him along any of
 
 Rev. F. D. Maurice. 169 
 
 the ways of Nature, is worth all the books 
 in the world. Whatever the world of books 
 may contain, we are to set sail, with our 
 own thoughts, for that land of divine truth 
 which ever awaits those who have the see- 
 ing eye and the hearing ear.— "Ealph 
 Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and 
 Philosophy." Ey George Willis Cooke. 
 
 Eev. F. D. Maurice. 1805—1872, 
 
 Sir Walter Scott has also kindled a 
 healthy desire among us for real histories, 
 not merely historical novels. The demand 
 has been met by many authors, whose patient 
 industry as well as theii- power of exhibiting 
 acts, and the sources of acts, surely promise 
 that they shall live. Charles Lamb said, in 
 one of his exquisite essays, that there were 
 some histories written in the last age which 
 cannot be called books at aU. They were 
 merely the pasteboard covers "History of 
 England," or " History of the World," which 
 careful librarians put into their shelves 
 when their books are absent. Some of the 
 historians that our age has produced are 
 books in the truest sense of the word. They 
 illustrate great periods in our own annals, 
 and in the annals of other countiues. They 
 show what a divine discipline has been at 
 work to form men : they teach us that there 
 is such a discipline at work to form us into 
 men. That is the test to which I have ui-ged 
 that all books must at last be brought: if 
 they do not bear it their doom is fixed. They
 
 170 Samuel Palmer, 
 
 may be light or heavy, the penny sheet, or 
 the vast folio ; they may speak of things 
 seen or unseen ; of Science or Art; of what 
 Las been, or what is to be ; they may amuse 
 us, weary us, flatter us, or scorn us; if they 
 do not assist to make us better or more sub- 
 stantial men, they are only providing fuel 
 for a fire larger and more utterly destructive 
 than that which consumed the Library of the 
 Ptolemies.—" On Books : An Address de- 
 livered to the Leicester Literary and Philo- 
 sophical Society," November, 1865. 
 
 Samuel Palmer (Artist). 
 
 6. 1805— d. 1881. 
 " There is nothing like poetry," said 
 Charles James Fox, who might often be 
 found engrossed by Virgil's Eclogues in the 
 intervals of a very different career. I think 
 we may extend his remark, and say, "There 
 is nothing like books." Of all things sold 
 incomparably the cheapest; of all pleasures 
 the least palling : they take up little room, 
 keep quiet when they are not wanted, and, 
 when taken up, bring us face to face with 
 the choicest men who have ever lived, at 
 their choicest moments. As my walking 
 companion in the country I was so un- 
 EngUsh as, on the whole, to prefer my 
 pocket Milton, which I carried for twenty 
 years, to the not tinbeloved bull-terrier 
 " Trimmer," who accompanied me for five : 
 for Milton never fidgeted, frightened horses, 
 ran after sheep, or got run over by a goods-
 
 George S. Hillard. 171 
 
 van.—" Memoir of Samuel Palmer, the 
 artist, by A. H. Palmer, 1882." 
 
 George S. Hillard (American 
 Jurist, Sexator, and Author). 
 
 h. ISOS. [Living.] 
 In books, be it remembered, we have the 
 best products of the best mmds. We should 
 any of us esteem it a great privilege to pass 
 an evening with Shakespeare or Bacon, were 
 such a tiling possible. But, were we ad- 
 mitted to the presence of one of these 
 illustrious men, we might find him touched 
 with infirmity or oppressed with weariness, 
 or darkened with the shadow of a recent 
 trouble, or absorbed by intrasive and tyran- 
 nous thoughts. To us the oracle might be 
 dumb, and the light ecUpsed. But, when we 
 take down one of these volumes, we run no 
 such risk. Here we have their best thoughts 
 embalmed in theii* best words ; immortal 
 flowers of poetry, wet with Castalian dews, 
 and the golden fruit of Wisdom that had 
 long ripened on the bough before it was 
 gathered. Here we find the gi-owth of the 
 choicest seasons of the mind, when mortal 
 cares were forgotten, and mortal weak- ' 
 nesses were subdued; and the soul, stripped 
 of its vanities and its passions, gave forth 
 its highest emanations of truth and beauty. 
 We may be siure that Shakespeare never 
 out-talked his Hamlet, nor Bacon his Essays. 
 Great writers are indeed best known thi-ough 
 their books. How little, for instance, do
 
 172 George S. Hillard. 
 
 we know of the life of Shakespeare; but how 
 much do we know of him ! 
 
 For the knowledge that comes from 
 books, I would claim no more than it is 
 fairly entitled to. I am well aware that 
 there is no inevitable connection between 
 intellectual cultivation, on the one hand, 
 and individual virtue or social weU-being, on 
 the other. " The tree of knowledge is not 
 the tree of life." I admit that genius and 
 learning are sometimes found in combina- 
 tion with gross vices, and not unfrequently 
 with contemptible weaknesses; and that a 
 community at once cultivated and corrupt 
 is no impossible monster. But it is no over- 
 statement to say, that, other things being 
 equal, the man who has the greatest amount 
 of intellectual resources is in the least danger 
 from inferior temptations,— if for no other 
 reason, because he has fewer idle moments. 
 The ruin of most men dates from some 
 vacant hour. Occupation is the armour of 
 the soul ; and the train of Idleness is borne 
 up by all the vices. I remember a satirical 
 poem, in which the Devil is represented as 
 fishiag for men, and adapting his baits to 
 the taste and temperament of his prey; but 
 the idler, he said, pleased him most, because 
 he bit the naked hook. To a young man 
 away from home, friendless and forlorn in a 
 great city, the hours of peril are those 
 between sunset and bed time ; for the moon 
 and the stars see more of evil in a single 
 hour than the sun in his whole day's circuit. 
 The poet's visions of evening are all com-
 
 Stirling- Maxzv ell. 1 73 
 
 pact of tender and soothing images. It 
 brings the wanderer to his home, the cliUd 
 to his mother's arms, the os to his stall, 
 and the weary labourer to his rest. But to 
 the gentle-hearted youth who is thrown 
 upon the rocks of a pitiless city, and stands 
 " homeless among a thousand homes," the 
 approach of evening brings with it an 
 aching sense of loneliness and desolation, 
 which comes down upon the spirit like 
 darkness upon the earth. In this mood his 
 best impulses become a snare to him; and 
 he is led astray because he is social, affec- 
 tionate, sympathetic, and warm-hearted. If 
 there be a young man thus circumstanced 
 within the sound of my voice, let me say to 
 him that books are the friends of the friend- 
 less, and that a library is the home of the 
 homeless. A taste for reading will always 
 carry you into the best possible society, and 
 enable you to converse with men who will 
 Instruct you by their wisdom, and charm 
 you by their wit ; who will soothe you when 
 fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel 
 you when perplexed, and sympathise with 
 you at all times. 
 
 C. E. S. Stirling-Maxwell (Hon. 
 Mrs. Norton). 1808—1877. 
 
 To My Bool-s. 
 Silent companions of the lonely hour, 
 Friends, who can never alter or forsake, 
 Who for inconstant roving have no power, 
 And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take
 
 174 R^' K' A. Willmott. 
 
 Let me return to You ; this turmoil ending 
 *Which worldly cares have in my spirit 
 
 wrought. 
 And, o'er your old familiar pages bending, . 
 Refresh my mind with many a trancioil 
 
 thought : 
 TUl, haply meeting there, from time to time. 
 Fancies, the audible echo of my own, 
 'Twill be like heai-ing in a foreign clime 
 My native language spoke in friendly tone, 
 And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell 
 On these, my imripe musings, told so well. 
 
 Rev. Robert Aris Willmott. 
 1809—1862. 
 
 An affecting instance of the tenderness ' 
 and the compensations of Learning is fur- 
 nished by the old age of Usher, when no 
 spectacles could help his falling sight, and 
 a book was dark except beneath the 
 strongest light of the window. Hopeful 
 and resigned he continued his task, follow- 
 ing the sun from room to room through the 
 house he lived in, until the shadows of the 
 trees disappeared from the grass, and the 
 day was gone. How strange and delight- 
 ful must have been his feelings, when the 
 sunbeam fell brilliantly upon some half- 
 remembered passage, and thought after 
 thought shone out from the misty words, 
 like the features of a familiar landscape in 
 a clearing fog. Pleasant it would be for us, 
 in our gloomier hours of time and sadness, if
 
 Dr, O. W. Holmes. 175 
 
 we might imitate that Indian bird which, 
 enjoying the sunshine all the day, secures a 
 faint reflection of it in the night, by sticking 
 glow-woi-ms in the walls of its nest. And 
 something of this light is obtained from the ■ 
 books read in youth, to be remembered in 
 age— 
 
 " And summer's green all girded up in 
 sheaves." 
 
 Coleridge said that the scenes of his child- 
 hood were so deeply written on his mind, 
 that when upon a still, shining day of sum- 
 mer he shut his eyes, the rffer Otter ran 
 miumuring do^Ti the room, with the soft 
 tmts of its waters, the crossing plank, the 
 willows on the margin, and the colom'ed 
 sands of its bed. What lover of books does 
 know the sweeter memories that haunt his 
 solitude !— " Pleasures, Objects, and Advan- 
 tages of Literatui-e." 
 
 Db. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 6. 1809. [Living.] 
 
 Books are the negative pictures of 
 thought, and the more sensitive the mind 
 that receives their images, the more nicely 
 the finest lines are produced. 
 
 Every library should try to be complete 
 on something, if it were only the history of 
 pin-heads.—" The Poet at the Breakfast 
 Table."
 
 176 E. B. Browning. 
 
 Et,iZABETn Barrett Browning. 
 
 1809—1861. 
 Or else I sate on in my chamber green, 
 And lived my life, and thought my thoughts, 
 
 and prayed 
 My prayers \s-ithout the vicar ; read my books. 
 Without considering whether they were fit 
 To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book. 
 And calculating profits, — so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-fonvard^eadlong, into a book's pro- 
 found, wm 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth— 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book. 
 
 Books, books, books ! 
 I had found the secret of a garret-room 
 Piled high with cases in my father's name. 
 Piled high, packed large, — where, creeping 
 
 in and out 
 Among the giant fossils of my past. 
 Like some small nimble mouse between the 
 
 ribs 
 Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there 
 Al this or that box, pulling through the gap, 
 In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy. 
 The first book first. And how I felt it beat 
 Under my pillow, in tlie morning's dark. 
 An hour before the sun would let me read ! 
 My books ! At last because the time was ripe, 
 I chanced upon the poets. 
 
 " Aurora Leigh."
 
 Theodore Parker. 177 
 
 Theodore Parker (American 
 Divine). 1810— 1S60. 
 
 The pleasures of the intellect not crea- 
 tive, but only recipient, have never been 
 fully appreciated. What a joy is there in a 
 good book, writ by some great master of 
 thought, who breaks into beauty, as In 
 summer the meadow into grass and dande- 
 lions and violets, with geraniums, and mani- 
 fold sweetness. As an amusement, that of 
 reading is worth all the rest. What pleasm-e 
 in science, in literature, in poetry, for any 
 man who will but open his eye and his 
 heart to take it ia. WTiat delight an 
 audience of men who never speak, take in 
 some great orator, who looks into their 
 faces, and speaks into their hearts, and then 
 rains a meteoric shower of stars, falling 
 from his heaven of genius before theii' eyes ; 
 or, far better still, with a whole day of sun- 
 light warms his audience, so that every 
 manly and womanly excellence in them 
 buds and blossoms with fragrance, one day 
 to bear most luscious fruit before God, fruit 
 for mortality, fruit for eternity not less. I 
 once knew a hard-working man, a farmer 
 and mechanic, who in the winter-nights 
 rose a great while before day, and out of 
 the darkness coaxed him at least two hours 
 of hard study, and then when the morning 
 i, Dped over the eastern hills, he yoked his 
 oxen and went forth to his daily work, 
 or in his shop he laboured all day long ; 
 and when the night came, he read aloud
 
 178 John Bright. 
 
 some simple book to liis family ; but when 
 they were snugly laid away in their sleep, 
 the great-minded mechanic took to his hard 
 study anew ; and so, year out and year in, 
 he went on, neither rich nor much honoured, 
 hardly entreated by daily work, and yet he 
 probably had a happiness in his heart and 
 mind which the whole county might have 
 been proud to share. 
 
 I fear we do not know what a power of 
 immediate pleasure and petmanent profit 
 is to be had in a good book. The books 
 which help you most are those which make 
 you think the most. The hardest way of 
 learning is by easy reading ; every man 
 that tries it finds it so. But a great book 
 that comes from a great thinker,— it is a 
 ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, 
 with beauty too. It sails the ocean, driven 
 by the winds of heaven, breaking the level 
 sea of life into beauty where it goes, leaving 
 beliind it a train of sparkhng loveliness, 
 widening as the ship goes on. And wliat 
 treasures it brings to every land, scatter- 
 ing the seeds of truth, justice, love, and 
 piety, to bless the world in ages yet to 
 come.— " Lessons from The World of Matter 
 and The World of Man." 
 
 John Bright. 6. 1811. [Living.] 
 
 What is a great love of books ? It is 
 
 Bometlung like a personal introduction to 
 
 the great and good men of all past times. 
 
 Books, it is true, are silent as you see
 
 John Bright. 179 
 
 them oil tlieir shelves ; but, silent as they 
 are, when I enter a library I feel as if 
 almost the dead were present, and I know 
 if I put questions to these books they will 
 answer me with all the faithfulness and 
 fulness which has been left in them by the 
 great men wlio have left the books with us. 
 Have none of us, or may I not say are 
 there any of us who have not, felt some of 
 this feeling when in a great library— I don't 
 mean in a library quite so big as that 
 in the British Museum or the Bodleian 
 Library at Oxford, where books are so many 
 that they seem rather to overwhelm one— 
 but libraries that are not absolutely un- 
 approachable in their magnitude? When 
 you are within their walls, and see these 
 shelves, these thousands of volumes, and 
 consider for a moment who they are that 
 wrote them, who has gathered them together, 
 for whom they are intended, how much 
 wisdom they contain, what they tell the 
 future ages, it is impossible not to feel some- 
 thing of solemnity and tranquillity when j-ou 
 are spending time in rooms like these ; and 
 if you come to houses of less note you find 
 libraries that are of great estimation and 
 which in a less degree are able to afford 
 mental aliment to those who are connected 
 with them ; and I am bound to say— and if 
 anyone cares very much for anything else 
 they will not blame me— I say to them, 
 you may have in a house costly pictures 
 and costly ornaments, and a great variety 
 of decoration, yet, so far as my judgment
 
 l8o John Bright. 
 
 goes, I ■would prefer to have one comfort- 
 able room well stocked with books to all 
 you can give me in the way of decoration 
 which tlie highest art can supply. The 
 only subject of lamentation is— one feels 
 that always, I think, in the presence of a 
 librai-y— that life is too short, and I am 
 afraid I must say also that our industry is 
 so far deficient that we seem to have no 
 hope of a fuU enjoyment of the ample 
 repast that is spread before us. In the 
 houses of the humble a little library in my 
 opinion is a most precious possession. Only 
 the other day I went by accident into the 
 house of a respectable old man in my 
 neighbourhood. He told me that he was 
 then eighty-four years of age. He had a few 
 simple and pleasant pictures on his walls, 
 and on one side, between the fire and the 
 window, was a shelf with a number of books. 
 I daresay I should have found his Bible and 
 probably a Hymn Book, and a score or more 
 of other volumes which to him and his 
 family were precious. That little library, 
 though not exceeding twenty or thirty 
 volumes, was a proof of something higher 
 in that house than unfortunately you will 
 find in many houses in this country. . . . 
 Some twenty years ago I was in Suther- 
 landshu-e, on the Elmsdale river engaged in 
 the healthful occupation of endeavouring to 
 get some salmon out of it. In the course of 
 the day, walking do%vn the river, I entered 
 the cottage of a shepherd. There was no 
 one at home, I think, but the shepherd's
 
 John Bright. i8l 
 
 wife or mother, I forget which, but she was 
 an elderly woman, matronly, very kind and 
 very courteous to us. Whilst I was in the 
 house I saw upon the window-sill a small 
 and very thin volume, and I took the liberty 
 of going up to it, and taking it in my hand, 
 I found, to my surprise and delight, that it 
 was an edition which I had never met with 
 before or since— an edition of "Paradise 
 Regained "—the work of a poet unsurpassed 
 in any coimti-y or in any age, and a poem 
 which I believe great authorities admit that 
 if "Paradise Lost " did not exist " Paradise 
 Regained" would be the finest poem in our 
 language. I said I was sui'prised and de- 
 lighted do\\Ti in this remote country, in this 
 solitary house, iu this humble abode of the 
 shepherd, I found this volume which seemed 
 to me to transfigm-e the cottage. I felt as 
 if that humble dwellmg was illumined, as it 
 was, indeed, by the genius of Milton, and, I 
 may say, I took the liberty of asking how 
 the volume came there, and who it was that 
 read it. I learned that the good woman ot 
 the house had a son who had been brought 
 up for the ministry, and I think at the time 
 I was there he was then engaged in his 
 labours as a Presbyterian minister in the 
 colony of Canada. Now whenever I think 
 of some of the rivers of Scotland, when I 
 think of the river Elmsdale, if I tm-n, as 
 my mind does, to that cottage, I always 
 see, and shall never forget, that small, 
 thin volume which I found on the window- 
 sill, and the findiug of which seemed to
 
 1 82 John Bright. 
 
 me to lift the dwellers in that cottage to 
 a somewhat higher sphere. . . . Mj' 
 own impression is that there is no blessing 
 that can be given to an artisan's family 
 more than a love of books. The home in- 
 fluence of such a possession is one which 
 will guard them from many temptations and 
 from many evils. How common it is— in 
 all classes too common— but how coromon 
 it is amongst wliat are termed the working 
 classes— I have seen it many times in my 
 district— where even an industrious and 
 careful parent has f omid that his son or his 
 daughter has been to him a source of great 
 trouble and pain. No doubt, if it were 
 possible, even in one of these homes, to 
 have one single person who was a lover of 
 books, and knows how to spend an evening 
 usefully with a book, and who could occa- 
 sionally read something from the book to the 
 rest of the family, perhaps to his aged 
 parents, how great would be the blessing to 
 the family, how great a safeguard would be 
 afforded ; and then to the men themselves, 
 when they came— as in the case which I have 
 mentioned— to the feebleness of age, and 
 when they can no longer work, and when 
 the sands of Ufe are as it were ebbing out, 
 what can be more advantageous, what more 
 a blessing, than in these years of feebleness 
 —may be sometimes of suffering— it must be 
 often of solitude- if there be the power to 
 derive instruction and amusement and re- 
 freshment from books which our great 
 library will offer to every one? To the
 
 Wendell Phillips. 183 
 
 young especially this is of great importance, 
 for if there be no seed-time, there will cer- 
 tainly be no LaiTest, and the youth of life is 
 the seed-time of life. I see in this great 
 meeting a number of young men. It is 
 impossible for anybody to confer upon 
 them a greater blessing than to stimulate 
 them to a firm belief that to them now, and 
 to them dui-ing all their lives, it may be a 
 priceless gam that they should associate 
 themselves constantly with this library, and 
 draw from it any books they like. The 
 more they read the more in all probability 
 they will like and wish to read. What can 
 be better than that the fair poetic page, 
 the great mstructions of history, the gains 
 of science— all these are laid before us, and 
 of these we may freely partake. I spoke of 
 the library in the beginning of my observa- 
 tions as a fountain of refreshment and 
 instruction and wisdom. Of it may be said 
 that he who drinks shall still thirst, and 
 thirsting for knowledge and still di-inking, 
 we may hope that he will grow to a greater 
 mental and moral standard, more useful as 
 a citizen, and more noble as a man.— 
 " Speech at opening of Bii-mingham New 
 Free Library," June 1st, 1882. 
 
 Wendell Phillips (American 
 Orator), h. 1811. [Living.] 
 
 Education begins the gentleman, but 
 reading, good company, and education must 
 finish him.
 
 [84 Francis Bcnnoch. 
 
 Francis Bennoch. b. 1812. [Living.] 
 
 My Books. 
 I love my books as drinkers love their 
 
 ■wine; 
 The more I drink, the more they seem 
 
 divine; 
 With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er, 
 And each fresh draught is sweeter than 
 
 before ! 
 Books bring me friends where'er on earth 
 
 I be, 
 Solace of solitude,— bonds of society ! 
 
 I love my books ! they are companions dear, 
 Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere; 
 Here talk I with the wise in ages gone , 
 And with the nobly gifted of our own : 
 If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my 
 
 mind. 
 Love, joy, grief, laughter in my books I find. 
 " The Storm and other Poems." 
 2nd Edit., 1843. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher (American 
 
 Divine), h. 1S13. [Living.] 
 
 ■We foriri'ludgments of men from little 
 things about their houses, of which the 
 owner, perhaps, never tliinks. In earlier 
 years when travelling in the "W'est, where 
 taverns were scarce, and in some places un- 
 known, and every settler's house was a house 
 of entertainment, it was a matter of some
 
 Henry Ward Beecher. 185 
 
 importance and some experience to select 
 wisely where you should put up. And we 
 always looked for flowers. If there were no 
 trees for shade, no patch of flowers in the 
 yard, we were suspicious of the place. But 
 no matter how rude the cabin, or rough the 
 surroundings, if we saw that the window held 
 a little trough for flowers, and that some 
 vines twined about strings let down from the 
 eaves, we were confident that there was 
 some taste and carefulness in the log-cabin. 
 In a new country, where people have to tug 
 for a living, no one will take the trouble to 
 rear flowers unless the love of them is pretty 
 strong; and this taste, blossoming out of 
 plain and uncultivated people, is itself a 
 clump of harebells growing out of the seams 
 of a rock. We were seldom misled. A patch 
 , of flowers came to signify kind people, clean 
 beds, and good bread. But in other states 
 of society other signs are more significant. 
 Flowers about a rich man's house may 
 signify only that he has a good gardener, or 
 that he has refined neighbours, and does 
 what he sees them do. 
 
 But men are not accustomed to buy hooks 
 unless they want them. If on visiting the 
 dwelling of a man iu slender means we find 
 that he contents himself with cheap carpets 
 and very plain furniture in order that he 
 may purchase books, he rises at once in our 
 esteem. Books are not made for fui-niture, 
 but there is nothing else that so beautifully 
 furnishes a house. The plainest row of books 
 tliat cloth or paper ever covered is more
 
 1 86 Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 significant of refinement than the most 
 elaborately carved d'tagere or sideboard. 
 Give us a house furnished -svith books rather 
 than furniture. Both, if you can, but books 
 at any rate ! To spend several days in a 
 friend's house, and hunger for sometliing to 
 read, while you are treading on costly car- 
 pets, and sitting on luxuriant chairs, and 
 sleeping upon dovm, is as if one were 
 bribing yoiu- body for the sake of cheating 
 your mind. Is it not pitiable to see a man 
 growing rich, augmenting the comforts of 
 home, and lavishing money on ostentatious 
 upholstery, upon the table, upon everything 
 but what the soul needs ? We know of 
 many, and many a rich man's house, where 
 it would not be safe to ask for the commonest 
 English Classics. A few garish Annuals on 
 the table, a few pictorial monstrosities 
 together with the stock religious books of 
 liis " persuasion," and that is all ! No poets, 
 no essayists, no historians, no travels or 
 biographies,— no select fiction or curious 
 legendary lore. But the wall paper cost 
 tlu-ee dollars a roll, and the carpet cost four 
 dollars a yard ! 
 
 Books are the windows through which 
 the soul looks out. A home without books 
 is like a room without windows. No man 
 has a right to bring np his childi'en with- 
 out surrounding them with books, if he 
 has the means to buy them. It is a 
 wrong to his family. He cheats them ! 
 Children learn to read by being in the 
 presence of books. The love of knowledge
 
 '''^ January Searle.'''' 187 
 
 comes with reading and grows upon it. And 
 the love of knowledge, in a young mind, is 
 almost a warrant against the inferior ex- 
 citement of passions and vices. Let us 
 pity these poor rich men who live barrenly 
 in great bookless houses ! Let us congratu- 
 late the poor that, in our day, books are so 
 cheap that a man may every year add a 
 hundred volumes to his library for the price 
 which his tobacco and his beer would cost 
 him. Among the earliest ambitions to be 
 excited in clerks, workmen, joiu-neymen, 
 and, indeed, among all that are struggling 
 up in life from nothing to something, is 
 that of forming and continually adding to 
 a library of good books. A little library 
 growing larger every year, is an honourable 
 part of a man's history. It is a man's duty 
 to have books. A library is not a luxury, but 
 one of the necessaries of Ufe.~" Sermons." 
 
 G. S. Phillips (January Searle). 
 6. about 1S16 ; d. about 1874. 
 Books are our household gods ; and we 
 cannot prize them too highly. They are 
 the only gods in all the Mythologies that 
 are ever beautiful and imchangeable ; for 
 they betray no man, and love theii- lovers. 
 I confess myself an Idolater of this literary 
 religion, and am grateful for the blessed 
 ministry of books. It is a kind of hea- 
 thenism which needs no missionary funds, 
 no Bible even, to abolish it ; for the Bible
 
 ^January Searle.'''' 
 
 itself caps the peak of this new Olympus, 
 and crowns it with sublimity and glory. 
 Amongst the many things we have to he 
 thankful for, as the result of modem dis- 
 coveries, surely this of printed hooks is the 
 highest of all ; and I for orfe, am so sen- 
 sible of its merits that I never think of the 
 name of Guttenberg without feelings of 
 veneration and homage. 
 
 I no longer wonder, with this and other 
 instances before me, why in the old days of 
 reverence and worship, the saints and bene- 
 factors of mankind were exalted into a kind 
 of demi-gods, and had worship rendered to 
 their tombs and memories; for this is the 
 most natural, as well as the most touching, 
 of all human generosities, and springs from 
 the profoundest depths of man's nature. 
 Who does not love John Guttenberg ?— the 
 man that with his leaden types has made 
 the invisible thoughts and imaginations of 
 the Soul visible and readable to all and by 
 all, and secured for the worthy a double im- 
 mortality ? The birth of this person was an 
 era in the world's history second to none 
 save that of the Advent of Christ. The 
 dawn of printing was the outburst of a new 
 revelation, which, in its ultimate unfoldings 
 and consequences, are alike inconceivable- 
 and immeasurable. 
 
 I sometimes amuse myself by comparing 
 the condition of the people before the time 
 of Guttenberg, with their present condition ; 
 that I may fix the idea of the value and 
 blessedness of books more vividly in my
 
 ^^ January Searle." 189 
 
 mind. It is an occupation not without profit, 
 and makes me grateful and contented with 
 my lot. In these reading days one can hardly 
 conceive how our good forefathers managed 
 to kill their superfluous time, or how at least 
 they could be satisfied to kill it as they did. 
 A life without hooks, when we have said 
 all we can about the honour and nobility of 
 labour, would be something like heaven 
 without God ; scarcely to be endm-ed by an 
 immortal natm-e. And yet this was the con- 
 dition of things before Guttenberg made his 
 
 #far sounding metallic tongues which reach 
 through all the ages that have since past 
 away, and make us glad with their elo- 
 quence. 
 
 Formerly, the Ecclesiastics monopolized 
 the literature of the world; they were in- 
 deed in many cases the Authors and Tran- 
 scribers of books ; and we are indebted 
 
 • to them for the preservation of the old 
 learning. Now, every Mechanic is the 
 possessor of a Library, and may have Plato 
 and Socrates, as well as Chaucer and the 
 Bards, for his companions. I call this a 
 heavenly privilege, and the greatest of all 
 known miracles, notwithstanding it is so 
 cheap and common. Plato died above two 
 thousand years ago, yet in these printed 
 books he lives and speaks for ever. There is 
 no death to thought ; which though it may 
 never be imprisoned in lettered language, 
 has nevertheless an existence and propa- 
 gative vitality as soon as it is uttered, and 
 endures from generation to generation, to
 
 190 ^^ January Searle." 
 
 the very end of the world. I think we 
 shonld all of us he grateful for books : they 
 are our best friends and most faithful com- 
 panions. They instruct, cheer, elevate, and 
 ennoble us ; and in whatever mood we go to 
 them, they never frown upon us, but receive 
 us with cordial and loving sincerity : neither 
 do they blab, or teU tales of us when we are 
 gone, to the next comer ; but honestly, and 
 with manly frankness, speak to our hearts 
 in admonition or encouragement. I do not 
 know how it is with other men, but I have 
 so much reverence for these silent and 
 beautiful friends that I feel in them to have 
 an immortal and divine possession, which 
 is more valuable to me than many estates 
 and kingdoms. The noise and babble of 
 men disturb me i^ot in my princely domain, 
 enricht by the presence of so many high and 
 royal souls. Vfiidii can our foolish poli- 
 ticians, and long-winded teachers of less 
 profane things, have to say to me, when 
 Socrates speaks, or Shakspere and Milton 
 sing? I like to be alone in my chamber, 
 and obey the muse or the spirit. We make 
 too little of books, and have quite lost the 
 meaning of contemplation. Our times are 
 too busy; too exclusively outward in their 
 tendency ; and men have lost their balance 
 in the whirlpools of commerce and the fierce 
 tornadoes of political strife. I want to see 
 more poise in men, more self-possession; 
 and these can only be obtained by cojn- 
 munion with books. I lay stress on the 
 word communion, because although readitig
 
 ^^Jaimary Searle.'''' 191 
 
 is common enoiigh, com»nH?jio?i is but little 
 known as a moclern experience. If an 
 author be worth anything, he is worth 
 bottoming. It may be all very well to 
 skim milk, for the cream lies on the top ; 
 but who could skim Lord Bacon ? 
 
 The choice of books is not the least part 
 of the duty of a Scholar. If he would become 
 a man, and worthy to deal with manlike 
 things, he must read only the bravest and 
 noblest books; books forged at the heart 
 and fashioned by the intellect of a godlike 
 man. A clever interesting writer, is a clever 
 interesting fool; and is no Master for the 
 scholar I speak of. Our literature abounds 
 with such persons, and will abound with 
 them so long as the public mind remains 
 diseased with this morbid love of "light 
 reading." We have exchanged the martial 
 tramp of the Commonwealth's men, for the 
 nimble foot of the lamplighter and the 
 thief-taker. This comes from the false 
 culture of men, and the consequent false 
 tendencies of theii- nunds and aims. We 
 have had enough of this inane, unmanly 
 discipline, and need a higher and truer one. 
 I am not, however, for any Monkish ex- 
 clusion of men from the world in their 
 study of books ; for the end of all study is 
 action ; and I woiild not cheat the Master 
 by any bye-laws in favoiu- of the Scholar. 
 But a certain kind of exclusion is necessary 
 for cultui'e in the flist instance, and for 
 progressive developments of that culture 
 afterwards. The human mind will not be
 
 192 Bailey — Helps. 
 
 played with, or the Player will find it out 
 to his cost. For the laws of the tatellect, 
 and of man's Spiritual nature, are as stem 
 and binding as those of matter, and you 
 cannot neglect or violate them without loss 
 or suffering. Hence books should be oui- 
 constant companions, for they stimulate 
 thought, and hold a man ta his purpose.— 
 "The Choice of Bfloks." 
 
 Philip James Bailey, h. 1816. 
 
 [Living.] 
 
 Worthy books 
 Aie not companions— they are solitudes ; 
 We lose ourselves in them and aU our cares. 
 " Festus." 
 
 tSiR Arthur Helps. 1817—1875. 
 
 So varied, extensive, and pervading are 
 human distresses, sorrows, short-comings, 
 miseries, and misadventures, that a chapter 
 of aid or consolation never comes amiss, I 
 think. There is a pitiless, pelting rain this 
 morning ; heavily against my study windows 
 drives the north-western gale; and alto- 
 gether it is a very fit day for working at 
 such a chapter. The indoor comforts which 
 enable one to resent with composure, nay 
 even to welcome, this outward conflict and 
 hubbub, are like the plans and resources 
 provided by philosophy and religion, to meet 
 tlie various calamities driven against the
 
 Thackeray — Kings ley. 193 
 
 soul in its passage through this stormy 
 world. The books which reward me have 
 been found an equal resource in both 
 respects, both against the weather from 
 without and from within, against physical 
 and mental storms ; and, if it might be so, I 
 would pass on to others the comfort which 
 a seasonable word has often brought to me. 
 If I were to look roimd these shelves, what 
 a host of well-loved names would rise up, in 
 those who have said brave or wise words to 
 comfort and aid their brethi-en in adversity. 
 It seems as if little remained to be said ; but 
 in truth there is always waste land in the 
 human heart to be tilled.— " Friends in 
 Council." 
 
 W. M. Thackeray, h. 1811— d. 1863. 
 
 Novels are sweets. AU people with 
 healthy literary appetites love them— almost 
 all women; a vast number of clever, hard- 
 headed men, judges, bishops, chancellors, 
 mathematicians, are notorious novel-readers, 
 as weU as young boys and sweet giils, and 
 their kmd, tender mothers.—" Eoundabout 
 Papers." 
 
 Charles Kikgsley. 1819—1875. 
 
 Except a living man, there is nothing 
 more wonderful than a book!— ;i message 
 to us from the dead— from human souls 
 whom we never saw, who lived, perhaps, 
 thousands of miles away ; and yet these, on
 
 194 Johii Riiskin. 
 
 those little sheets of paper, speak to us, 
 amuse us, vivify us, teach us, comfort us, 
 open their hearts to us as brothers. . . . 
 I say we ought to reverence books, to look 
 at them as useful and mighty things. 11 
 they are good and true, whether they are 
 about religion or politics, farming, trade, 
 or medicine, they are the message of Christ, 
 the maker of all things, the teacher of all 
 truth. 
 
 John Ruskin. h. 1819. [Living.] 
 
 Life being very short, and the quiet 
 hours of it few, we ought to waste none 
 of them in reading valueless books; and 
 valuable books should, in a civilized country, 
 be within the reach of every one, printed in 
 excellent form, for a just price; but not in 
 any vile, vulgar, or, by reason of smallness 
 of type, physically injurious form, at a vile 
 price. For we none of us need many books, 
 and those which we need ought to be clearly 
 printed, on the best paper, and strongly 
 bound. And though we ai'e, indeed, now, a 
 ^\Tetched and poverty-struck nation, and 
 hardly able to keep soul and body together, 
 still, as no person in decent circumstances 
 would put on his table confessedly bad wine, 
 or bad meat without being ashamed, so he 
 need not have on his shelves ill-printed or 
 loosely and wretchedly-stitched books ; for, 
 though few can be rich, yet every man who 
 honestly exerts himself may, I think, still 
 provide, for himself and his family, good
 
 John Rtiskin, 195 
 
 shoes, good gloves, strong harness for his cart 
 or carriage horses, and stout leather binding 
 for his books. And I would lu-ge upon every 
 young man, as the beginning of liis due and 
 wise provision for his household, to obtain 
 as soon as he can, by the severest economy, 
 a restricted, sei"viceable, and steadily— how- 
 ever slowly— increasing, series of books for 
 use through life ; making his little library, 
 of all the furniture in his room, the most 
 studied and decorative piece ; every volume 
 having its assigned place, like a little statue 
 in its niche, and one of the earliest and 
 strictest lessons to the children of the house 
 being how to turn the pages of their own 
 literary possessions lightly and deliberately, 
 with no chance of tearing or dogs' ears.— 
 Preface to " Sesame and Lilies." ' 
 
 But, granting that we had both the will 
 and the sense to choose our friends well, 
 how few of us have the power I or, at 
 least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of 
 choice! Nearly all our associations are 
 determined by chance or necessity ; and re- 
 stricted within a narrow ciixle. We cannot 
 know whom we would ; and those whom we 
 know, we cannot have at our side when we 
 most need them. All the higher ciixles of 
 human intelligence are, to those beneath, 
 only momentarily and partially open. We 
 may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of 
 a great poet, and hear the soimd of his 
 voice ; or put a question to a man of science, 
 and be answered good-humouredly. We
 
 196 JoJi7i Ruskin. 
 
 may intrude ten minutes' talk on a cabinet 
 minister, answered probably -with words 
 worse tlian silence, being deceptive ; or 
 snatch, once or twice in our Uves, the privi- 
 lege of throwing a bouquet in the path of a 
 Princess, or arresting the kind glance of a 
 Queen. And yet these momentary chances 
 we covet; and spend our years, and passions, 
 and powers in pui'suit of little more than 
 these; while, meantime, there is a society 
 continually open to us, of people who will 
 talk to us as long as we like, whatever our 
 rank or occupation ;— talk to us in the best 
 words they can choose, and with thanks if 
 we listen to them. And this society, because 
 it is so nvunerous and so gentle,— and can be 
 kept waiting round us all day long, not to 
 grant audience, but to gain it ;— kings and 
 statesmen lingering pattently in those 
 plainly furnished and narrow anterooms, 
 our book-case shelves,— we make no account 
 of that company,— perhaps never listen to 
 a word they would say, all day long ! 
 
 You may tell me, perhaps, or think within 
 yourselves, that the apathy with which we 
 regard this company of the noble, who are 
 praying us to listen to them, and the passion 
 with which we pursue the company, pro- 
 bably of the ignoble, who despise us, or who 
 have nothing to teach us, are grounded in 
 this,— that we can see the faces of the living 
 men, and it is themselves, and not their 
 sayings, with which we desire to become 
 familiar. But it is not so. Suppose you 
 never were to see their faces ;— suppose you
 
 John Ruskin. 197 
 
 could be put behind a screen in the states- 
 man's cabinet, or the prince's chamber, 
 would you not be glad to listen to their 
 words, though you were forbidden to advance 
 beyond the screen? And when the screen 
 is only a little less, folded in two, instead of 
 four, and you can be hidden behind the 
 cover of the two boards that bind a book, 
 and listen, all day long, not to the casual 
 talk, but to the studied, determined, chosen 
 addresses of the wisest of men ;— this station 
 of audience, and honourable privy council, 
 you despise! . . . 
 
 Will you go and gossip with your house- 
 maid, or your stable boy, when you may 
 talk with queens and kings; or flatter 
 yourselves that it is with any worthy con- 
 sciousness of your own claims to respect 
 that you jostle with the common crowd for 
 enXree here, and audience there, when all 
 the wliile this eternal court is open to you, 
 with its society wide as the world, multi- 
 tudinous as its days, the chosen, and the 
 mighty, of every place and time ? Into that 
 you may enter always; in that you may 
 take fellowship and rank according to your 
 wish; from that, once entered into it, you 
 can never be outcast but by yovur own fault ; 
 by your aristocracy of companionship there, 
 your own inherent aristocracy will be as- 
 suredly tested, and the motives with which 
 you strive to take high place in the society 
 of the living, measured, as to all the truth and 
 sincerity that are in them, by the place you 
 desire to take in this company of the Dead.
 
 198 John Rtcskin. 
 
 " The place yoa desire," and the place you 
 fit yourself for, I must also say; because, 
 observe, this court of the past difiers from 
 all living aristocracy in this :— it is open to 
 labour and to merit, but to nothing else. No 
 wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no arti- 
 fice deceive, the guardian of those Elysian 
 gates. In the deep sense, no vile or vulgar 
 person ever enters there. At the portiferes 
 of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, there 
 is but brief question, " Do you deserve to 
 enter?" "Pass, Do you ask to be the 
 companion of nobles ? Make yourself 
 noble, and you shall be. Do you long for 
 the conversation of the wise ? Learn to 
 understand it, and you shall hear it. But 
 on other terms ?— no. If you will not rise 
 tons, we cannot stoop to you. The living 
 lord may assume courtesy, the living philo- 
 sopher explain his thought to you with 
 considerable pain ; but here we neither 
 feign nor interpret ; you must rise to the 
 level of our thoughts if you would be glad- 
 dened by them, and share our feelings, if 
 you would recognise our presence." • . . 
 
 I say first we have despised literature. 
 What do we, as a nation, care about books ? 
 How much do yon think we spend alto- 
 gether on our libraries, public or private, as 
 compared with what we spend on our horses ? 
 If a man spends lavishly on his library, 
 you call him mad— a biblio-maniac. But you 
 never call any one a horse-maniac, though 
 men ruin themselves every day by their 
 horses, and you do not hear of people ruin-
 
 John Rtiskin. 199 
 
 ing themselves by their books. Or, to go 
 lower still, how much do you think the 
 contents of the bookshelves of the United 
 Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, 
 as compared with the contents of its wine 
 cellars ? What position would its expendi- 
 ture on literature take, as compared with its 
 expenditure on luxurious eating ? We talk 
 of food for the mind, as of food for the 
 body: now a good book contains such food 
 inexhaustibly ; it is a provision for life, and 
 for the best part of us ; yet how long most 
 people would look at the best book before 
 they would give the price of a large turbot 
 for it ! Though there have been men who 
 have pinched theii" stomachs and bared their- 
 backs to buy a book, whose libraries were 
 cheaper to them, I think, in the end than 
 most men's dinners are. We are few of us 
 put to such trial, and more the pity; for, 
 indeed, a precious thing is all the more 
 precious to us if it has been won by work or 
 economy; and if public libraries were half 
 as costly as public dinners, or books cost the 
 tenth part of what bracelets do, even foolish 
 men and women might sometimes suspect 
 there was good in reading, as well as in 
 munching and sparkling ; whereas the very 
 cheapness of literature is making even wise 
 people forget that if a book is worth reading, 
 it is worth buying. No book is worth any- 
 thing which is not worth much; nor is it 
 serviceable until it has been read, and reread, 
 and loved, and loved again; and marked, so 
 that you can refer to the passages you want
 
 200 John Ruskin. 
 
 in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon lie 
 needs in an annoury, or a housewife bring 
 the spice she needs from her store. Bread 
 of flour is good; but there is bread, sweet as 
 honey, if we would eat it, in a good book ; 
 and the family must be poor indeed which 
 once in theii- lives, caimot, for such mul- 
 tipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's 
 bill. We call ourselves a rich nation, 
 and we are filthy and foolish enough to 
 thumb each other's books out of circulating 
 libraries! . . . 
 
 Nevertheless I hope it will not be long 
 before royal or national libraries will be 
 founded in every considerable city, with a 
 royal series of books in them ; the same series 
 in every one of them, chosen books, the best 
 in every kind, prepared for that national 
 series in the most perfect way possible ; 
 their text printed all on leaves of equal 
 size, broad of margin, and divided into 
 pleasant volumes, light in the hand, beauti- 
 ful, and strong, and thorough as examples 
 of binders' work; and that these great 
 libraries will be accessible to all clean and 
 orderly persons at all times of the day and 
 evening ; strict law being enforced for this 
 cleanliness and quietness. 
 
 I could shape for you other plans, for 
 art galleries, and for natural history gal- 
 leries, and for many precious, many, it 
 seems to me, needful, things ; but this book 
 plan is the easiest and needfullest, and 
 would prove a considerable tonic to what 
 we call our British constitution, which has
 
 '' George Eliot:' 201 
 
 fallen dropsical of late, and has an evil 
 thii'st, and evil hunger, and wants healthier 
 feeding. You have got its com laws re- 
 pealed for it; try if you cannot get corn 
 laws established for it, dealing in a better 
 bread;— bread made of that old enchanted 
 Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens 
 doors;— doors, not of robbers', but of Kings' 
 Treasuries. 
 
 Friends, the treasuries of true kings are 
 the streets of their cities ; and the gold they 
 gather, which for others is as the mire of 
 the streets, changes itself, for them and 
 their people, into a crystalline pavement 
 for evermore.—" Sesame and Lilies : Of 
 Kings' Treasuries." 
 
 Marian Etans (George Eliot). 
 1820—1881. 
 
 At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on 
 the books that lay on the window-shelf, and 
 she half forsook her reverie to tui-n over 
 listlessly the leaves of the " Portrait Gal- 
 lery," but she soon pushed this aside to 
 examine the little row of books tied together 
 with string. "Beauties of the Spectator," 
 "Rasselas," "Economy of Human Life," 
 "Gregory's Letters "—she knew the sort 
 of matter that was inside all these : the 
 "Christian Year"— that seemed to be a 
 hymn-book, and she laid it down again ; but 
 Thomas d S'empis ?— the name had come 
 across her in her reading, and she felt the 
 satisfaction, which every one knows, of get- 
 
 AA
 
 202 " George Eliot.'''' 
 
 ting some ideas to attach to a name that 
 strays solitary in the memory. She took 
 up the little, old, clumsy book with some 
 curiosity : it had the comers turned down 
 in many places, and some hand, now for ever 
 guiet, had made at certain passages strong 
 pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by 
 time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf, and 
 read where the quiet hand pointed . . . 
 "Know that the love of thyself doth hurt 
 thee more than anything in the world. 
 ... If thou seekest this or that, and 
 wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy ovqi 
 will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet 
 nor free from care : for in everything some- 
 what will be wanting, and in every place 
 there will be some that will cross thee. . . . 
 Both above and below, which way soever 
 thou dost tui'n thee, everywhere thou shalt 
 find the Cross : and everywhere of necessity 
 thou must have patience, if thou wilt have 
 inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting 
 crown. . . ." 
 
 A strange thrill of awe passed through 
 Maggie while she read, as if she had been 
 awakened in the night by a strain of solemn 
 music, telling of beings whose souls had 
 been astir while hers was in stupor. She 
 went on from one brown mark to another, 
 where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly 
 conscious that she was reading— seeming 
 rather to listen while a low voice said— 
 ". . . I have often said unto thee, and 
 now again I say the same, Forsake thyself, 
 resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much
 
 '' George Eliot y 203 
 
 inward peace. . . . Then shall all vain 
 imaginations, evil perturbations, and super- 
 fluoas cares fly away ; then shall immoderate 
 fear leave thee, and inordinate love shall 
 die." 
 
 . . . She read on and on in the old 
 boot, devouring eagerly the dialogues with 
 the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, 
 the soui'ce of all strength; returning to it 
 after she had been called away, and reading 
 till the sun went down behind the willows. 
 . . . She knew nothing of doctrines and 
 systems — of mysticism or quietism; but 
 this voice out of the far-off middle ages was 
 the direct communication of a human soul's 
 belief and experience, and came to Maggie 
 as an unquestioned message. 
 
 I suppose that is the reason why the 
 small old-fashioned book, for which you 
 need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, 
 works miracles to this day, turning bitter 
 waters iato sweetness : while expensive 
 sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all 
 things as they were before. It was written 
 down by a hand that waited for the heart's 
 prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, 
 hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph 
 —not written on velvet cushions to teach 
 endurance to those who are treacling with 
 bleeding feet on the stones. And so it 
 remains to all time a lasting record of 
 human needs and human consolations : the 
 voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and 
 Buffered and renounced— in the cloister, 
 perhaps with serge gown and tonsured head,
 
 204 George Dawsoti. 
 
 with much chanting and long fasts, and 
 with a fashion of speech different from ours 
 —hut under the same silent far-off heavens, 
 and with the same passionate desires, the 
 same strivings, the same failures, the same 
 weariness.—" The Mill on the Floss," Book 
 iv., Chap. iii. 
 
 George Dawson. 1821—1876. 
 
 The great consulting room of a wise man 
 is a library. When I am in perplexity about 
 life, I have but to come here, and, without 
 fee or reward, I commune with the wisest 
 souls that God has blest the world with. If 
 I want a discourse on immortality Plato 
 comes to my help. If I want to know the 
 hiunan heart Shakspere opens all its cham- 
 bers. Whatever be my perplexity or doubt 
 I know exactly the great man to call to me, 
 and he comes in the kindest way, he listens 
 to my doubts and tells me his convictions. 
 So that a library may be regarded as the 
 solenm chamber in which a man can take 
 counsel with all that have been wise and 
 great and good and glorious amongst the 
 men that have gone before him. If we come 
 down for a moment and look at the bare 
 and immediate utilities of a library we find 
 that here a man gets himself ready for his 
 calling, arms himself for his profession, 
 finds out the facts that are to determine 
 his trade, prepares himself for his exami- 
 nation. The utilities of it are endless and 
 priceless. It is too a place of pastime; for
 
 Geo7'ge Dawson. 205 
 
 man has no amusement more innocent, 
 more sweet, more gracious, more elevating, 
 and more fortifying than lie can find in a 
 library. If lie be fond of books, bis fond- 
 ness will discipline him as well as amuse 
 him. . . . 
 
 I go into my library as to a hermitage 
 —and it is one of the best hermitages 
 the world has. What matters the scoff 
 of the fool when you are safely amongst 
 the great men of the past? How little of 
 the din of this stupid world enters into a 
 library, how hushed are the foolish voices 
 of the world's hucksteiings, barterings, and 
 bickerings ! How little the scom of high or 
 low, or the mad cries of party spirit can 
 touch the man who in this best hermitage 
 of human life draws aroimd him the quiet- 
 ness of the dead and the solemn sanctities 
 of ancient thought ! Thus, whether I 
 take it as a question of utility, of pas- 
 time or of liigh discipline I find the 
 library — with but one or two excep- 
 tions—the most blessed place that man 
 has fashioned or framed. The man who is 
 fond of books is usually a man of lofty 
 thought, of elevated opinions. A library is 
 the strengthener of all that is great in life 
 , and the repeller of what is petty and mean; 
 and half the gossip of society would perish if 
 the books that are truly worth reading were 
 but read. 
 
 When we look through the houses of 
 a large part of the middle classes of this 
 country we find there everything but what
 
 2o6 George Dawson. 
 
 there ought most to be. There are no hooka 
 in them worth talking of. If a question 
 arises of geography they have no atlases. 
 If the question be when a great man was 
 bom they cannot help you. They can give 
 you a gorgeous bed, with four posts, mar- 
 vellous adornments, luxurious hangings and 
 lacquered shams all round ; they can give 
 you dinners od nauseam and wine that one 
 can, or cannot, honestly praise. But useful 
 books are almost the last things that are to 
 be found there; and when the mind is 
 empty of those things that books can alone 
 fill it with, then the seven devils of petti- 
 ness, frivolity, fashionableness, gentility, 
 scandal, small slander and the chronicling 
 of small beer come in and take possession 
 of the mind. Half this nonsense would be 
 dropped if men would only understand the 
 elevating influences of their communing 
 constantly with the lofty thoughts and 
 the high resolves of men of old times. 
 
 But as we cannot dwell upon all the 
 uses and beauties of a library, let us pass 
 on to see that this is a Corporation Library, 
 and in that we see one of the greatest and 
 happiest things about it, for a library, sup- 
 ported, as this is, by rates and administered 
 by a Corporation, is the expression of a 
 conviction on your part that a town like 
 this exists for moral and intellectual pur- 
 poses. It is a proclamation that a great 
 community like this is not to be looked 
 upon as a fortuitous concourse of human 
 atoms, or as a miserable knot of vipers
 
 George Dawson. 207 
 
 straggling in a pot, eacli aiming to get his 
 head above the other in the fierce struggle 
 of competition. It is a declaration that 
 the Corporation of a great town like this 
 has not done all its duty when it has put in 
 action a set of ingenious contrivances for 
 cleaning and lighting the streets, for 
 breaking stones, for mending ways; and 
 has not fulfilled its highest functions even 
 when it has given the people of the town 
 the best system of drainage— though that 
 is not yet attained. Beyond all these 
 things the Corporation of a borough like 
 this has every function to discharge that is 
 discharged by the master of a household— 
 to minister to men by every office, that of 
 the priest alone excepted. And mark this : 
 I would rather a great book or a great 
 pictui-e fell into the hands of a Corporation 
 than into the hands of an individual, for 
 great and noble as has been the spirit of 
 many of our collectors, when a great pic- 
 ture is in the hands of a nobleman however 
 generous, or of a gentleman however large- 
 hearted he may be, he will have his heirs, 
 narrow-minded fools perhaps, or a successor 
 pitiEully sel^sh and small; and tliis great 
 pictui-e that God never intended to be 
 painted for the delight of but one noble 
 famUy, or the small collection of little 
 people it gathers around it, may be shut up 
 through the whim of its owner or the 
 caprice of its master, or in self-defence 
 against the wanton injviry that some fool 
 may have done it. But the moment you
 
 2o8 George Dawson. 
 
 put great works into the hands of a 
 Corporate body like this you secure per- 
 manence of guardianship in passionless 
 keeping. A Corporation cannot get out of 
 temper, or if it does it recovers itself 
 quickly. A Corporation could not shut up 
 this Library. It is open for ever. It is 
 under the protection of the English law in 
 all its majesty. Its endurance will be the 
 endurance of the English nation. Therefore 
 when a Corporation takes into its keeping a 
 gi-eat picture or a great collection of books, 
 that picture and those books are given to 
 the multitude and are put into the best 
 keeping, the keeping of those who have not 
 the power, even if they had the will, to 
 destroy. The time of private ownership has, 
 I hope, nearly come to an end— not that I 
 v.'ould put an end to it by law or by any kind 
 of violence ; but I hope we shall in the open 
 market bid against the nobility, gentry, and 
 private collectors, for it is a vexation when 
 a great picture or a great collection of books 
 is shut up iu a private house. . . , 
 
 Then we have to consider that this is a 
 Reference Library. The books in this room 
 are not to go out of it. They remain here 
 to be consulted but not to be taken away. 
 Many of them are too ponderous to be re- 
 moved. Many of them are too precious to 
 be trusted even from this room to a private 
 house. Here they are to be fixtures. The 
 reader is to come to them— and very properly 
 too, for where books are so great, as 
 many of these are iu every sense, it is more
 
 George Datvson. 209 
 
 decent that the reader wait upon the book 
 than that the book wait upon the reader. 
 You should come to these mighty masters 
 and not ask them to come to you. One of the 
 principles that guides the selection of a 
 Library like this is cost and dearness. If I 
 had my will there should not be a single 
 cheap book in this room. If you want cheap 
 books buy them. You can have "Waverley" 
 for sixpence and the choice of two editions. 
 The object of a Library like this is to buy 
 dear books— to buy books that the lover of 
 books cannot afford to buy; to put at the 
 Kervice of the poorest, books that the richest 
 can scarce afford. Even the united incomes 
 of some score of you would not piuxhase 
 the books that are in this room now. They 
 have cost £5,000 already, and that is but the 
 beginning of endless fives long drawn out. 
 The object is to bring togetlier in tliis room 
 a supply of what the private man cannot 
 compass, and what the wisest man only 
 wants to put to occasional use. One of the 
 great offices of a Reference Library like 
 this is to keep at the service of everybody 
 what everybody cannot keep at home for 
 his own service. It is not convenient to 
 every man to have a very large telescope; 
 I may ^sish to study the skeleton of a whale 
 but my house is not large enough to hold 
 one; I may be cm-ions in microscopes but 
 I may have no money to buy one of my own. 
 But provide an institution like this and here 
 is the telescope, here is the microscope, and 
 here the skeleton of the whale. Here are 
 
 BB
 
 2IO George Dawson. 
 
 the great pictm-e, the mighty book, the pon- 
 derous atlas, the great histories of the world. 
 They are here always ready for the use of 
 every man without his being put to the cost 
 of purchase or the discomfort of giving them 
 house room. Here are books that we only 
 want to consult occasionally and which are 
 very costly. These are the books proper 
 for a Library like this— mighty cyclopsedias, 
 prodigious charts, books that only Govern- 
 ments can publish. It is almost the only 
 place where I would avoid cheapness as a 
 plague and run away from mean printing 
 and petty pages with disgust. This is a 
 room for the luxuries of literature, for the 
 mighty f oUo and the glorious quarto. This 
 is a room where you must have a strong 
 table to bear up the precious volume, where 
 when you open a book you will take a long 
 breath before you begin to read the great 
 pages; and therefore not a library of cheap- 
 ness but a library of dearness, where the 
 gems are too precious for the private man's 
 purchase and too glorious for the private 
 mans safe keeping. . . . 
 
 There are few things, Mr. Mayor, that I 
 would more willingly share with you than 
 the desire that, in days to come, when some 
 student, in a fine rapture of gratitude, as he 
 sits in this room, may for a moment call to 
 mind the names of the men, who by speech 
 and by labour, by the necessary agitation 
 or the continuous work, took part in found- 
 ing this Library. There are few places I 
 would rather haunt after my death than
 
 George Datvson. 
 
 this room, and there are , few things I 
 would have my children remember more 
 than this, that this man spoke the discourse 
 at the opening of this glorious Library, the 
 first-fruits of a clear understanding that a 
 great town exists to discharge towards the 
 people of that town the duties that a great 
 nation exists to discharge towards the 
 people of that nation— that a town exists 
 here by the grace of God, that a great town 
 is a solemn organism through which should 
 flow, and in which should be shaped, all 
 the highest, loftiest, and truest ends of 
 man's intellectual and moral natiu'e. I 
 wish then for you, Mr. Mayor, and for my- 
 self, that, in years to come, when we are in 
 some respects forgotten, still now and then, 
 in this room, the curious questions may be 
 asked : Who was mayor on that famous 
 flay ■? who said grace before that famous 
 banquet ? who returned thanks for that 
 gracious meal ? who gathered these books 
 together ? who was the first man that held 
 that new office of Librarian ? I trust his 
 name will be printed whenever the name 
 of this Coi^poration appears. What his title 
 is to be I don't know— whether it is to be 
 Town Librarian or Corporation Librarian— 
 but I envy him whatever it may be, and I 
 am glad the Corporation has given itself an 
 officer who represents intellect— that it 
 looks upward deliberately and says : We are 
 a Corporation who have undertaken the 
 highest duty that is possible to us : we have 
 made provision for our people— for all our
 
 212 Charles Btixton. 
 
 people— and we have made a provision of 
 Gods greatest and best gifts unto man.— 
 "Inaugural Address, on the Opening of the 
 Birmingham Free Reference Library, Oct- 
 26, 1866." 
 
 Charles Buxton. 1822—1871. 
 
 Readers abuse writers and say their 
 wilting is wretched stuff, stale nonsense, 
 and so on. But what might not writers 
 justly say of their readers ? What poor, 
 dull, indolent, feeble, careless minds do 
 they bring to deal with thoughts whose 
 excellence lies deep ! A reader's highest 
 achievement is to succeed in forming a true 
 and clear conception of the author from his 
 works. 
 
 We are richer than we tliink. And now 
 and th6u it is not a bad thing to make a 
 catalogue raisonn6 of the things that are 
 helping to make us happy. It is astonish- 
 tag how long the list is. The poorest of us 
 has property, the value of which is almost 
 boundless; but there is not one of us who 
 might not so till that property as to make 
 it yield tenfold more. Our books, gardens, 
 families, society, friends, talk, music, art. 
 poetry, scenery, might all bring forth to us 
 far greater wealth of enjoyment and im- 
 provement if we tried to squeeze the very 
 utmost out of them. 
 
 Reading spreads facts, like manuie, 
 over the siu-face of the mind ; but it is 
 thought that ploughs them in.
 
 Dr. J. A. Langford. 213 
 
 If you have only time to read one book, 
 besides the Bible, why not read that book 
 which is fullest of wisdom, fullest of wit, 
 fullest of humom-, fullest of sweetness, ful- 
 lest of imagination, fullest of beauty, fullest 
 of fancy, fullest of insight into human 
 natiu-e, of all the books in the world ? No 
 man is too busy to read Shakespeare. 
 
 I like the word Worlis as applied to an 
 Author's writings. Works they are truly, 
 aye, and hard works too. How little does 
 the public dream of the toil of mind and 
 the hopes and fears, that have gone to the 
 making of that book which they order 
 from Mudie's, and skim through, and then 
 say, It's not worth reading !—" Notes of 
 Thought." 
 
 Db. J. A. Langi-ord, h. 1S23. 
 
 [Living.] 
 The love of books is a love which requires 
 neither justification, apology, nor defence. 
 It is a good thing in itself : a possession to 
 be thankful for, to rejoice over, to be proud 
 of, and to siug praises for. With this love 
 in his heart no man is ever poor, ever with- 
 out friends, or the means of making his life 
 lovely, beautiful, and happy. In prosperity 
 or adversity, in joy or sorrow, in health or 
 sickness, in solitude or crowded towns, 
 books are never out of place, never without 
 the power to comfort, console, and bless. 
 They add wealth to prosperity, and make 
 sweeter the sweet uses of adversity; they
 
 214 Dr. J. A. LangfoTd. 
 
 intensify joy and take the sting from, or 
 give a bright relief to sorrow ; they are the 
 glorifiers of health and the blessed con- 
 solers of sickness; they people solitade 
 with the creations of thought, the childi-en 
 of fancy, and the offsprings of imagination, 
 and to the busy liaunts of men they lend a 
 purpose and an aim, and tend to keep tlie 
 heart unspotted in the world. It is better 
 to possess this love than to inherit a king- 
 dom, for it brings wealth which money can 
 never buy, and which power is impotent to 
 secure. It is better than gold, " yea, than 
 much fine gold," and splendid palaces 
 and costly raiment. Ko possession can 
 surpass, or even equal, a good library to the 
 lover of books. Here are treasured up for 
 his daily use and delectation riches which 
 increase by being consumed, and pleasures 
 which never cloy. It is a realm as large as 
 tlie universe, every part of wliich is peopled 
 by spirits who lay before his feet their 
 precious spoils as his lawful tribute. For 
 him the poet sing, the philosophers dis- 
 course, the historians unfold the wonderful 
 march of life, and the searchers of nature 
 reveal the secrets and mysteries of creation. 
 No matter what his rank or position may be, 
 the lover of books is the richest and the 
 happiest of the children of men. . . . 
 
 The only true equalisers in the world are 
 books; the only treasure-house open to all 
 comers is a library ; the only wealth which 
 will not decay is knowledge ; the only jewel 
 which you can carry beyond the grave i*
 
 Dr. J. A. Lang ford. 215 
 
 wisdom. To live in this equality, to share in 
 these treasures, to possess this wealth, and 
 to secure this jewel may he the happy lot of 
 every one. All that is needed for the ac- 
 quisition of these inestimable treasures is, 
 the love of hooks. . . . 
 
 At such periods of sweet relaxation the 
 lighter kind of books are the best of com- 
 panions, for they give of theii- pleasant 
 stores and demand nothing in return. You 
 can sit with them on yoiu- desk, or in your 
 hand, or on your knee, and let them remain 
 unnoticed as long as your idle mood lasts 
 and they will not be offended at your neglect. 
 You can tm-u over their leaves, pausing 
 here and there at a page at your will, or 
 whenever a passage seems to accord with 
 your varymg liumoui-, and they will take 
 it all in good part, nor be hurt at your 
 trifling with their feelings . They wiU add 
 a sweet insouciance to yom* moments of 
 delightful indolence, which are felt as the 
 pleasantest experiences of lite. As com- 
 panions and acquaintances books are with- 
 out rivals; and they are companions and 
 acquaintances to be had at all times and 
 under all circumstances. They are never 
 out when you knock at the door ; are never 
 "not at home," when you call. In the 
 lightest as well as in the deepest moods they 
 may be applied to, and will never be found 
 wanting. In the good sense of the phrase, 
 they are all things to all men, and are 
 faithful alike to all. . . . 
 
 As friends and companions, as teachers
 
 2i6 Robert CoUyer. 
 
 and consolers, as recreators and amusers 
 liooks are always -n-ith us, and alwajs readj- 
 to respond to oiu: wants. We can take them 
 with us in oiur wanderings, or gather them 
 around us at our firesides. In the lonely 
 wilderness, and the crowded city, their 
 spirit will be with us, giving a meaning to 
 the seemingly confused movements of hu- 
 manity, and peopling the desert with their 
 own bright creations. Without the love of 
 books the richest man is poor ; but endowed 
 with this treasure of treasures, the poorest 
 man is rich. He has wealth which no power 
 can diminish; riches which are always in- 
 creasing; possessions which the more he 
 scatters the more they accumulate ; friends 
 who never desert him, and pleasures which 
 never cloy.—" The Praise of Books." (By 
 permission of Messrs. Cassell, Petter, Gal- 
 pin & Co.) 
 
 Robert Collyer (American Divike). 
 
 Bom at Ilkley, in Yorkshire, 1823. 
 
 [Living.] 
 
 Those who must be then- own helpers 
 need not be one whit discom-aged. The 
 liistoi-y of the world is full of bright 
 examples of the value of self-training, as 
 shown by the subsequent success won as 
 readers, and writers, and workers in every 
 department of life by those who apparently 
 lacked both books to read and time to read 
 them, or even the candle wherewith to light
 
 Robert Colly er. 217 
 
 the printecl page. It would be easy to fill 
 this whole series of chapters with acccounts 
 of the way in which the reading habit has 
 been acqim'ed and followed in the face of 
 every obstacle. But a siugle bit of personal 
 reminiscence may be taken as the type of 
 thousands ; not only because of its toucliing 
 beauty and its telling force, but because it 
 is the latest to be told. To-morrow some 
 other man of eminence will add no less 
 strong testimony to the possibility of self- 
 education. It is the stoi-y told by the Rev. 
 Robert Collyer, who worked his way from 
 the anvil in a little English town, up to a 
 commanding position among American 
 preachers and writers. " Do you want to 
 know," he asked, "how I manage to talk to 
 you in this simple Saxon ? I will teU you. 
 I read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith when 
 I was a boy, morning, noon, and night. All 
 the rest was task work, these were my 
 delight, with the stories in the Bible, and 
 with Shakespeare when at last the mighty 
 master came within oiu- doors. The rest were 
 as senna to me. These were like a well of 
 pure water, and this is the first step I seem 
 to have taken of my own free will toward 
 the piUpit. ... I took to these as I 
 took to milk, and, without the least idea 
 what I was doing, got the taste for simple 
 words into the very fibre of my nature. 
 There was day-school for me until I was 
 eight years old, and then I had to turn 
 in and work thirteen hoiu's a day. . . . 
 From the days when we used to spell out 
 cc
 
 21 8 Robe7't Colly er. 
 
 Crusoe and old Bunyan there had grown up 
 in me a devouring hunger to read books. It 
 made small matter what they were, so they 
 were books. Half a volume of an old ency- 
 clopedia came along— the first I had ever 
 seen. How many times I went through that 
 I cannot even guess. I remember that I 
 read some old reports of the Missionary 
 Society with the greatest delight. There 
 were chapters in them about China and La- 
 brador. Yet I think it is in reading as it is 
 in eating, when the first hunger is over you 
 begin to be a little critical, and will by no 
 means take to garbage if you are of a whole- 
 some nature. And I remember this because 
 it touches this beautiful valley of the Hud- 
 son. I could not go home for the Christmas 
 of 1839, and was feeling very sad about it 
 all, for I was only a boy ; and sitting by 
 the fire, an old farmer came in and said : ' I 
 notice thou' a fond o' reading, so I brought 
 thee siunmat to read.' It was Irving's 
 'Sketch Book.' I had never heai'd of the 
 work. I went at it, and was ' as them that 
 dream.' Ko such delight had touched me 
 since the old days of Crusoe. I saw the 
 Hudson and the Catskills, took poor Kip at 
 once into my heart, as everybody has, pitied 
 Ichabod while I laughed at him, thought 
 the old Dutch feast a most admirable thing, 
 and long before I was through, all regret at 
 my lost Christmas had gone down the wind, 
 and I had found out there are books 
 and books. That vast hunger to read never 
 left me. If there was no candle, I poked
 
 Robert Colly er. 219 
 
 my head down to the fire ; read while I was 
 eating, blowing the bellows, or walking 
 from one place to another. I could read 
 and walk four miles an horn-. The world 
 centred in books. There was no thought 
 in my mind of any good to come out of it : 
 the good lay in the reading. I had no more 
 idea of being a minister than you elder 
 men who were boys then, in this towm, 
 had that I should be here to-night to tell 
 this story. Now, give a boy a passion 
 like this for anything, books or busi- 
 ness, painting or farming, mechanism or 
 music, and you give him thereby a lever 
 to lift his world, and a patent of nobility, 
 if the thing he does is noble. There were 
 two or three of my mind about books. We 
 became companions, and gave the roughs 
 a wide berth. The books did theii- work 
 too, aboiit that drink, and fought the devil 
 ■with a finer fire. I remember while I was 
 yet a lad reading Macaulay's great essay 
 on Bacon, and I could grasp its wonderful 
 beauty. There has been no time when I 
 have not felt sad that there should have 
 been no chance for me at a good education 
 and training. I miss it every day, but such 
 chances as were left lay in that everlasting 
 hunger to still be reading. I was tough as 
 leather, and could do the double stint, and 
 so it was that, all unknown to myself, I was 
 as one that soweth good seed in his field.'— 
 "The Choice of Books," by Charles F. 
 Eichardson.
 
 220 Trollope — Friswell. 
 
 Anthony Trollope. 6. 1815— d. 1882. 
 Now, my young friends, to -whom I am 
 addressing myself, with reference to this 
 habit of reading, I make bold to tell you 
 that it is your pass to the greatest, the 
 purest, and the most perfect pleasure that 
 God has prepared for his creatures. Other 
 pleasures may be more ecstatic, ^^^len a 
 young man looks into a girl's eye for love, 
 and finds it there, nothing may afford him 
 greater joy for the moment ; when a father 
 sees a son retui-n after a long absence, it 
 may be a great pleasure for the moment; 
 but the habit of reading is the only enjoy- 
 ment I know, in which there is no alloy. It 
 lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will 
 be there to support you when all other 
 recreations are gone. It will be present to 
 you when the energies of your body have 
 fallen away from you. It will last you until 
 your death. It will make your hours 
 pleasant to you as long as you live. But, 
 my friends, you cannot acquii'e that habit in 
 your age. You cannot acquire it in middle 
 age; you must do it now, when you are 
 young. You must learn to read and to like 
 reading now, or you cannot do so when you 
 are old.—" Speech at the Opening of the Art 
 Exhibition at the Bolton Mechanics' Insti- 
 tution," Dec. 7. 1868. 
 
 James Hain Fkiswell. 
 h. 1827— ci. 1878. 
 ■WTien a man loves books he has in him 
 that which will console him under many
 
 James Hain Friswell. 22 1 
 
 sorrows and strengthen him in various trials. 
 Such a love will keep him at home, and make 
 liis time pass pleasantly. Even when visited 
 by bodily or mental aflaiction, he can resort 
 to this book-love and be cured. . . . And 
 ■when a man is at home and happy with a 
 book, sitting by his fireside, he must be a 
 churl if he does not communicate that 
 happiness. Let him read now and then to his 
 wife and children. Those thoughts will grow 
 and take root in the hearts of the listeners. 
 Good scattered about is indeed the seed of 
 the sower. A man who feels sympathy with 
 what is good and noble is, at tlie time he 
 feels that sympathy, good and noble himself. 
 
 To a poor man book-love is not only a 
 consoling preservative, but often a source of 
 happiness, power, and wealth. It lifts him 
 from the mechanical drudgery of the day. 
 It takes him away from bad companions, 
 and gives him the close companionship of a 
 good and fine-thinking man; for, while he 
 is reading Bacon or Shakspere, he is talking 
 with Bacon or Shakspere. While his body is 
 resting, his mind is working and growing. . . 
 
 But, beyond improving nations, books 
 have improved the human race. " It is a 
 blessed thing," says an author, "to write 
 books which shall abate prejudices, and 
 imlock the hmnan heart, and make the 
 kindly sympathies flow." Blessed indeed ! 
 and such writers are more than kings and 
 priests ; for they rule over loving and willing 
 subjects, and they minister within the sacred 
 precincts of the heart itself. . , , It is
 
 222 Frederick Harrison. 
 
 true that this priesthood is of no Church, 
 and is not in orders; but it is not the less 
 important on that account. What a power 
 does a writer hold who addresses every 
 week, or every day, or month, a larger con- 
 gregation than a hundred chui-ches could 
 hold ! There are many writers of the present 
 day who address as many, nay, more than 
 the number indicated, if we put it at its 
 largest. 
 
 This importance of the priesthood of 
 letters is carried yet further if we remember 
 that the words of a preacher fall on our ears 
 and are often forgotten, while those of the 
 writer remain. Ink-stains are difficult to 
 get out : there is nothing so imperishable as 
 a book.— "The Gentle Life," Second Series: 
 •On Book Love. 
 
 Frederick Harrison. 6. 1831. 
 [Living.] 
 
 Every book that we take up without a 
 purpose is an opportunity lost of taking up 
 a book with a purpose— every bit of stray 
 information which we cram into our heads 
 without any sense of its importance, is for 
 the most part a bit of the most useful in- 
 formation driven out of our heads and 
 choked oft from our minds. It is so certain 
 that information, that is, the knowledge, the 
 stored thoughts and observations of man- 
 kind, is now grown to proportion, so 
 utterly incalculable and prodigious, that 
 even the learned whose lives are given to
 
 Frederick Harrison. 223 
 
 stady can but pick up some crumbs that fall 
 from the table of truth. They delve and 
 tend but a plot in that vast and teeming 
 kingdom, -whilst those whom active life 
 leaves with but a few cramped hours of study 
 can hardly come to know the very vastness 
 of the field before them, or how infinitesi- 
 mally small is the corner they can traverse 
 at the best. We know all is not of equal 
 value. We know that books differ in value 
 as much as diamonds differ from the sand 
 on the seashore, as much as our living 
 friend differs from a dead rat. We know 
 that much in the myriad-peopled world 
 of books— very much in all kinds — is 
 trivial, enervating, inane, even noxious. 
 And thus, where we have infinite oppor- 
 tunities of wasting our efforts to no end, of 
 fatiguing our minds without eniichingthem, 
 of clogging the spirit without satisfying it, 
 there, I cannot but think, the very infinity 
 of opportunities is robbing us of the actual 
 power of using them. And thus I come 
 often, in my less hopeful moods, to watch 
 the remorseless cataract of daily literatme 
 which thunders over the remnants of the 
 past, as if it were a fresh impediment to 
 the men of our day in the way of syste- 
 matic knowledge and consistent powers of 
 thought : as if it were destined one day to 
 overwhelm the great inheritance of man- 
 kind in prose and verse. 
 
 I think the liabit of reading wisely is one 
 of the most difficult habits to acquii-e, need- 
 ing strong resolution and infinite pains ;
 
 224 Frederick Harrison. 
 
 and I hold the habit of reading for mere 
 reading's sake, instead of for the sake 
 of the stufi we gain from reading, to be 
 one of the worst and commonest and most 
 unwholesome habits we have. Why do 
 we still suffer the traditional hypocrisy 
 about the dignity of literature, literature I 
 mean in the gross, which includes about 
 equal parts of what is useful and what is 
 useless ? Why are books as books, writers 
 as writers, readers as readers, meritorious 
 and honourable, apart from any good in 
 them, or anything that we can get from 
 them? Why do we pride ourselves on our 
 powers of absorbing print, as our grand- 
 fathers did on their gifts in imbibing port, 
 when we know that there is a mode of absorb- 
 ing print which makes it impossible we can 
 ever learn anything good out of books ? Our 
 stately Milton said in a passage which is one 
 of the watchwords of the English race, "as 
 good almost Kill a Man as KiU a good Book." 
 But has he not also said that he would 
 "have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane 
 themselves as well as men, and do sharpest 
 justice on them as malefactors?" Yes! 
 they do kill the good book who deliver up 
 their few and precious hours of reading to 
 the trivial book; they make it dead for 
 them ; they do what lies in them to destroy 
 "the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, 
 embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
 life beyond life ;" they " spill that season'd 
 life of man preserv'd and stor'd up in 
 Bookes." For in the wilderness of books
 
 Philip G. Ha7nerton. 225 
 
 most men, certainly all busy men, must 
 strictly choose. If they saturate their minds 
 with the idler books, the " good book," which 
 Milton calls "an immortality rather than 
 a life," is dead to them : it is a book 
 sealed np and buried. 
 
 Philip Gilbert Hamerton. 
 &. 1834. [Living.] 
 
 People whose time for reading is limited 
 ought not to waste it in grammars and 
 dictionaries, but to confine themselves reso- 
 lutely to a couple of languages, or three at 
 the very utmost, notwithstanding the con- 
 tempt of polyglots, who estimate youi' 
 learning by the variety of yoitr tongues. It 
 is a fearful throwing away of time, from the 
 literary point of view, to begin more 
 languages than you can master or retain, 
 and to be always puzzling youi'self about 
 irregular verbs. . . . 
 
 The encouraging inference which you 
 may draw from this in reference to your 
 own case is that, since all intellectual 
 men have had more than one pursuit, you 
 may set off your business against the most 
 absorbing of their pursuits, and for the rest 
 be still almost as rich in time as they have 
 been. You may study literature as some 
 painters have studied it, or science as some 
 literary men have studied it. The first step 
 is to establish a regulated economy of your 
 time, so that, without interfering with a due 
 attention to business and to health, you 
 
 DD
 
 226 Philip G. Hamerton. 
 
 may get two clear hours every day for 
 reading of the best kind. It is not much, 
 some men would tell you that it is not 
 enough, hut I purposely fix the expenditure 
 of time at a low figure because I want it 
 to be always practicable consistently with 
 all the duties and necessary pleasures of 
 your life. If I told you to read four hours 
 every day, I know beforehand what would 
 be the consequence. You would keep the 
 rule for thi-ee or four days, by an efiort, then 
 some engagement would occur to break it, 
 and you would have no rule at all. And 
 please observe that the two hours are to be 
 given quite regularly, because, when the 
 time given is not much, regularity is quite 
 essential. Two hom-s a day, regularly, make 
 more than seven hundred hours in a year, 
 and in seven hundred hours, wisely and un- 
 interruptedly occupied, much may be done 
 in anything. Permit me to insist upon that 
 word uninternqjtedly. Few people realize 
 the full evil of an iutemiption, few people 
 know all that is implied by it. . • . 
 
 But now suppose a reader perfectly 
 absorbed in his author, an author belonging 
 very likely to another ago and another 
 civilization entirely different from ours. 
 Suppose that you are reading the Defence 
 of Socrates in Plato, and have the whole 
 scene before you as in a pictm-e : the tribunal 
 of the Five Hundred, the ptire Greek archi- 
 tecture, the interested Athenian public, the 
 odious Melitus, the envious enemies, the 
 beloved and grieving friends whose names
 
 Philip G. Hamerton. 227 
 
 are dear to us, and immortal ; and in the 
 centre you see one figme di-aped like a poor 
 man, in cheap and common cloth, that he 
 wears winter and summer, with a face plain 
 to downright ugliness, but an air of such 
 gen\mie courage and self-possession that no 
 acting could imitate it ; and you hear the 
 firm voice saying— 
 
 The man, then, judges me worthy of death. 
 Be it so. 
 
 You are just beginning the splendid para- 
 graph where Socrates condemns himself to 
 maintenance in the Prytaneum, and if you 
 can only be safe from interruption till it is 
 finished, you will have one of those minutes 
 of noble pleasure which are the rewards of 
 intellectual toil. But if you are reading in 
 the daytime in a house where there are 
 women and children, or where people can 
 fasten upon you for pottering details of 
 business, you may be sm'e that j-ou will not 
 be able to get to the end of the passage 
 wthout in some way or other being rudely 
 awakened from yoiu- dream, and suddenly 
 brought back into the common world. The 
 loss intellectually is greater than anyone 
 who had not suffered from it could imagine. 
 People think that an iaterruption is merely 
 the unhooking of an electric chain, and 
 that the current will flow, when the chain 
 is hooked on again just as it did before. 
 To the intellectual and imaginative student 
 an interruption is not that ; it is the de- 
 struction of a picture. . . .
 
 228 Philip G. Hamerton. 
 
 There is a degree of incompatibility 
 between the fashionable and the intellec- 
 tual lives, -which makes it necessaiy, at a 
 certain time, to choose one or the other as 
 our own. There is no hostility, there need 
 not be any uncharitable feeling on one side 
 or the other, but there must be a resolute 
 choice between the two. If you decide for 
 the intellectual life, you will incur a definite 
 loss to set against your gain. Your exist- 
 ence may have calmer and profounder 
 satisfactions, but it will be less amusmg, 
 and even in an appreciable degree less 
 human; less in hai-mony, I mean, with the 
 common instincts and feelings of humanity. 
 For the fashionable world, although deco- 
 rated by habits of expense, has enjoyment 
 for its objects, and arrives at enjoyment by 
 those methods which the experience of 
 generations has proved most efficacious. 
 Variety of amusement, frequent change of 
 scenery and society, healthy exercise, plea- 
 sant occupation of the mind without fatigue 
 —these things do indeed make existence 
 agreeable to human nature, and the science 
 of living agi-eeably is better understood in 
 the fashionable society of England than by 
 laborious students and savans. The life led 
 by that society is the true heaven of the 
 natural man, who likes to have frequent 
 feasts and a hearty appetite, who enjoys 
 the varying spectacle of wealth, and splen- 
 dour, and pleasure, who loves to watch, 
 from the Olympus of his personal ease, 
 the curious results of labour in which he
 
 Philip G. Hamerton. 229 
 
 takes no part, the interesting ingenuity of 
 the toiling world below. In exchange for 
 these varied pleasui-es of the spectator, the 
 intellectual life can offer you but one satis- 
 faction; for all its promises are reducible 
 simply to this, that you shall come at last, 
 after infinite laboui', into contact with some 
 great reality— X\\zX you shall know and do 
 in such sort that you will feel yourself on 
 finn ground and be recognized— probably 
 not much applauded, but yet recognized— 
 as a fellow-labourer by other knowers and 
 doers. Before you come to this, most of your 
 present accomplishments will be abandoned 
 by yoni-self as unsatisfactory and insuffi- 
 cient, but one or two of them will be tui'ned 
 to better account, and will give you after 
 many years a tranquil self-respect, and 
 what is still rarer and better, a very deep 
 and earnest reverence for the greatness 
 which is above you. Severed from the 
 vanities of the Illusory, you wlU live with 
 the realities of knowledge, as one who has 
 quitted the painted scenery of the theatre 
 to listen by the eternal ocean or gaze at the 
 granite hills. . . . 
 
 The art of reading is to skip judiciously. 
 Wliole libraries may be skipped in these 
 days, when we have the results of them in 
 our modern culture without going over the 
 gi-ound again. And even of the books we 
 decide to read, there are almost always 
 large portions which do not concern us, and 
 which we are sure to forget the day after 
 we have read them. The art is to skip all
 
 230 Philip G. Hainerton. 
 
 that does not concern us, whilst missing 
 nothing that we really need. No external 
 guidance can teach us this ; for nobody but 
 ourselves can guess what the needs of oui" 
 intellect may be. Bat let us select with 
 decisive firmness, independently of other 
 people' s advice, independently of the au- 
 thority of custom. In every newspaper that 
 comes to hand there is a little bit that we 
 ought to read ; the art is to find tliat little 
 bit, and waste no time over the rest. . . . 
 I used to believe a great deal more in 
 opportunities and less in application than 
 I do now. Time and health are needed, but 
 ^s-ith these there are always opportunities. 
 Eich people have a fancy for spending 
 money very uselessly on their culture 
 because it seems to them more valuable 
 when it has been costly; but the truth is, 
 that by the blessing of good and cheap 
 literature, intellectual light has become 
 almost as accessible as daylight. I have 
 a rich friend who travels more, and buys 
 more costly things, than I do, but he does 
 not really learn more or advance farther 
 in the twelvemonth. If my days are fully 
 occupied, what has he to set against them ? 
 only other well-occupied days, no more. If 
 he is getting benefit at St. Petersburg he is 
 missing the benefit I am getting round my 
 house, and in it. The sum of the year's 
 benefit seems to be surprisingly alike in 
 both cases. So if you are reading a piece of 
 thoroughly good literature. Baron Rothschild 
 may possibly be as well occupied as you— he
 
 Philip G. Hamerton. 231 
 
 is certainly not better occupied. When I 
 open a noble volume I say to myself, "now 
 the only Crcssus that I envy is he who is 
 reading a better book than this." . . . 
 
 I willingly concede all that you say 
 against fashionable society as a whole. It 
 is, as you say, frivolous, bent on amusement, 
 incapable of attention sufficiently prolonged 
 to grasp any serious subject, and liable both 
 to confusion and inaccuracy in the ideas 
 which it hastUy forms or easily receives. 
 You do right, assuredly, not to let it waste 
 your most valuable hours, but I believe also 
 that you do wi-ong in keeping out of it 
 altogether. 
 
 The society which seems so frivolous in 
 masses contains individual members who, 
 if you knew them better, would be able and 
 willing to render you the most efficient 
 intellectual help, and you miss this help by 
 restricting yourself exclusively to books. 
 Nothing can replace the conversation of 
 living men and women ; not even the richest 
 literatui-e can replace it. . . . 
 
 The solitude which is really injmious is 
 the severance from all who are capable of 
 understanding us. Painters say that they 
 cannot work effectively for very long 
 together when separated from the society 
 of artists, and that they must return to 
 London, or Paris, or Eome, to avoid an 
 oppressive feeling of discoui-agement which 
 paralyses their productive energy. Authors 
 are more fortunate, because all cultivated 
 people are society for them; yet even
 
 232 Philip G. Ha7Jierton. 
 
 authors lose strength and agility of thought 
 when too long deprived of a genial intel- 
 lectual atmosphere. In the country you 
 meet with cultivated individuals; but we 
 need more thaa this, we need those general 
 conversations ia which evei-y speaker is 
 worth listening to. The life most favourable 
 to cultui-e would have its times of open and 
 equal iiitercourse with the best minds, and 
 also its periods of retreat. My ideal would 
 be a house in London, not far from one or _ 
 two houses that are so full of light and 
 warmth that it is a liberal education to 
 have entered them, and a solitarj- tower 
 on some island of the Hebrides, with no 
 companions but the sea-gulls and the 
 thundermg surges of the Atlantic. One 
 such island I know well, and it is before 
 my mind's eye, clear as a pictui'e, whilst I 
 am -n-riting. It stands in the very entrance 
 of a tine salt-water loch, rising above two 
 hundred feet out of the water and setting 
 its granite front steep against the western 
 ocean. When the evenings are clear you 
 can see Staffa and lona like blue clouds 
 between you and the sunset; and on your 
 left, close at hand, the gi-anite hiUs of Mull, 
 with Ulva to the right across the narrow 
 strait. It was the dream of my youth to build 
 a tower there, with three or four little rooms 
 in it, and walls as strong as a light-house. 
 There have been more foolish dreams, and 
 there have been less competent teachers than 
 the tempests that would have roused me and 
 the calms that would have brought me peace.
 
 Philip G. Hanierton. 233 
 
 If any serious thought, if any noble inspira- 
 tion might have been hoped for, surely it 
 would have been there, where only the 
 clouds and waves were transient, but the 
 ocean before me, and the stars above, and 
 the mountains on either hand, were emblems 
 and evidences of eternity. . . . 
 
 Let me recommend certain precautions 
 wliich taken together are likely to keep you 
 safe. Care for the physical health in the 
 first place, for if there is a morbid mind the 
 bodily organs are not doing their work as 
 they ought to do. Nest, for the mind itself, 
 I would heartily recommend hard study, 
 really hard study, taken very regularly but 
 in very moderate quantity. The effect of it 
 on the mind is as bracing as that of cold 
 water on the body, but as you ought not 
 to remain too long in the cold bath, so it is 
 dangerous to study hard more than a short 
 time every day. Do some work that is very 
 diiflcult (such as reading some language that 
 you have to puzzle out a coups de diction- 
 naire) two hom-s a day regularly, to brace 
 the fighting power of the intellect, but let 
 the rest of the day's work be easier. Acquii-e 
 especially, if you possibly can, the enviable 
 faculty of getting entirely rid of your work 
 in the intervals of it, and of taking a hearty 
 interest in common things, in a garden, or 
 stable, or dog-kennel, or farm. If the work 
 pursues you— if what is called unconscious 
 cerebration, wliich ought to go forward 
 without your knowing it, becomes conscious 
 cerebration, and bothers you, then you have
 
 234 Philip G. Hainerton. 
 
 been •working beyond your cerebral strength 
 and yon are not safe. 
 
 An organization which was intended by 
 Nature for the intellectual life cannot be 
 healthy and happy without a certain degree 
 of intellectual activity. Natm-es like those 
 of Humboldt and Goethe need immense 
 labours for their own felicity, smaller 
 powers need less extensive labour. To all 
 of us who have intellectual needs there is 
 a certain supply of work necessary to per- 
 fect health. If we do less, we are in danger 
 of that emxui which comes from want of 
 intellectual exercise; if we do more, we 
 may suffer from that other ennui which 
 is due to the weariness of the jaded facul- 
 ties, and this is the more terrible of the 
 two. . . . 
 
 The reading practised by most people, 
 by all who do not set before themselves 
 intellectual culture as one of the definite 
 aims of life, is remarkable for the regularity 
 with which it neglects all the great authors 
 of the past. The books provided by the 
 circulating library, the reviews and maga- 
 zines, the daily newspapers, are read whilst 
 they are novelties, but the standard authors 
 are left on their shelves unopened. We 
 require a firm resolution to resist tliis inva- 
 sion of what is new, because it flows like an 
 unceasing river, and rmless we protect 
 our time against it by some solid em- 
 bankment of unshakable rule and resolu- 
 tion, every nook and cranny of it will be 
 filled and flooded. An Englishman whose
 
 Philip G. Hamcrton. 235 
 
 life was devoted to culture, but who lived 
 in an out-of-the-way place on the Continent, 
 told me that he considered it a decided 
 advantage to his mind to live quite outside 
 of the English library system, because if 
 lie wanted to read a new book he had to 
 buy it and pay heavily for carriage besides, 
 wliich made liim very careful in his choice. 
 For the same reason he rejoiced that the 
 nearest English news-room was two him- 
 dred miles from his residence. . . . 
 
 For literary men there is nothing so 
 valuable as a window with a cheerful 
 and beautiful prospect. It is good for us 
 to have this refreshment for the eye 
 when we leave off working, and Mon- 
 taigne* did wisely to have his study up 
 in a tower from which he had extensive 
 views. There is a well-known objection to 
 extensive views as wanting in snugness and 
 comfort, but this objection scarcely applies 
 to the especial case of literary men. Wliat 
 we want is not so much snugness as relief, 
 refreshment, suggestion, and we get these, 
 as a general rule, much better from wide 
 prospects than from limited ones. I have 
 just alluded to Montaigne,— will you permit 
 me to imitate that dear old philosopher in 
 liis egotism and describe to you the view 
 from the room I -write in, which cheers 
 and amuses me continually? But before 
 describing this, let me describe another of 
 
 *The reader will find Montaigne's de- 
 scription of his study at page 10 of this 
 voliune.
 
 236 F. R. Havergal. 
 
 ■which the recollection is very dear to 
 me and as vivid as a freshly-painted 
 pictme. In years gone by, I had only 
 to look up from my desk and see a noble 
 loch in its inexhaustible loveliness, and 
 a mountain in its majesty. It was a 
 daily and homly delight to watch the 
 breezes play about the enchanted isles, on 
 the delicate silvery surface, dimming some 
 clear reflection, or trailing it out in length, 
 or cutting shai-ply across it with acres of 
 rippling blue. It was a frequent pleasure 
 to see the clouds play about the crest of 
 Cruachan and Ben Vorich's golden head, 
 grey mists that crept upwards from the 
 valleys till the sunshine suddenly caught 
 them and made them brighter than the 
 snows they shaded. And the leagues and 
 leagues of heather on the lower land to the 
 southward that became like the aniline dyes 
 of deepest pm-ple and blue, when the sky 
 was giey in the evening— all save one 
 orange-streak ! Ah, those were spectacles 
 never to be forgotten, splendours of light 
 and glory, and sadness of deepening gloom 
 when the eyes grew moist in the twilight 
 and secretly drank their tears.— "The In- 
 tellectual Life." 
 
 Frances R. Havergal. 1836- 
 Only a word of command, but 
 
 It loses or wins the field; 
 
 Only a stroke of the pen, but a 
 
 Heart is broken or healed.
 
 Mary C. Ware. 237 
 
 Mary C. Ware (American Writer). 
 There is nothing in the recollections of 
 my childhood that I look hack upon -with so 
 much pleasure as the reading aloud my 
 books to my mother. She was then a woman 
 of many cares, and in the habit of engaging 
 in every variety of household work. What- 
 ever she mightbe doing in kitchen, or dairy, 
 or parlour, she was always ready to listen 
 to me, and to explain whatever I did not 
 understand. There was always with her an 
 undercuiTent of thought about other things, 
 mingling with all her domestic duties, 
 lightening and modifying them, but never 
 leading her to neglect them, or to perform 
 them imperfectly. I believe it is to this 
 trait of her character that she owes the 
 elasticity and ready social sjrmpathy that 
 still animates her under the weight of almost 
 four-score years. 
 
 Boston Literary World. 
 A great art in reading, then, one which 
 should be inculcated in theory, and in the 
 practice of which the oldest and wisest of 
 us should constantly be drilling ourselves, 
 is this art of so carrying the mind along the 
 paths of another's tliought that it shall 
 retain only the good and the trae and the 
 beautiful, while the bad and the false and 
 the repulsive shall instantly pass out of 
 sight and recollection. Only as we are 
 masters of this art are we safe in the midst
 
 238 Prof. W. P. Atkinson. 
 
 of the perils to -wMch reading exposes us; 
 and in this art, which may he settled by 
 practice into a habit, our youth particularly 
 slioiild he zealously educated. 
 
 Professor W. P. Atkinson 
 (American). [Living.] 
 
 The most important question for the 
 good student and reader is not, amidst this 
 mioltitude of l)ook8 which no man can 
 number, how much he shall read. The 
 really important questions are, first, what 
 is the quality of what he does read; 
 and, second, what is his manner of reading 
 it. There is an analogy which is more 
 than accidental between physical and 
 mental assimilation and digestion; and, 
 homely as the illustration may seem, it is 
 the most forcible I can use. Let two sit 
 down to a table spread with food: one pos- 
 sessed of a healthy appetite, and knowing 
 something of the nutritious qualities of the 
 various dishes before him ; the other ciu'sed 
 with a pampered and capricious appetite, 
 and knowing nothing of the results of 
 chemical and physiological investigation. 
 One shall make a better meal, and go away 
 stronger and better fed, on a dish of oat- 
 meal, than the other on a dinner that has 
 half emptied his pockets. Shall we study 
 physiological chemistry and know all about 
 what is food for the body, and neglect 
 mental chemistry, and be utterly careless as 
 to what nutriment is contained in tlie food
 
 Rev. R. H. Quick. 239 
 
 •we give our minds ? I am not speaking here 
 of vicious literature : we don't spread our 
 tables -with poisons. I speak only of the 
 varying amount of nutritive matter con- 
 tained in books. 
 
 Who can over-estimate the value of good 
 books, those ships of thought, as Bacon 
 so finely calls them, voyaging through the 
 sea of time, and carrying their precious 
 freight so safely from generation to gene- 
 ration! Here are the finest minds 
 givmg us the best wisdom of present and 
 all past ages ; here are intellects gifted f av 
 beyond ours, ready to give us the results 
 of lifetimes of patient thought ; imagina- 
 tions open to the beauty of the universe, far 
 beyond what it is given us to behold; 
 characters whom we can only vainly hope 
 to imitate, but whom it is one of the highest 
 privileges of life to know. Here they all 
 are; and to learn to know them is the 
 privilege of the educated man. 
 
 Rev. R. H. Quick. [Living.] 
 The lion's share of our time and thouglits 
 and interests must be given to our business 
 or profession, whatever that may be; and 
 in few instances is this connected with 
 literatm-e. For the rest, whatever time or 
 thought a man can spare from his callmg 
 is mostly given to his family, or to society, 
 or to some hobby which is not literature. 
 And love of literature is not seen in 
 such reading as is common. The literary
 
 240 IVilliani Blades. 
 
 spirit sliows itself, as I said, in appreciating 
 beauty of expression ; and how far beauty 
 of expression is cared for we may esti- 
 mate from tlie fact that few people tlunk 
 of reading anythiug a second time. The 
 ordinary reader is profoundly indifferent 
 about style, and wiU not take the trouble to 
 understand ideas. He keeps to periodicals 
 or light fiction, which enables the mind tn 
 loll in its easy chair (so to speak), and see 
 pass before it a series of pleasing images. 
 
 William Blades. [Laving.] 
 I do not envy any man that absence of 
 sentiment which makes some people care- 
 less of the memorials of their ancestors, and 
 whose blood can be wanned up only by 
 talking of horses or the price of hops. To 
 them soUtude means ennui, and anybody's 
 <.'ompany is preferable to their own. What 
 an immense amount of calm enjoyment and 
 mental renovation do such men miss. Even 
 a millionaire will ease his toils, lengthen 
 his life, and add a hundred per cent, to his 
 daily pleasui-es if he becomes a bibliophile ; 
 while to the man of business with a taste for 
 books, who tlirough the day has struggled 
 in the battle of life with all its irritating 
 rebuffs and anxieties, what a blessed season 
 (if pleasurable repose opens upon him as he 
 enters his sanctum, where every article 
 wafts to him a welcome, and every book is 
 a personal friend. — "The Enemies of 
 Books."
 
 Freeland — Whipple. 241 
 
 WiL-LiAii Freeland. [Living.] 
 Give me a nook and a book, 
 
 And let the proud world spin round : 
 Let it scramble by hook or by crook 
 
 For wealth or a name with a sound. 
 You are welcome to amble your ways, 
 
 Aspirers to place or to glory j 
 May big bells jangle your praise, 
 
 And golden pens blazon yom* story ! 
 For me, let me dwell in my nook. 
 Here, by the curve of this brook. 
 That croons to the tune of my book. 
 Whose melody wafts me for ever 
 On the waves of an unseen river. 
 
 Give me a book and a nook 
 
 Far away from the glitter and strife; 
 Give me a staff and a crook. 
 
 The calm and the sweetness of life : 
 Let me pause— let me brood as I list, 
 
 On the marvels of heaven's own spin- 
 ning,— 
 Sunlight and moonlight and mist. 
 
 Glorious without slaying or sinning. 
 Vain world, let me reign in my nook, 
 King of this kingdom, my book, 
 A region 4iy fashion forsook : 
 Pass on, ye lean^amblers for glory. 
 Nor mar the sweet tune of my story! 
 
 "A Birth Song and other Poems," 1882. 
 
 Whipple (American Critic). [Living.] 
 
 Books— lighthouses erected in the sea of 
 time. 
 
 FF
 
 242 William E. A. Axon. 
 
 William E. A. Axon. 
 6. 1S44. [Living.] 
 
 To students and lovers of books, the word 
 library possesses a chai-m wMcli scarcely 
 any other can claim; and there are few 
 associations so pleasant as those excited by 
 it. To them it means a place where one 
 may withdraw from the hui-ry and bustle of 
 every-day life, from the cares of commerce 
 and the strife of politics, and hold com- 
 munion with the saints and heroes of the 
 past; a place where the good and true men 
 of bygone ages, being dead, yet speak, and 
 reprove the vanity and littleness of our lives, 
 where they may excite us to noble deeds, 
 may cheer and console us in defeat, may 
 teach us magnanimity in victory. There we 
 may trace the history of nations now no 
 more ; and in their follies and vices, in theii- 
 virtues, in their grand heroic deeds, we may 
 see that "increasing purpose " which " rims 
 through all the ages,' and learn how the 
 " thoughts of men are widened by the process 
 of the suns." There we may listen to "the 
 fairy tales of science, " or to the v<^ices of the 
 poets singing their undying songs. 
 
 Every man should have a library. The 
 works of the grandest masters of literature 
 may now be procm-ed at prices that place 
 them within the reach almost of the very 
 poorest, and we may all put Parnassian 
 singing birds into our chambers to cheer us 
 with the sweetness of their songs. And
 
 William E. A. Axon. 243 
 
 when we have got oiir little library we may 
 look proudly at Shakspeare, and Bacon, and 
 Bunyan, as they stand in our bookcase in 
 company with other noble spirits, and one 
 or two of whom the world knows nothing, 
 but whose worth we have often tested. 
 These may cheer and enlighten us, may in- 
 spii'e us with higher aims and aspirations, 
 may make us, if we use them rightly, wiser 
 and better men. 
 
 Ignorance is a prolific mother of vice and 
 crime, and whatever tends to destroy ignor- 
 ance aims a blow also at the existence of 
 crime. Let ub rejoice then at the success of 
 these new-born institutions, whence the 
 blessed light of knowledge is diffused into 
 the darkness. " The true university of these 
 days is a collection of books," says Carlyle, 
 and in a great library what noble teachers 
 we may choose ! The best and wisest of all 
 ages are there to give aid and direction, 
 counsel and consolation. Surely a people 
 who make bosom friends of the wise and 
 good will become better men than they were 
 before, by reason of that companionship. 
 •The spoken word as an instrument of edu- 
 cation is now becoming of minor importance, 
 and the printed voice is taking its place, 
 chief engine in the dissemination of thought. 
 "An intelligent class can scarcely ever be, 
 as a class, vicious," says Everett. Those 
 who have tasted the sweets of intellectual 
 pleasui'es will hardly care to descend to 
 lower and grosser forms of enjoyment, and 
 a people familiar with those lessons of
 
 244 Clarke — Stevenson. 
 
 wisdom and truth taught by the mighty- 
 dead, can hardly fail to be a nation wise, 
 and just, and true.— "Article on-Free Public 
 Libraries, in ' Meliora,' Oct., 1867." 
 
 The Rev. James Freeman Clarke 
 (American Divine). [Living] 
 Let us thank God for books. When I 
 consider what some books have done for the 
 world, and what they are doing, how they 
 keep up oui" hope, awaken new courage and 
 faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those 
 whose homes are hard and cold, bind to- 
 gether distant ages and foreign lands, create 
 new worlds of beauty, bring down truths 
 from heaven— I give eternal blessings for 
 this gift, and pray that we may use it ariprht. 
 and abase it not. 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. [Living.] 
 Every book is, in an intimate sense, a 
 circular-letter to the friends of him wlio 
 writes it. 
 
 Charles F. Richardson. [Living.] 
 With young or old, there is no such helper 
 towards the reading habit as the cultivation 
 of this warm and undying feeling of the 
 friendliness of books. If a parent, or a 
 teacher, or a book, seems but a taskmaster ; 
 if their rules are those of a statute-book
 
 Chas. F. Richardson. 245 
 
 and theii- society like that of an officer 
 of the law, there is small hope that their 
 help can be made either serviceable or 
 profitable. Bl^t with the growth of the 
 friendly feeling comes a state of mind which 
 renders all things possible. When one book 
 has become a friend and fellow, the world 
 has grown that miich broader and more 
 beautiful. Petrarch said of his books, 
 considered as his friends : "I have friends, 
 whose society is exti-emely agreeable to 
 me; they are of all ages, and of every 
 country. They have distinguished them- 
 selves both in the cabinet and in the field, 
 and obtained high honoms for thek know- 
 ledge of the sciences. It is easy to gain 
 access to them, for they are always at 
 my service, and I admit them to my com- 
 pany, and dismiss them from it, whenever I 
 please. They are never troublesome, but 
 immediately answer every question I ask 
 them. Some relate to me the events of tlie 
 past ages, while others reveal to me the 
 secrets of natui'e. Some teach me how to 
 live, and others how to die. Some, by their 
 vivacity, drive away my cares and exhila- 
 rate my spu-its, while others give fortitude 
 to my mind, and teach me the important 
 lesson how to restrain my desires, and to 
 depend wholly on myself. They open to 
 me, in short, the various avenues of all the 
 arts and sciences, and upon their informa- 
 tion I safely rely in all emergencies." . . . 
 The great secret of reading consists in 
 this, that it does not matter so much what
 
 246 Chas. F, Richardson. 
 
 we read, or how we read it, as what we 
 tliiiik and how we tliink it. Reading is only 
 the fuel; and, the mind once on fire, any 
 and all material will feed the flame, pro- 
 vided only it have any combustible matter 
 in it. And we cannot tell from what quarter 
 the nest material will come. The thought 
 we need, the facts we are in search of, may 
 make their appearance in the comer of the 
 newspaper, or in some forgotten volume 
 long ago consigned to dust and oblivion. 
 Ha-n-thorne, in the parlour of a country inn, 
 on a rainy day, could find mental nutriment 
 in an old directory. That accomplished 
 philologist, the late Lord Strangford, could 
 find ample amusement for an hour's delay at 
 a railway-station in tracing out the etymo- 
 logy of the names in Bradshaw. The mmd 
 that is not awake and alive will find a library 
 a barren wilderness. Now, gather up the 
 scraps and fragments of thought on what- 
 ever subject you may be studying,— for of 
 coui'se by a note-book I do not mean a mere 
 receptacle for odds and ends, a literary 
 dust-bin,— but acquire the habit of gather- 
 ing everything whenever and wherever you 
 find it, that belongs in your line or lines of 
 study, and you will be surprised to see how 
 such fragments will arrange themselves into 
 an orderly whole by the very organizing 
 power of your otvti thinking, acting in a 
 definite direction. This is a true process 
 of self -education; but you see it is no me- 
 chanical process of mere aggregation. It 
 requires activity of thought,— but without
 
 Chas. F. Richardson. 247 
 
 that, what is any reading but mere passive 
 amusement? And it requires method. I 
 have myself a sort of literary book-keeping. 
 I keep a day-book, and at my leisure I post 
 my literary accounts, bringing together in 
 proper groups the fruits of much casual 
 reading. . . . 
 
 A book that is worth reading all tlirough, 
 is pretty sure to make its worth known. 
 There is something in the literary conscience 
 which tells a reader whether he is wasting 
 his time or not. An hour or a minute may 
 be siifficient opportunity for forming a deci- 
 sion concerning the worth or worthlessness 
 of the book. If it is utterly bad and value- 
 less, then skip the whole of it, as soon as 
 you have made the discovery. If a part is 
 good and a part bad, accept the one and 
 reject the otheV. If you are in doubt, take 
 warning at the first intimation that you are 
 misspending your opportunity and frittering 
 away your time over an unprofitable book. 
 Reading that is of questionable value is not 
 hard to find out; it bears its notes and 
 marks in unmistakable plainness, and it 
 puts forth, all unwittingly, danger-signals 
 of which the reader should take heed. 
 
 The art of skipping is, in a word, the 
 art of noting and shunning that which is 
 bad, or frivolous, or misleading, or unsuit- 
 able for one's individual needs. If you are 
 convinced that the book or the chapter is 
 bad, you cannot drop it too quickly. If it 
 is simply idle and foolish, put it away on 
 that account, —unless you are properly
 
 248 Chas. F. Richardson. 
 
 seeking amusement from idleness and fri- 
 volity. If it is deceitful and disingenuous, 
 your task is not so easy, but your con- 
 science will give you warning, and tlie 
 shai-p examination which should follow, will 
 tell you that you are in poor literary 
 coippany. 
 
 But there are a great many books which 
 are good in themselves, and yet are not 
 good at all times or for all readers. Fo 
 book, indeed, is of universal value and ap- 
 propriateness. As has been said in previous 
 chapters of this series, the mdividual must 
 always dare to remember that he has his 
 own legitimate tastes and wants, and that 
 it is not only proper to follow them, but 
 highly improper to permit them to be over- 
 ruled by the tastes and wants of others. It 
 is right for one to neglect entirely, or to skip 
 through, pages which another should study 
 again and again. Let each reader ask him- 
 self : Why am I reading tliis ? What service 
 wUl it be to me ? Am I neglecting some- 
 thing else that would be more Vieneficial ? 
 Here, as in every other (luestion involved in 
 the choice of books, the golden key to know- 
 ledge, a key that wUl only fit its own proper 
 doors, is purpose. . . . 
 
 Admitting thus the utility of the reading 
 of periodicals, and even insisting upon the 
 necessity and duty of reading them, it must 
 nevertheless be said in the plainest manner 
 that an alarming amount of time is wasted 
 over them, or worse than wasted. When we 
 have determined that newspapers and maga-
 
 Chas. F. Richardson. 249 
 
 zines ought to be read, let ns by no means 
 flatter oui-selves that all our reading of them 
 is commendable or justifiable. I am quite 
 safe in saying that the individual who 
 happens to be reading these lines wastes 
 more than half the time that he devotes to 
 periodicals; and that he wastes it because 
 he does not regulate that time as he ought. 
 " To learn to choose what is valuable and to 
 skip the rest " is a good rule for reading 
 periodicals; and it is a iiile whose obser- 
 vance wUl reduce, by fully one half, the 
 time devoted to them, and will save time 
 and strength for better intellectual employ- 
 ments,— to say nothing of the very impor- 
 tant fact that discipline in this line will 
 prevent the reader from falling into that 
 demoralising and altogether disgraceful 
 inability to hold the mind upon any 
 continuous subject of thought or study, 
 which is pretty siu-e to follow in the 
 train of undue or thoughtless reading of 
 periodicals. And when, as too often hap- 
 pens, a man comes to read nothing save 
 his mommg paper at breakfast or on the 
 train, and his evening paper after his day's 
 work is over, that man's brain, so far as 
 reading is concerned, is only half alive. It 
 cannot carry on a long train of thought or 
 study; it notes superficial things rather 
 than inner principles ; it seeks to be amused 
 or stimulated, rather than to be instructed. 
 — " The Choice of Books." (By permission 
 of Messrs. Sampson Low, Marstou, & Co. 
 London.)
 
 250 Dr. Chapin. 
 
 Dr. Chapin (American Preacher). 
 "If the riches of both Indies," said 
 Fenelon, " if the crowns of all the kingdoms 
 of Europe, were laid at my feet, in exchange 
 for my love of reading, I would spurn them 
 all." This wiU find an echo in the hearts 
 of many whose toil that love has lightened, 
 whose grief it has soothed, whose lone- 
 liness it has cheered, and who have 
 found that there is a virtue in well-chosen 
 hooks which proves an antidote for a 
 thousand ills. Did we live in days of feudal 
 darkness, when hooks were rare and found 
 only in the Gothic niches of the wealthy, or 
 in richly-endowed libraries— in the days 
 when the illuminated manuscript was 
 chained to a piUar, like some costly jewel- 
 did we live in such days, we might not 
 wonder that a fondness for reading was 
 rare also, and that the mind sought for 
 emplojment and relaxation in other pm*- 
 suits. But living Ln this age and country 
 I cannot but marvel, that any young man 
 should have a disrelish, or neglect to culti- 
 vate a taste, for books. Books !— the chosen 
 depositories of the thoughts, the opinions and 
 the aspirations of mighty intellects ;— like 
 wondrous mirrors that have caught and 
 fixed bright images of souls that have 
 passed away ; — like magic lyres, whose 
 masters have bequeathed them to the world, 
 and which yet, of themselves, ring with 
 unforgotten music, whQe the hands that 
 touched their chords have crumbled into 
 dust.— "Duties of Young Men."
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 251 
 
 H. W. LOKGFELLOW. 1807— 1S82. 
 [Just as the final sheet of this collection 
 was being prepared for the press, the follow- 
 ing lines were wafted hither from the other 
 side of the Atlantic— enabling the compQer 
 to finish his pleasant task with a singularly 
 touching sonnet from the pen of a poet 
 whose works will alwajs be cherished wher- 
 ever sweetness, purity, tenderness, and 
 simplicity are loved and held in honour.] 
 
 My Bool-s. 
 Sadly as some old medieval knight 
 Gazed at the arms he could no longer 
 
 wield, 
 The sword two-handed and the shining 
 
 shield 
 Suspended in the hall, and full in sight, 
 While secret longings for the lost delight 
 Of toiuTiey or adventure in the field 
 Came over him, and tears but half con- 
 cealed 
 Trembled and fell upon Ma beard of 
 white, 
 So I behold these books upon their shelf. 
 My ornaments and arms of other days ; 
 Not wholly useless, though no longer used. 
 For they remind me of my other self, 
 Younger and stronger, and the pleasant 
 
 ways. 
 In which I walked, now clouded and 
 confused. 
 December, 1881.
 
 APPENDIX.
 
 WILLIAM HAZLITT 
 
 AS ESSAYIST AND CKITIC. 
 
 The compiler, in pursuance of the note 
 appended to the extracts from William 
 Hazlitt at page 89, begs to call attention to 
 an essayist and critic whose writings ought to 
 be better known by readers of the present day. 
 Hazlitt's works deserve to hold a conspicuous 
 place in the literature of the earlier part of 
 the present centui-y. They abound in acute 
 and eloquent opinions regarding literature, 
 art, and life. No critic so thoroughly 
 imparts to his readers the sense of Ms own 
 enjoyment of genius, as well as reveals the 
 process of it with such marvellous success. 
 His judgments are sometimes warped by 
 personal and political prejudices; but, with 
 all their drawbacks, there are none superior 
 to his in vigoui-, raciness, and general truth- 
 fulness. He infused an entirely new spirit 
 into the criticism of his day. His appre- 
 ciation of literature and art was more 
 earnest, suggestive, and discriminating than 
 that of any critic of his time, while 
 his style was calculated to rivet atten- 
 tion by its remarkable force, its warmth 
 and richness of colouring, and epigrammatic 
 brilliancy. His knowledge of the drama, 
 the fine arts, works of fancy and fiction.
 
 256 William Hazlitt 
 
 and other departments of polite literature, 
 taken severally, may not equal that of 
 some other persons ; but, taken altogether, 
 is certainly unrivalled. His writings are 
 full of spirit and vivacity, and there is, 
 at the same time, an intensity in his 
 conception which embodies ideas that are 
 so volatile and fugitive as to escape the 
 grasp of a slower but profounder intellect. 
 He professes to throw aside the formality 
 and prudery of authorship, and to give his 
 best thoughts to the world with the freedom 
 and frankness of old Montaigne, without 
 submitting to assume the mask of current 
 opinions or conventional usage. He has 
 sensibility, imagination, great acuteness of 
 intellect, and singular powers of expression. 
 His beauties are procured by a great ex- 
 penditui-e of thinking; and some of his 
 single strokes and flashes reveal more to 
 the reader's understanding than whole 
 pages of an ordinary writer. His fierce and 
 passionate political pai-tisanship and un- 
 compromising honesty of speech were the 
 main causes why his powers as an essayist 
 and critic of literature and art were not so 
 universally recognised as they deserved. 
 He made many enemies, and was the object 
 of the grossest and most profligate attacks 
 on the part of his political opponents. The 
 effect of this has been that now, more than 
 fifty years after his death, justice has not 
 been done to this acute and vigorous thinker.
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 257 
 
 Lord Lytton (BiUwer), wiiting on Hazlitt 
 in 1836, says :— • 
 
 " He had a keen sense of the Beautiful 
 and the Subtile; and what is more, he 
 was deeply imbued with sympathy for 
 the humane. He ranks high amongst the 
 social writers— his intuitive feeling was 
 in favour of the multitude; yet he had 
 notliing of the demagogue or litterateur; he 
 did not pander to a single vulgar -passion! 
 "When he died, he left no successor. Others 
 may equal him, but none resemble. . . . 
 To the next age, he will stand among the 
 foremost of the thinkers of the present ; and 
 late and tardy retribution will assuredly be 
 his— a retribution which, long after the envy 
 he provoked is dumb, and the errors he 
 committed are forgotten— will invest with 
 interest anything associated with his name- 
 making it an honour even to have been his 
 contemporary." 
 
 The same critic, thirty years later, in an 
 article on " Charles Lamb, and Some of His 
 Companions," in the "Quarterly Eeview," 
 Jan., 1867, again writes of Hazlitt, and 
 delivers this matm-e judgment of him :— 
 
 "But amidst all these intolerant preju- 
 dices and this wild extravagance of apparent 
 hate, there are in Hazlitt from time to time 
 —those times not unfrequent — outbursts 
 of sentiment scarcely sui-passed among the 
 writers of our century for tender sweetness, 
 rapid perceptions of truth and beauty in re- 
 gions of criticism then but sparingly cultured 
 — nay, scarcely discovered— and massive
 
 258 William Hazlitt 
 
 fragments of such composition as no hand 
 of ordinary strength could hew out of the 
 unransacked mines of our native language. 
 ... It is not as a guide that Hazlitt 
 can be useful to any man. His merit is 
 that of a companion in districts little 
 trodden— a companion strong and harSy, 
 who keeps our sinews in healthful strain ; 
 .rough and irascible, whose temper will 
 constantly offend us if we do not steadily 
 preserve om- o-n-n; but always animated, 
 vivacious, brilliant in his talk; suggestive 
 of truths, even where insisting on para- 
 doxes; and of wliom when we part com- 
 pany we retain impressions stamped with 
 the cro\s'n-mark of indisputable genius. 
 Gladly would we welcome among the choicer 
 prose works of our age some volmnes 
 devoted to the more felicitous specimens 
 of Hazhtt's genius. He needs but an ab- 
 stract of his title deeds to secure a fair allot- 
 ment in the ground, already overcrowded, 
 which has been quaintly described by a 
 Scandinavian poet as the garden-land lying 
 south between WalhaUa and the sea." 
 
 Many cordial recognitions of Hazlitt as 
 an essayist and critic might be given from 
 the pens of some of our most competent 
 literary judges, including Lamb, Leigh 
 Hunt, Talfourd, Miss Martinean, Sir J. Mac- 
 kintosh, Jeffrey, Gilflllan, and others. A 
 few selections only from these judgments 
 can here find a place.
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 259 
 
 Sir James Mackintosli says of Hazlitt :— 
 "He is a very original thinker, and, 
 
 notwithstanding some irregularities -which 
 
 appear to us faults, a very powerful writer. 
 
 I say this, though I know he is no panegyrist 
 
 of men." 
 
 Judge Talfoiu-d says of his essays :— 
 " The excellence of his essays on charac- 
 ters and books differs not so much in degree 
 as in kind from that of all others of their 
 class. There is a weight and substance 
 about them, which makes us feel that, 
 amidst this nice and dexterous analysis, 
 they are, in no small measure, creations. 
 The quantity of thought which is accumu- 
 lated upon his favourite subjects, the variety 
 and richness of the illustrations, and the 
 strong sense of beauty and pleasure which 
 pervades and animates the composition, 
 give them a place, if not above, yet apart 
 from the writings of all other essayists." 
 
 His friend Leigh Hunt thus' spoke of him 
 in a notice written at the time of his death :— 
 
 " He was one of the profoundest writers 
 of the day, an admirable reasoner (no 
 one got better or sooner at the heart of a 
 question than he did), the best general critic, 
 the greatest critic on art that ever appeared 
 (his writings on that subject cast a light like 
 a painted window), exquisite in his reUsh of 
 poetry, an untarnished lover of liberty, and 
 with all his humoiu- and ii-ritability (of 
 which no man had more) a sincere friend
 
 26o Willia??i Hazlitt 
 
 and a generous enemy. . . . Posterity 
 will do justice to the man that wrote for 
 truth and mankind." 
 
 Lord Jeffrey, in an article in the 
 "Edinburgh Keview," thus characterises 
 Hazlitt:— 
 
 " He possesses one noble quality at least 
 for the office which, he has chosen, in the 
 intense admiration and love which he feels 
 for the great authors on whose excellences 
 he chiefly dwells. His relish for their 
 beauties is so keen that while he describes 
 them, the pleasures which they impart 
 become almost palpable to the sense. . . . 
 He introduces us almost corporeally into 
 the diTine presence of the Great of old time. 
 . . , His intense admiration of intellec- 
 tual beauty seems always to sharpen his 
 critical faculties. He perceives it by a kind 
 of intuitive fervour, how deeply soever it 
 may be buried in rubbish ; and separates it 
 in a moment from all that would encumber 
 or deface it. ... In a word he at once 
 analyses and describes— so that our enjoy- 
 ments of loveliness are not chilled, but 
 brightened, by our acquaintance with their 
 inward sources. The knowledge communi- 
 cated in his lectures breaks no sweet en- 
 chantment, nor chills one feeling of youthful 
 joy. His criticisms, while they extend our 
 insight into the causes of poetical excellence, 
 teach us, at the same time, more keenly to 
 enjoy, and more fondly to revere it." .
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 261 ■ 
 
 John Scott, the editor of the "London 
 Magazine," an acute -writer, thus sums up 
 Hazlitt's claims as a literary critic :— 
 
 " His manner of commenting on the 
 great writers is precisely that which Gibbon 
 described as the best of all others— most 
 worthy of the memory of departed genius, 
 and giving the most undoubted testimony 
 to the sincerity with which it is adorned. 
 He catches the mantles of those whose 
 celestial flights he regards with devout but 
 imdazzled eye. He lives in theii- time, 
 becomes animated with their feelings, and 
 conveys to us their spirit, in its unrivalled 
 freshness and uuquenched fire. Nothing 
 that is common-place or uiuneaning— none 
 of the expletives of criticism— enter into 
 his discourses ; he never ' bandies idle 
 words ; ' the source of true beauty, the soul 
 of poetical life, the hidden charm, the 
 essential principle of power and efficacy, the 
 original feature, the distinguishing property 
 —to these his sagacity and taste are drawn, 
 as it were, by instinct, and with these only 
 he meddles in his expositions." 
 
 Miss Martineau's opinion of Hazlitt as 
 a critic and essayist is equally emphatic : — 
 
 " In Hazlitt, we lost the prince of critics ; 
 and after he was gone, there were many 
 who could never look at a fiction, or see a 
 tragedy, or ponder a point of morals, or take 
 a sm-vey of any public character, without 
 a melancholy sense of loss in Hazlitfs 
 absence and silence. There can scai'cely
 
 262 William Hazlitt 
 
 be a stronger gratification of the critical 
 faculties tlian in reading HazUtt's essays. 
 . . . As an essayist, he had rivals; as a 
 critical essayist, he had none." 
 
 Sir Archibald Alison, -who disliked 
 Hazlitt's political opinions, says of him:— 
 
 " In critical disquisitions on the leading 
 characters and works of the di-ama, he is 
 not surpassed in the whole range of Eng- 
 lish Uterature." 
 
 George GUfillan, in his "Gallery of 
 Literary Portraits," devotes a chapter to 
 Hazlitt. He says :— 
 
 "Hazlitt, as a man, had errors of no 
 little magnitude; but he was as sincere 
 and honest a being as ever breathed. . . . 
 His works abound in gems, as sparkling as 
 they are precious, and ever and anon a 
 ' mountain of light ' lifts up its shining head. 
 Not only are they full of profound critical 
 dicta, but of the sharpest observations upon 
 life and manners, upon history, and the 
 metaphysics of the human mind. Descrip- 
 tions of nature, too, are there, cool, clear, 
 and refreshing as siunmer leaves. And then 
 how fine are his panegyrics on the old 
 masters and the old poets ! And ever and 
 anon he floats away into long glorious 
 passages, such as that on Wordsworth and 
 that on Coleridge, in the ' Spirit of the 
 Age ' — such as his description of the effects 
 of the Reformation— such as his panegyric 
 on poetry— his character of Sir Thomas
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 263 
 
 Browne— and his pictm-e of the Reign of 
 Terror! Few things in the language are 
 greater than these. They resemble 
 'The long-resounding march and energy 
 
 divine' 
 of the ancient lords of English prose— the 
 Drydens, the Brownes, the Jeremy Taylors, 
 and the Miltons. . . . 
 
 A subtle thinker, an eloquent writer, a 
 lover of beauty and poetry, and man, and 
 truth, one of the best of critics, and not the 
 worst of men, expired in William Hazlitt.' 
 
 Ebenezer Elliott, the vigorous " Anti-Corn 
 Law Rhymer," said to a friend who visited 
 him:— 
 
 " The reading of Hazlitt was an epoch 
 to me ; I advise you to study him." 
 
 Miss Mitford, in a letter to Sir William 
 Elf ord, thus speaks of Hazlitt :— 
 
 "By the way, I never hear you talk of 
 HazUtt. Did you never read any of his 
 works ■? Never read ' The Round Table ? ' 
 'The Characters of Shakespeare's Plays?' 
 ' The Lectures on English Poetry ? ' or the 
 ' Lectures on the English Comic Writers ? ' 
 The ' Quarterly Reviewers ' give him a bad 
 character, but that merely regards politics, 
 and politics ought not to weigh in works of 
 general literature. I am siue you would 
 like them; they are so exquisitely enter- 
 taining, so original, so free from every sort 
 of critical shackle— the style is so delight-
 
 264 William Hazlitt 
 
 fully piquant, so sparkling, so glittering, 
 so tasteful, so condensed; tlie images 
 and illustrations come in sucli rich and 
 graceful profusion that one seems like 
 Aladdia in the magic garden, where the 
 leaves were emeralds, the flowers sapphires, 
 and the fruits topazes and rubies. Do read 
 some of the lectures. You will not agree 
 with half Mr. Hazlitf s opinions, neither do 
 I, but you \nil be very much entertained. 
 Every now and then two or three pages 
 together are really like a series of epigrams, 
 particularly in the ' Lectures on the Living 
 Poets.' There is a character of your friend 
 Mr. Wordsworth which will enchant you." 
 
 Alexander Smith, the author of " Dream- 
 thorp," a critic and essayist of no mean 
 qualifications, says :— 
 
 " Hazlitt, if he lacked Lamb's quaintness 
 and ethereal humour, and Hunt's powerful- 
 ness, possessed a robust and passionate 
 faculty, which gave him a distinct place in 
 the literature of his time. His feelings 
 were keen and deep. He had a decided 
 metaphysical tm-n ; he was an acute critic in 
 . poetry and art, but he wrote too much, and 
 he wrote too hurriedly. When at his best, 
 his style is excellent, concise, vigorous;— 
 laying open the stubborn thought as the 
 sharp ploughshare the glebe. . . . His 
 best essays are, in a sense, autobiographical, 
 because in them he recalls his enthusiasms, 
 and the passionate hopes on which he fed 
 his spirit. . . . Some of his essays
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 265 
 
 contain passages -wliich any man might 
 be proud to have written/' 
 
 Mr. Eichard Garnett, a high authority 
 as a literary critic, in the article "William 
 Hazlitt," in the new edition of the 
 " EncyclopEedia Britannica," thus deals with 
 this writer :— 
 
 "Next to Coleridge, Hazlitt was perhaps 
 the most powerful exponent of the dawning 
 perception that Shakespeare's art was no less 
 marvellous than his genius ; and Hazlitt's 
 criticism did not, like Coleridge's, remain in 
 the condition of a series of brilliant but fit- 
 ful glimpses of insight, but was elaborated 
 with steady care. His lectures on the 
 Elizabethan dramatists performed a similar 
 service for the earlier, sweeter, and simpler 
 among them, such as Dekker . . . while 
 his criticisms on the English comic writers 
 and men of letters iu general are master- 
 pieces of ingenious and felicitous exposition, 
 though rarely, like Coleridge's, penetrating 
 to the inmost core of the subject. As an 
 essayist Hazlitt is even more effective than 
 as a critic. For this style of composition 
 allows more scope to the striking indi- 
 viduality of his character. Being enabled 
 to select his own subjects, he escapes 
 dependence upon others either for his matter 
 or his illustrations, and presents himself by 
 turns as a metaphysician, a moralist, a 
 humorist, a painter of manners and charac- 
 teristics, but always, whatever his ostensible
 
 266 William Hazlitt 
 
 theme, deriving the essence of his com- 
 mentary from his own bosom. This 
 combination of intense snbjectiTity with 
 strict adherence to his subject is one of 
 Hazlitt's most distinctive and creditable 
 traits. Intellectual truthfulness is apassion 
 with him. He steeps his topic in the hues 
 of his own individuality, but never uses it 
 as a means of self -display. . . . 
 
 With many serious defects both on the 
 intellectual and the moral side, Hazlitt's 
 character in both had at least the merit of 
 sincerity and consistency. He was a com- 
 pound of intellect and passion, and the 
 refinement of his critical analysis is asso- 
 ciated with vehement eloquence and glow- 
 ing imagery. He was essentially a critic, a ' 
 dissector, and, as Bulwer justly remarks, a 
 much better judge of men of thought than of 
 men of action. But he also possessed many 
 gifts in no way essential to the critical 
 character, and transcending the critic's 
 orelinary sphere. These, while giving ^im 
 rank as an independent writer, frequently 
 perturbed the natural clearness of his criti- 
 cal judgment and seduced him into the 
 paradoxes with which his works abound. 
 These paradoxes, however, never spring 
 from affectation; they are in general the 
 sallies of a mind so agile and ardent as to 
 overrun its o-svn goal. . His style is perfectly 
 natural, and yet admirably calculated for 
 effect. His diction, always rich and mas- 
 culine, seems to kindle as he proceeds ; and 
 when thoroughly animated by his subject.
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 267 
 
 he advances with a succession of energetic, 
 hard-hitting sentences, each carrying his 
 argument a step further, like a champion 
 dealing out blows as he presses upon the 
 enemy." 
 
 This aiTay of testimonies, which might 
 readily be extended to a much greater 
 length, cannot be more fitly closed than in 
 the following touching words of Charles 
 Lamb, Hazlitt's warm friend and admirer. 
 They occur in his celebrated letter to 
 Sonthey :— 
 
 "Protesting against much he has written, 
 and some things which he chooses to do ; 
 judging him by his conversation, which I en- 
 joyed so long, and relished so deeply; or by 
 his books, in those places where no clouding 
 passion intervenes, I should belie my own 
 conscience, if I said less, than that I think 
 W. H. to be, in his natural and healthy state, 
 one of the wisest and finest spirits breathing. 
 So far from being ashamed of that intimacy, 
 which was betwixt us, it is my boast that I 
 was able for so many years to have preseiTed 
 it entire, and I think I shall go to my "grave 
 without finding, or expecting to find, such 
 another companion." 
 
 The compiler would scarcely, perhaps, 
 have considered it necessary to say so much 
 about Hazlitt, had it not been for an ill- 
 considered and rash estimate of him by 
 Mrs. Oliphant, in her " Literary History of
 
 268 William Hazlitt 
 
 England" (1790—1825), 3 vols., lately pub- 
 lished, a book wbicli, from the reputation 
 of its author, is likely to become one of 
 considerable authority on the period of our 
 literatui"e to which it refers. Her estimate 
 of this remarkable writer is entirely wanting 
 in that discrimination and appreciation 
 which characterise her judgments regard- 
 ing other authors, such as Cowper, Bums, 
 Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Lamb, 
 Jane Austen, &c. It is only charitable to 
 suppose that Mrs. OUphant is but slightly 
 acquainted with Hazlitt's works. Even the 
 most superficial perusal of one or two of his 
 best volumes would hardly have warranted 
 such an inept criticism as this—" B.i3 books 
 are already as old as if they had been written 
 a thousand years ago, instead of half-a- 
 hundred." An able critic in the " Spectator," 
 reviewing Mrs. Oliphant's book, thus protests 
 against her estimate of Hazlitt :— 
 
 " This, so far as we can judge, is simply 
 erroneous. We should say that Hazlitt is 
 still widely read, and that there is little 
 better reading. Charming as Lamb is, there 
 is far less to be learned from him of the life 
 of his day than there is from the gloomy 
 and dyspeptic Hazlitt. Violent and unjust 
 as were his prejudices, he had one of the 
 shi-ewdest eyes of his generation, and his 
 papers on ' My First Acquaintance with 
 Poets,' for instance, give us more knowledge 
 of Coleridge and Wordsworth, than we can
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 269 
 
 get from any other source. As a critic, too, 
 he cannot help discerning genius where 
 genius is, and brings home to us with 
 marvellous force exactly in what it con- 
 sisted. In fact, we know no essays of the 
 early part of the present century to compare 
 with Hazlitt's for shrewdness, force, and a 
 certain accurate, if decidedly malevolent, 
 incisiveness. Among the caprices of Mrs. 
 Oliphant's judgment, we find none odder 
 than her notion of the obsoleteness of 
 Hazlitt: We should call him by far the 
 most modern of that group of writers to 
 which he belonged." Another of Mrs. Oli- 
 phant's critics refers to her judgment of 
 Hazlitt in these words:— 
 
 "It may be questioned if a more foolish 
 bit of literary criticism was ever penned." 
 
 In conclusiori, the reader will, no doubt, 
 attach more weiglat to the deliberate and 
 carefully-formed opinions of the able critics 
 (luoted in this article, than to a hasty judg- 
 ment, pronounced by an otherwise deservedly 
 popular writer— although in this special 
 case she has made a grievous literary 
 niistake. Let the reader go to Hazlitt's 
 works themselves, and he will find in them 
 a store of instruction, delight, and invigora- 
 tion, as well as a remarkable power of 
 inspiring enthusiasm for genius, and of 
 stimulating intellectual sympathy. He will 
 never be perplexed by ideas imperfectly
 
 270 • William Hazlitt 
 
 grasped, by thoughts which the writer 
 cannot fully express. He will become 
 acquainted with a writer of rare incisive- 
 ness, and almost unerring literary judgment 
 — " whose manner " (to use the words of 
 Mr. Cotter Morison in his admii-able mono- 
 graph on Macaulay, and which are equally 
 applicable to Hazlitt) "is straightforward 
 and frank, and therefore winning, and who 
 communicates the interest he feels— an 
 adept in the art of putting himself en rappot 
 with his reader— whose thought is always 
 weU ■n-ithin his reach, and is unfolded with 
 complete mastery and ease to its uttermost 
 filament." 
 
 It may be mentioned that a selection of 
 Hazlitt' s works has been published by 
 Messrs. Bell & Sons, in six volumes, at a vei-y 
 moderate price. These contain a reprint of 
 fourteen of his best volumes, viz.:—" Lectures 
 on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth," 
 " Characters of Shakespeare's Plays," "Lec- 
 tures on the English Poets," "Lectures on 
 the English Comic Writers," "Table-Talk; 
 Essays on Men and Manners " (2 vols.), " The 
 Plain Speaker; Opinions on Books, Men, 
 and Things" (2 vols.), " The Round Table ; 
 Essays on Literature, &c." (2 vols.), "Charac- 
 teristics in the manner of Bochefoucald's 
 Maxims," "Sketches and Essays," " Win- 
 terslow; Essays and Characters wTitten
 
 As Essayist and Critic. 271 
 
 there," and " Conversations of James Nortli- 
 cote, R.A." Of this volume it was said that 
 "All the ill-natoi'e in the book is North- 
 cote's; and all, or almost all, the talent 
 Hazlitt's." Messrs. Reeves & Turner have 
 issued a volume of HazUtt' s numerous papers 
 on the Fine Arts, not given in the above 
 series, including his treatise on that subject 
 contributed to " The Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica." This treatise is the only work of* 
 Hazlitt's ever noticed by the "Quarterly 
 Review." It says of this Essay: "We have 
 read no work of this author with anything 
 approaching to the same gratification. . . 
 The whole subject of the treatise is to show 
 that the perfection attained by all the great 
 masters arose from the study of the nature 
 which surrounded them, and not from that 
 imagined improvement lapon nature which 
 has been called the ideal." 
 
 In addition to the works above enume- 
 rated, Hazlitt wrote between twenty and 
 thirty volumes on other subjects, including 
 a metaphysical essay, political essays and 
 sketches of political characters, notes of a 
 journey tln-ough France and Italy, including 
 observations on the fine arts, a score of 
 reviews in the "Edinburgh Review," criti- 
 cisms on the stage, portraits of distinguished 
 literary contemporaries, a life of Napoleon 
 (one-Bided, but extremely brilliant), and 
 other biographies, and a remarkable but 
 regretted self - revelation, called "Liber
 
 272 William Hazlitt. 
 
 Amoris." This book has been the subject of 
 ' many articles and much curious criticism. 
 De Quincey called it "an explosion of 
 frenzy.' it has been characterised by other 
 critics as "a novelty in the English lan- 
 guage;" "cannot be read •without amazed 
 and painful pity;" "an eclipse of the 
 rational faculty;" "takes a flight equal to 
 anything that poetry or fiction has left us," 
 &c., &c. Lord Houghton speaks of it as 
 "that curious adyenture which Hazlitt has 
 embalmed in that delightful book, the 
 ' Liber Amoris.' " 
 
 Of Hazlitt' s Life of Napoleon, which 
 extended to four volumes, Albany Fon- 
 blanque, the foremost journalist of his 
 day, said: "We will venture to assert that 
 tliis work displays a deeper insight into 
 the sources and principles of morals and 
 politics, in brief, rapid, and lightning 
 glances— of ten as it were en passant— than 
 nine out of ten of the formal treatises which 
 are regarded as profound authority. . . . 
 The narrative is rapid, spontaneous, and 
 abounding with the mental touches which 
 so peculiarly distinguish this writer." 
 
 A. I.
 
 LEIGH HUNT, 
 
 HIS GENIUS AND CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 At page 109, at the conclusion of the 
 extracts given from Leigh Hunt, the com- 
 pUer refers the reader to this Appendix for 
 testimonies to the genius of this charming 
 writer, by distinguished Book-lovers and 
 Book-writers, It may possibly be said that 
 these remarks extend to too gi-eat a length. 
 If this objection be made, the compiler's 
 answer is that the author in question was 
 one of the most gifted of his day, and a 
 typical man of letters ; and that his writings, 
 owing to causes which need not here be 
 entered into, are too little known to the 
 present generation. He feels assiu-ed that 
 many readers will thank him for making 
 them acquainted with Hunt, and that he is 
 doing some service to the cause of literatni'e 
 by endeavoui'ing to rescue his works fi"om 
 undeserved neglect. 
 
 Leigh Hunt is an author who deserves 
 to be better known than he is by modem 
 readers. As a refined, accomplished, and 
 genial critic and essayist he takes high 
 rank. He was probably the finest belles- 
 leitrist of his day. The spirit of all 
 his essays and criticisms is eminently 
 liealthy, cheerful, and humanising. His
 
 274 Leigh Hunfs 
 
 Tvritings overflow with pleasant thoughts. 
 He is one of the best teachers of that kind 
 of contentment and gratitude which arise 
 from a thankful recognition of those every- 
 day joys and blessings that more or less 
 surround us all, and to the value of which 
 most of us are too insensible. He stimulates 
 to a desire of generous activity those 
 sympathies which habit and the routine of 
 life and business too often render languid 
 and indolent. A belief in the good and 
 beautiful, a reliance on the ultimate suc- 
 cessful issue of every true and honest 
 endeavour, and a " brotherly consideration 
 for mistake and circumstance," pervade all 
 that he has 'mitten. He constantly asserts 
 the claims of the natural over the conven- 
 tional, and keeps a wide and catholic outlook 
 on humanity. Cheap and simple pleasures, 
 true taste leading to true economy, the com- 
 panionship of books, the intercourse of mind 
 with mind, the neglected blessings about 
 our feet, and those "stray gifts of beauty 
 and wisdom," scattered far and wide, and 
 which disclose themselves only to the 
 receptive soul, are the constant themes of 
 his pen. All these, and a thousand things 
 else, in-doors and out-of-doors, in books, in 
 nature, in men, and in ar*, he talks about in 
 a way so natural, frank, and unconventional 
 —so marked by a pervading kindliness of 
 feeling, and entering so heartily into owe 
 thoughts and sympathies,— that he cannot
 
 Genius and Writings. 275 
 
 *ut be placed in the foremost rank of our 
 most genial essayists. 
 
 In all his writings, whatever may be their 
 form, there is the same obvious endeavour 
 towards the one end of making his readers 
 wiser and happier, by makuig them more 
 conscious of the causes of their own faults 
 and follies, and more tolerant towards those 
 of others, and at the same time more alive 
 to the innumerable sources of pleasure that 
 exist within themselves, and everywhere 
 about then* — covered, but not concealed, by 
 the thick veil of habit and custom. " Over 
 all subjects that come within the sphere 
 of its operation, his genius has a commanding 
 control. It pierces into theii" essences, with 
 an eye made doubly keen by universal 
 kindness and love, and is perpetually dis- 
 covering in them, and bringing forth to tlie 
 sight of others, what never can be found l)at 
 thi-ough the denre of finding it, and what 
 perhaps in some instances only exists 
 through that ; but which does not, therefore, 
 the less really exist, for all the pm-poses 
 of iastruction and delight." One might 
 say that Hunt teaches better than any 
 other writer, "how to neutralise the 
 disagreeable, and make the best of what 
 is in our power." 
 
 It is a quality in Hunt's writings to 
 excite a feeling something like that of per- 
 sonal friendship towards himself, in the 
 breasts of readers who know nothing of him
 
 276 Leigh Hunfs 
 
 but through his works ; and this is one of the 
 most unequivocal proofs that can be adduced 
 of the value of those works, and the sin- 
 cerity of their author. His spirit comes to 
 us in our homes on the face of the earth, 
 and makes us content with them ; it meets 
 us with a smile, and what is better, makes 
 us meet others with a smile ; it shows us 
 what is good and beautiful, and teaches us 
 to love that goodness and beauty, wherever 
 we find them. 
 
 It may be added that Leigh Hunt was 
 one who practised what he taught, and it 
 may be truly said of him that his whole life 
 was up to a very high standard. He knew 
 much suffering, both physical and mental- 
 suffered many cares and grievous anxieties, 
 but his cheerful constancy, his faith "that 
 all which we behold is full of blessings," his 
 imperturbable sweetness of temper, and 
 indomitable love and forgiveness, never 
 failed him even in the shai-pest crises of his 
 life. That life was a iine example of the 
 impossibility of crushing the heart of a true 
 man, be his misfortunes and hardships ever 
 so severe. No one ever bore the rubs of 
 fortune more bravely than he did—" bating 
 no jot of heart or hope." He once was 
 beautifully spoken of by a great writer as 
 " the grey-headed boy whose heart can 
 never grow old," and those who know him 
 and his history, and who are familiar with his 
 writings, can feel the truth of the spying.
 
 Genius and Writings. 277 
 
 It is in the Essay that Leigh Hunt more 
 peculiarly "lives, and moves, and has his 
 being." It is sometimes, under his treat- 
 ment—a satire, or a sermon— an ingenious 
 speculation on life— a chapter of precepts— 
 an outpouring of the heart as to an intimate 
 friend— a genial or racy ciiticism- a lively 
 description of Christmas, or some other 
 holiday season— of a hot summer's day, or 
 a ramble in the woods— or a gossip about the 
 poets and wits of bygone daj's- Cowley, 
 Pepys, Pope, Addison, Congreve, Steele, 
 Wycherley, Farquhar, Cibber, or Lady 
 Wortley Montagu, or Mrs. Centlivi-e,- for 
 his sympathies were more with the 
 school of Queen Anne and her imme- 
 diate predecessors, than with that of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Sometimes his essay takes the form of a 
 finger-post to the choicest regions of oar 
 elder or modem literature— a gallery of 
 literary portraits— a chat over a bookstall— 
 a general looking-in at the shop-windows— a 
 ramble among historical quarters in the city 
 or suburbs— a description of a landscape 
 by Wilson or Gainsborough— or of a portfolio 
 of gem-like drawings — a romantic story 
 from real life— a classical fable with its 
 moral— or a fanciful soliloquy. Anon he 
 will get into a philosophical humour, and 
 discourse "On the slow rise of the most 
 rational opinions," and quote wise and 
 stately sentences from Lor<f Bacon's Essays
 
 278 Leigh Hunt's 
 
 or Milton's Areopagitica. On another occa- 
 sion he comes to us when he is running over 
 with news of the fields and the woods, and 
 can speak of nothing but May-day, and May- 
 poles, and the young spring-flowers. He 
 will give a charming description of the 
 pleasures of breakfasting in the country 
 on a fine summer morning, with open 
 window looking out upon a bright green 
 lau-n, with the air breathing in, fresh and 
 balmy, the sun-light streaming through the 
 foliage, and casting its chequering shadows 
 upon the favourite books and pictures with 
 which the parlour waUs are adorned— upon 
 the table, a few pansies freshly plucked, 
 contrasting well with the snow-white 
 cloth; and a bee humming about from 
 cnp to cup, seeking to partake of the 
 honey which itself probably assisted to 
 furnish. 
 
 But he can be grave and serious, as well 
 as gay and fancifuL At another time, 
 perhaps, when some calamity has over- 
 taken you, and affliction lies heavy on 
 your household, he comes in the guise of 
 an old and tried friend of the family, with 
 all a friend's privileges; and sits by your 
 hearth, and suggests many a tender and 
 solemn thought about death and immor- 
 tality. His manner has more- than its 
 usual kindness; his voice sounds gravely, 
 yet there is alnwst cheerfulness in its tone 
 when he says fflat "the best part of what
 
 Genius and Writings. 279 
 
 you loved still remains, an indestructible 
 possession— that although the visible form 
 be taken away, yet that was only lent for a 
 season, whereas the love itself is immortal, 
 and the consciousness of it will ever abide 
 to strengthen your' faith, and soothe you 
 amid the stir and fever of life." Or, it may 
 be that he speaks of " The Deaths of Little 
 Children," and then he almost makes you 
 feel as if his tme friend's hand were press- 
 ing youi- own, as he goes on to tell you that 
 " those who have lost an infant, are never, 
 as it were, withoiit an infant child— that 
 the other childi-en grow iip to manhood and 
 womanhood, and suffer aU the changes of 
 mortality ; but this one alone is rendered an 
 immortal child; for death has arrested it 
 with his kindly harshness, and blessed 
 it into an eternal image of youth and 
 innocence." 
 
 In the rough winter time again, " when 
 wind and rain beat dark December," he will 
 tell you of " A Day by the fire ' ' which he had 
 not long since— with all its home comforts 
 and accompaniments— the pleasant hour 
 before the candles are lighted— the gazing 
 meditatively into the fire — the kettle 
 "whispering its faint iinder-song," and the 
 cheerful tea-table with its joyous faces, and 
 the pleasant hoitrs between tea-time and 
 bed-time spent in free utterance of thought 
 as it comes, with a little music perhaps, or 
 the reading of some favourite passages to
 
 28o Leigh Htinfs 
 
 stimulate the conversational powers of the 
 cii-cle: while every now and then the rain 
 rattled against the windows, and the wind 
 liowled in such a way as to make everybody 
 think of the sea and the poor sailors, and 
 people who have to be out of doors in such 
 weather ; and, last of all— the quiet half -horn- 
 after every one had retired but himself— 
 when all around was silent, the cares of the 
 day gone to sleep, and the fading embers 
 reminding him where he should be. 
 
 In this working-day world, we are all the 
 better for such books as those of LeighHunf s. 
 They are calculated to gladden modest and 
 linmble firesides, and to give a direction to 
 the nascent tastes of young, ingenuous 
 minds. Such books as his refine and gild 
 for us our leisure moments, and cari-j' us out 
 and away from the turmoil of exacting 
 business life. The thoughts which such ' 
 books inspire are imperishable wealth. 
 They produce actual, visible, Jclt results. 
 Our hearts are quickened by them. They 
 give us a new sense of the good and beau- 
 tiful. If the sun be shining, they make it 
 even brighter than it is, and if clouds and 
 darkness be around our path, they teach us 
 that "into each day some rain must fall, 
 but behind the cloud is the sun still shining." 
 In his o^vTi words :— 
 " Fancy's the wealth of wealth, the toiler's 
 
 hope, 
 Tlie poor man's piecer-out ; the art of nature,
 
 Geiinis and Writings. 281 
 
 Painting her landscapes twice ; the spirit of 
 
 fact, 
 As matter is the body ; the pure gift 
 Of Heaven to poet and child ; the gift which 
 
 he 
 Who retains most in manhood, being a 
 
 man 
 In all things fitting else, is most a man ; 
 Because he wants no human faculty, 
 Nor loses one sweet tasle of the sweet 
 
 world." 
 
 Leigh Hunt's acquirements and literary 
 performances were much more extensive 
 and varied than is generally understood. 
 He was not only as has been stated an 
 essayist and critic of great originality, pos- 
 sessing the nicest observation of men and 
 manners, and gifted with an exquisite power 
 of appreciating the subtlest beauties of 
 literature and art^a poet of much tender- 
 ness, as well as of delicate and vivid fancy, 
 entirely free from that "morbid mysticism " 
 which is so prominent a characteristic of the 
 poetry of the last thMy years — whose 
 narrative compositions, such as " The Story 
 of Rimini," are among the vei-y best of the 
 kind in the language, characterised by 
 simple beauty, and a sparkling grace and 
 movement quite peculiar to himself — an 
 excellent translator from the Italian and 
 Greek poets,— a dramatist who has enriched 
 this department of literatui-e with his 
 beautifiU "Legend of Florence,"— and one 
 
 EK
 
 282 . Leigh Hunfs 
 
 of the best theatrical critics we ever had— 
 but he also occupied, in his earUer years, a 
 distinguished position as an editor and 
 journalist. 
 
 In 1808 he and his brother John started 
 the "Examiner," which was for more 
 than twelve years conducted by the former. 
 Great were the services rendered by 
 them, in those years, to the cause of free 
 speech. Ko journal in the kingdom advo- 
 cated liberal principles with more invincible 
 courage than the "Examiner." Every 
 liberal measure, without a single exception, 
 which has since become the law of the land, 
 did it plead for and support ; and that, too, 
 at a time when to be a reformer was almost 
 certain to subject a political writer to the 
 greatest risks and sufferings both in purse 
 and person. The "Examiner' was one of 
 the very boldest and most courageous of 
 that small band which maintained through 
 disastrous times its allegiance to the cause 
 of liberty and reform. Hunt and his brother 
 threw themselves, heart and soul, into the 
 thick of the struggle, and fought for years 
 in the foremost rank with true self-devotiou 
 —suffering a two years' imprisonment, and 
 a pecuniary loss by fine, &c., of nearly £2,000. 
 Well has it been said that those who carry 
 on the joiirnalism of the present day with 
 the same views, should never forget that 
 they are the more free to do so from the self- 
 sacrificing spirit which animated those two
 
 Genius and Writings. 283 
 
 brothers. The failure of the attempt to 
 crush the "Examiner" was a triumph, and 
 an encouragement to the whole English 
 press. As a journalist, no man did more 
 than Leigh Hunt, in his time, to raise the 
 tone of newspaper writing, to introduce into 
 it the amenities of literature and art, and to 
 infuse into its keenest controversies the 
 utmost fairness and tolerance. In all he 
 wrote in connection with politics, he in- 
 variably exhibited a true gentlemanliness, 
 united to a spirit of the greatest candour, 
 which gave the "Examiner" a very high 
 character in intellectual circles. 
 
 A long list might be given of critics of 
 high authority who have borne testimony to 
 Hunt's genius and literary accomplishments. 
 Among them may be named Shelley, Keats, 
 Byron, Lamb, Hazlitt, Lord Ly tton (Bulwer), 
 Dickens, Thackeray, R. H. Home, W. Howitt, 
 W. J. Fox, Mary Russell Mitford, Mary and 
 Charles Cowden Clarke, Gerald Massey, Lord 
 Houghton (Monckton Milnes), Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne, and a host of others. Some of 
 these testimonies are so admirably expressed 
 that it is only just to the memory of Hunt 
 to record a few sentences culled from the 
 choicest of them. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, during the earlier years 
 of his residence in London, was on very
 
 284 Leigh Hunfs 
 
 intimate terms of friendship with Hunt. 
 On one occasion he thus spoke of him ;— 
 
 "Well seen into, he has done much for 
 the world, as every man possessed of such 
 qualities, and freely speaking them forth in 
 the abundance of his heart, for thirty years 
 long, must needs do ; how much, they that 
 could judge best would perhaps estimate 
 highest." 
 
 When Hunt's " Autobiography" appealed 
 in 1850, Carlyle read it with the deepest 
 interest, and wrote to the author expressing 
 his admiration of the work. A letter more 
 over-flowing with loving-kindness, andhearty 
 recognition and sympathy, is not to be found 
 in the whole range of literary correspon- 
 dence. A verbatim reprint of this letter has 
 never before appeared. The following is 
 a faithful reproduction of the original, of 
 which the compiler of "The Book-Lover's 
 Enchiridion" is the fortunate possessor :— 
 
 "Dear "Hunt, 
 
 "I have just finished j-our 'Autobio- 
 graphy,' which has been most pleasantly 
 occupying all my leisure these three days; 
 and you must permit me to write you a word 
 upon it, out of the fulness of the heart, 
 while the impulse is still fresh, to thank 
 you. This good Book, in every sense one 
 of the best I have read this long while, has 
 awakened many old thoughts, which never 
 were extinct, or even properly asleep, but
 
 Genius and Writings. 285 
 
 ■which (like so much else) have had to fall 
 silent amid the tempests of an evil time,— 
 Heaven mend it ! A word from me, once 
 more, I know, will not be unwelcome, while 
 the world is talking of you. 
 
 "Well, I call this an excellently good 
 Book ; by far the best of the autobiographic 
 kind I remember to have read in the English 
 language ; and indeed, except it be Bos- 
 well's of Johnson, I do not know where we 
 have such a Picture drawn of a human 
 Life, aa in these three volumes. A pious, 
 ingenious, altogether human and worthy 
 Book; imaging with graceful honesty and 
 free felicity, many interesting objects and 
 persons on yovu: life-path,— and imaging 
 throughout, what is best of all, a gifted, 
 gentle, patient and valiant human soul, as 
 it buffets its way thi-o' the billows of the 
 time, and will not drown, tho' often in 
 danger; cannot be drowned, but conquers, 
 and leaves a track of radiance behind it : 
 that, I think, comes out more clearly to me 
 than in any other of your Books ; and that 
 I can venture to assm-e you is the best of 
 all results to /ealise in a Book or written 
 record. In fact this Book has been like an 
 exercise of devotion to me : I have not 
 assisted at any sermon, liturgy or litany, 
 this long while, that has had so reUgious an 
 effect on me. Thanks in the name of all 
 men ! And believe along with me that this 
 Book will be welcome to other generations 
 as weU as to ours— and long may you live to 
 write more Books for us ; and may the
 
 286 Leigh Hunfs 
 
 evening sun be softer on you (and on me) 
 than the noon sometimes was ! 
 
 "Adieu, dear Hunt, (j-ou must let me use 
 this familiarity, for I am an old fellow too 
 now as well as you). I hare often thought 
 of coming up to see you once more; and 
 perhaps I shall one of these days (the' 
 horribly sick and lonely, and beset with 
 spectral lions, go whitherward I may); tut 
 whether I do or not, believe for ever in my 
 regard. And so God bless you. 
 
 " Yours heartily, 
 
 "T. Carlyle." 
 
 Lord Lytton (Bulwer), in an article in the 
 "Quarterly Review" on "Charles Lamb 
 and some of his Companions," pays a 
 graceful and tender tribute to Hunt :— 
 
 " In one of his most delightful essays, 
 entitled 'My Books,' Hunt, speaking of 
 the great -vsTriters who were book-lovera like 
 himself, exclaims, 'How pleasant it is to 
 reflect that all these lovers of books have 
 themselves become books.' And after pur- 
 suing that thought through ' links of sweet- 
 ness long drawn out,' concludes with a 
 modest pathos, ' May I hope to become the 
 meanest of these existences? ... I 
 should like to remain visible in this shape. 
 The little of myself that pleases myself I 
 could wish to be accounted worth pleasing 
 others. I should like to survive so, were it 
 only for the sake of those who love me in 
 private, knowing, as I do, what a treasure is 
 the possession of a friend's mind when he is 
 no more.'
 
 Genius and Writings. 287 
 
 " We think few can read this very lovely 
 passage and not sympathise cordially in 
 the wish so nobly conceived and so tenderly 
 expressed. Something not to be replaced 
 would be struck out of the gentler literature 
 of our century, could the mind of Leigh 
 Hunt cease to speak to us in a hook." 
 
 In a criticism on Hunt, written more 
 than thirty years before the date of the 
 above extract, the same writer thus speaks 
 of him as a critic, and of his freedom from 
 all rancour or literary jealousy :— 
 
 " His kindly and cheerful sympathy with 
 nature— his perception of the minuter and 
 more latent sources of the beautiful— spread 
 an irresistible charm over his compositions. 
 . . . In criticism, indeed, few living 
 writers have equalled those subtle and 
 delicate compositions which have appeared 
 in the 'Indicator,' the ' Tatler,' and the 
 earlier pages of the ' Examiner '—and above 
 all, none have excelled the poet now before 
 our own critical bar in the kindly sjTnpathies 
 with which, in judging of others, he has 
 softened down the asperities, and resisted 
 the caprices, common to the exercise of 
 power. In him the young poet has ever 
 found a generous encourager no less than a 
 faithful guide. None of the jealousy or the 
 rancour ascribed to literary men, and almost 
 natural to such literary men as the world 
 has wronged, have gained access to his true 
 heart, or embittered his generous sympathies. 
 Struggling against no light misfortunes, and 
 no common foes, he has not helped to
 
 288 Leigh Htmfs 
 
 retaliate upon rising authors the difficulty 
 and the depreciation which have burdened 
 his own career; he has kept, undiminished 
 and unbroken, through all reverses, that 
 first requisite of a good critic— a good 
 heart." 
 
 William Hazlitt concludes a paper on 
 Hunt with this high estimate of bim :— 
 
 "His critical and miscellaneous papers 
 have all the ease, grace, and power of the 
 best style of essay writing. Many of his 
 eSusions in the ' Indicator ' show that, if he 
 had devoted himself exclusively to that 
 mode of writing, he inherits more of the 
 spirit of Steele than any man since his 
 time." 
 
 His friend, John Keats, the Poet, has 
 these lines :— 
 
 " And I shall ever bless my destiny, 
 That in a time, when under pleasant trees 
 
 Pain is no longer sought, I feel a free, 
 A leafy luxury, seeing I could please, 
 
 With these poor offerings, a man like thee." 
 
 Shelley dedicated his great tragedy, 
 " The Cenci," to Hunt, using these words :— 
 
 " Had I known a person more highly 
 endowed than yourself with all that it 
 becomes a man to possess, I had solicited 
 for this work the ornament of his name. 
 One more gentle, honourable, innocent, and 
 brave; one of more exalted toleration for 
 all who do or think evil, and yet himself
 
 Genius and Writings. 289 
 
 more free from evil ; one who knows better 
 how to receive and how to confer a benefit, 
 though he must ever confer far more than 
 he can receive; one of simpler and (in the 
 highest sense of the word) of purer life and 
 manners, I never knew ; and I had already 
 been fortunate in friendships when your 
 name was added to the Ust. ... All 
 happiness attend you." 
 
 Charles Lamb, in his celebrated Letter to 
 Southey, says :— 
 
 "He is one of the most cordial-minded 
 men I ever knew— a matchless friend and 
 companion." 
 
 Many years after the miscrupulous and 
 malicious attacks on Hunt in "Blackwood's 
 Magazine,' ' John Wilson (Christopher North), 
 the Editor, made the following hearty 
 amende honorable :— 
 
 "And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. 
 Their friendship was favourable to both, 
 for it v.'as as disiaterested as serene. . . . 
 The animosities are mortal, but the humani- 
 ties live for ever. . . . Leigh Hunt has 
 more talent in his little finger than the 
 • puling prig who has taken upon himself to 
 lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawl- 
 ing with forgotten falsehoods. Mr. Hunt's 
 'London Journal,' my dear James, is not 
 only beyond all comparison, but out of all 
 sight, the most entertaining and instructive 
 of all the cheap periodicals ; and when laid, 
 as it duly is once a week, on my breakfast' 
 
 LL
 
 290 Leigh Hunt's 
 
 table, it lies there— but it is not permitted to 
 lie long— like a spot of sunshine dazzling 
 the snow." — "Noctes Ambrosianae," in 
 "Blackwood's UagazLne," August, 1834. 
 
 It is also known that Wilson, long after 
 the brutal attacks above alluded to, wrote to 
 Hunt, expressing his regret for the injustice 
 he had done to him, solely from the political 
 antagonism and fierce party feeling of the 
 time— inviting him at the same time to write 
 in the Magazine. This Hunt declined ; but 
 WUson's apology gave him great satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 Those who are acquainted with his papers 
 in the "Indicator," and "Companion," 
 and "Tatler," and "London Journal," are 
 familiar with the characteristics of his pen. 
 There were few better critics of English style 
 than Lockhart, and although he was a viru- 
 lent political enemy of Hunt, he is reported 
 to have spoken most highly of his prose 
 and of the Essays in the "Indicator.". 
 Surely never did a brace of foUo volumes 
 hold within them more varied and pleasant 
 reading than the "London Journal," with 
 its felicitous motto:— "To assist the en- 
 quii-ing, animate the struggling, and sym- 
 pathise with aU." But it was too refined, too 
 literary, too recherche, for the mass of ordi- 
 nary readers. It aimed too high above their 
 heads. It was calculated for a better class— 
 for readers of culture, and imagination, and
 
 Genitis and Writings. 291 
 
 taste. The reader will find further on 
 some vei-y pertinent remarks on this unique 
 periodical, from the pen of one intimately 
 acquainted with its contents. 
 
 Lord Macaulay, in an article in the 
 "Edinbm-gh Eeview," says of Hunt:— 
 
 " We reaUy think that there is hardly a 
 man whose merits have been so grudgingly 
 allowed, and whose • faults have been so 
 cruelly expiated. ... We do not always 
 agree with his literary judgments; but we 
 find in him, what is very rare in our time, the 
 power of justly appreciating and heartily 
 enjoying good things of very different 
 kinds." 
 
 Edihund Oilier, the accomplished son of 
 Charles Oilier, the friend of Hmit and the 
 publisher of Keats's and Shelley's earliest 
 works, in a striking essay on Hunt's genius 
 thus speaks of his judgment and fine balance 
 of mind :— 
 
 "Leigh Hunt's criticism may never have 
 reached the majestic and sonorous heights 
 of Hazlitt's masterpieces; it had less of 
 eloquence and force; but it was more re- 
 liable and more even. Its quality was 
 exquistely refined and delicate— the result 
 of a natui-al sensibility, educated and trained 
 by long and cai-eful study; but it is a mis- 
 take to suppose that its only characteristic 
 was sympathy. No doubt, sympathy was a 
 chief element; but not more so than judg- 
 ment. Leigh Hunt has never had justice
 
 292 Leigh Hunfs 
 
 done Mm for the excellent sense and sanitj' 
 of his mind. . . . Hunt seems always to 
 preserve the balance of his faculties. With 
 great powers of admiration, a strong sense 
 of enjoyment, and an ardent disposition, he 
 nevertheless appeared to know the exact line 
 beyond which literary worsliip passes into 
 superstition." 
 
 Hunt's intimate and dear friend, John 
 Forster, author of "The Statesmen of the 
 Commonwealth," "Life of Goldsmith," 
 "Life of Dickens," &c., said of him:— 
 
 " There was surely never a man of so 
 sunny a nature who could draw so much 
 pleasure from common things, or to whom 
 books were a world so real, so exhaustless, 
 so delightful. I was only seventeen when 
 I derived from liim the tasks which have 
 been the solace of all subsequent years, and 
 I well remember the last time I saw him at 
 Hammersmith, not long before his death 
 in 1859, when, with his delicate, worn, but 
 keenly intellectual face, his large luminous 
 eyes, his thick grey hair, and a little cape 
 of black silk over his shoulders, he looked 
 like an old French abbd. He was buoyant 
 and pleasant as ever, and was busy upon a 
 vindication of Chaucer and Spenser from 
 Cardinal Wiseman, who had attacked them." 
 
 The same writer, in an article in the 
 
 ■'Athena; urn," has these concluding words :— 
 
 " No one draws out the exquisite passages
 
 Genius and Writings. 293 
 
 of a favouiite author with such conscious 
 relish— no one is happier or finer in the 
 distinction of beauties— no one more en- 
 gaging in taking the reader's sympathy for 
 granted. . . . He is the prince of par- 
 loui'-window writers; whether it be of the 
 winter parlour with its ' sea-coal fire ' and 
 its warmly-cushioned seat in the oriel, to 
 hear the wind pining outside which is so 
 luxuiious an enhancement of comfort— or 
 the summer parlour, with its open window, 
 cui-taiued by woodbine di-aperies or veiled 
 with jessamine flowers." 
 
 Talfom-d and Jerrold were both warm 
 admirers of Hunt's writings. The fonner 
 said of him :— 
 
 "His beauty and pathos will live when 
 all topics of temporary irritation have 
 expired ; one who has been ' true as steel ' 
 to the best hopes of human natiue ; a poet, 
 a wit, and an honest man." 
 
 Jerrold said of him :— 
 
 "If Goldsmith could touch notliing but 
 what he adorned, it may be said of Leigh 
 Hunt that he touches nothing without 
 extracting beauty from it, and without 
 imparting a sense of it to his readers." 
 
 Thackeray and Dickens have both left 
 tributes to Hunt's genius and character. 
 Thackeray's words are :— 
 
 "Few essayists have equalled, or ap- 
 proached, Leigh Hunt in the combiiied
 
 294 Leigh Himfs 
 
 •versatility, invention, and finish of his 
 miscellaneous prose writings ; and few, 
 indeed, have brought such varied sj-mpa- 
 thies to call forth the sympathies of the 
 reader— and always to good purpose, — in 
 favour of kindness, of reflection, of natural 
 pleasures, of culture, and of using the 
 available resources of life." 
 
 Fi-om Dickens's touching tribute a few 
 sentences only can be given : — 
 
 "His was an essentially human nature, 
 rich and inclusive. . . . sometimes over- 
 clouded vtiih. the shadow of affliction, but 
 more often bright and hopeful, and at all 
 times sympathetic ; taking a keen delight 
 in all beautiful things— in the exhaustless 
 world of books and art, in the rising genius 
 of young authors, in the immortal language 
 of music, in trees and flowers, ... in 
 the sunlight which came, as he used to say, 
 like a visitor out of heaven, glorifying 
 humble places ; in the genial intercourse of 
 mind with mind; in the most trifling inci- 
 dents of daily life that spoke of truth and 
 nature, ... in the domesticities of 
 family life, and in the general progress of 
 the world, . . . who, in the midst of the 
 sorest temptations, mamtained his honesty 
 unblemished by a single stain— who, in all 
 public and private transactions, was the 
 very soul of truth and honour." 
 
 From the article " Leigh Hunt" in the new 
 Edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica,"
 
 Genius and Writings. 295 
 
 by Mr. Richard Gamett, the deservedly 
 popular administrator of the Reading Room 
 of the British Museum Library— an accom- 
 plished scholar, whose opinion of Hazlitt 
 has been recorded at page 265— the following 
 sentences are taken :— 
 
 "In liis 'Imagination and Fancy' and 
 'Wit and Humour' he shows himself as 
 withm a certain range, the most refined, 
 appreciative and felicitous of critics. "With 
 Chaucer, Spenser, and the old English 
 dramatists he is perfectly at home, and his 
 subtle and discriminating criticism upon 
 them, as well as upon his own great con- 
 temporaries, is continually bringing to light 
 .beauties unsuspected by the reader, as they 
 were probably undesigned by the ^T.-iter. 
 ... He possessed every qualification for 
 a translator. . . . As an appreciative 
 critic, whether literary or dramatic, he is 
 hardly equalled ; his guidance is as safe as it 
 is genial. . . . He was, in fact, as 
 thorough a man of letters as ever existed, 
 and most of his failings were more or less 
 incidental to that character. But it is not 
 every consummate man of letters of whom it 
 can be unhesitatingly afiirmed that he was 
 brave, just and pious." 
 
 Lord Houghton (Monckton MUls), speak- 
 ing of Hunt's characteristics as a poetical 
 critic, says:— 
 
 " There is one sphere of literature in which 
 I think I may say that he was absolutely
 
 296 Leigh Htmt's 
 
 eminent. I mean that of poetical criticism. 
 In that field I place him before any other 
 man of letters in this country. What made 
 him so earnest in this was no less the 
 acuteness of his penetration, and the tender- 
 ness of his taste, than the generosity and 
 nobility of his disposition. With him criti- 
 cism, which is too often an enemy and a 
 detective, was a gracious patron and a 
 faithful friend. He criticised because he 
 admired and loved, and would have passed 
 over error and fault which he could not 
 conceal from himself, and rested upon 
 everj'thing that was gi-acious and beautiful. 
 So in his contemplation of the past he has 
 brought forward and presented the beauties 
 of our poetic literature in a manner so vivid, 
 in a style so graceful, that it is impossibeto 
 overrate the value of that contribution to 
 the intellectual education of our country." 
 
 Mary Cowden Clarke— whose admirable 
 "Concordance to Shakespeare" will ever 
 hold an honourable and conspicuous place 
 in English literature, as a monument of 
 unexampled industry and faithful accuracy 
 —and her genial and gifted husband, were 
 among Hunt's most cherished friends. In 
 their charming volume, "Recollections of 
 Writers," seventy-two pages are devoted to 
 Leigh Hunt and his letters. Mrs. Clarke, in 
 the following sonnet, selected from several 
 on the same subject, thus recordslier opinion 
 of him :—
 
 Genius and Writings. 297 
 
 "A power instinctive hadst thou to perceive 
 The brightest points in all created things : 
 The music in the brooklet's murmimngs, 
 The ripple on the sand the sea doth leave, 
 The silver on the thread the spiders weave. 
 The nested happiness of bird that sings, 
 The God-sent comfort that full often 
 springs 
 From soiTow bravely borne by hearts that 
 grieve. 
 Ay, Sage wert thou in thy poetic gift, 
 That taught thee how from commonest of 
 eai-th 
 The golden grains of beauty's self to sift, 
 DiscoVring plenty where there seem'd but 
 deai-th. 
 Thy thoughts, thy words, thy mien, with 
 
 grace replete, 
 Proclaim'd thee Poet 'every inch' com- 
 plete." 
 
 An ardent admirer of Hunt— Mr. Frank 
 Carr, of Newcastle, who chooses to write 
 under the nom de lylume of Lancelot Cross- 
 has devoted a dainty little volume to the 
 "London Journal " and the varied treasures 
 it contains. He says of it :— 
 
 " The charm of his articles does not lie 
 alone in their ever sparkling freshness, in 
 the morning sweetness that pervades them, 
 but in the largeness of their scope— in their 
 consideration, according to the call of the 
 moment, of all human needs. Hunt's was 
 of the inquisitive and exploring order of 
 minds ; industry and method he shared 'With
 
 298 Leigh Hiint's 
 
 hundreds of other literary workers— but he 
 superadded (and therein lay his power) a 
 genial humanity which looked on all things 
 with an equal eye, moved towards all with 
 a warm ssTnpathising heart, and sought 
 good in all things with a clear, trustful mind. 
 His style was conversational picturesque- 
 ness, richness of ready learning, iplui un- 
 failing cordiality and communicativeness. 
 If we had to state his power in a brief 
 sentence it would be— the alchemy of in- 
 telligent loving-kindness." 
 
 "There is to be found in those two 
 volumes," he says, "matter that will stir 
 every pure power of the soul— smiles, tears, 
 deep thouglit, and devotion. It is a book that 
 can be laid before the child, the lady, the poet, 
 and the philosopher. It is a noble boast 
 wlien an author can declare that he leaves 
 not ' one line which, dying, he could wish to 
 blot ; ' but it is tenfold higher praise when it 
 may be said of him that he has not only left 
 his multifarious wTitings pure,— all miscon- 
 ceptions atoned for, all rash judgments 
 corrected— (as when he says ' How pleasant 
 it is thus to find oneself reconciled to men 
 whom we have ignorantly under-valued, and 
 how fortunate to have lived long enough 
 to say so ' ) — but that in the immense mass of 
 charming selections that he has made and 
 commented upon over a long period of time, 
 there is not one sullied by temper, pruriency, 
 or factiousness. Their range includes the 
 fruits of all intellects, of all forms of human 
 endeavour, from the sayings of childhood to
 
 Genius and Writings. 299 
 
 those of the wisest of the sons of man ; from 
 instances of domestic magnanimity to the 
 heroic achievements in art, science, and 
 public strife, and each and all convey the 
 most ennobling lessons. We love the glorious 
 two folios for their own sake, and because, 
 in addition to other great merits, they are a 
 Prime Exemplar of Periodical Literature 
 for fulness, variety, ease, elegance, en- 
 thusiasm, and urbanity." 
 
 Many more opinions could be given re- 
 garding Leigh Hunt's genius and writings ; 
 but a limit must be placed to these delightful 
 quotations, which cannot be more appro- 
 priately concluded than with the two follow- 
 ing passages— one of them the concluding 
 words of his eldest son's introduction to his 
 father's "Autobiography"— the other what 
 he himself said near the close of his life. 
 His son's words are:— 
 
 "To promote the happiness of- his kind, 
 to minister to the more educated apprecia- 
 tion of order and beauty, to open more 
 widely the door of the library, and more 
 widely the window of the library looking 
 out upon nature— these were the purposes 
 that guided his studies and animated his 
 labour to the very last." 
 
 His o^^Ti life Leigh Hunt pronounced to 
 have been, upon the whole, not unhappy, 
 notwithstanding his ill-health, his struggles
 
 300 Leigh Hunt's 
 
 and Ms difficnlties. There was more of real 
 pleasui-e crowded into it than many of the 
 more favoured childi-en of fortune have ex- 
 perienced in their whole career. His genial 
 nature, his sympathies and kind heart, his 
 well-stored mind, and pure, refined tastes 
 made his existence, with all its trials and 
 sorrows, a full and happy one. Few men 
 could say, like him, in his closing years :— 
 
 "I am not aware that I have a single 
 enemy, and I accept the fortunes, good and 
 bad, which have occurred to me, with the 
 same disposition to believe them the best 
 that could have happened, whether for the 
 correction of what was wrong in me, or for 
 the improvement of what was right. I have 
 never lost cheerfulness of mind or opinion. 
 What evils there are, I find to be, for the 
 most part, relieved with many consolations; 
 some I find to be necessary to the reanisite 
 amount of good; and every one of them I 
 find come to a termination, for either they 
 are cured and live, or are killed and die; 
 and in the latter case I see no evidence to 
 prove that a little finger of them aches any 
 
 Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. have published 
 in a cheap and neat form seven volumes of 
 Hunt's works, viz., "Imagination and 
 Fancy," " Wit and Humour," " Men, Women, 
 and Books," "A Jar of Honey from Mount 
 Hybla," "Table Talk," "The Town," and 
 his " Autobiography, with Eeminiscences of
 
 Genius and Writings. 301 
 
 Friends and Contemporaries." But thin 
 series contains none of Ms papers and essays 
 in "Tlie Eeflector," "The Konnd Table," 
 "The Indicator," "The Companion," " The 
 Literary Examiner," "The Tatler," and 
 " London Journal," in which will be found 
 some of the best things he has written. 
 The last-named periodical (1834-5) is often to 
 be met with in second-hand catalogues for a 
 few shillings. When a copy occurs it should 
 always he piu'chased, even by those who 
 already possess one— to be given away to 
 some friend who will appreciate its contents, 
 an^ thank the donor for so delightful a gift. 
 A volume or two of well-selected passages 
 from Hunt's best writings would be a fitting" 
 tribute to his genius, and a boon to 
 thoughtful readers. In the United States 
 several volumes of reprints of essays selected 
 from the periodicals we have named attest 
 the sagacity of American publishers, as well 
 as the taste of the readers who purchase 
 them. 
 
 A.I. 
 
 ^F
 
 Vt, 
 
 f
 
 INDEX, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Addison, Joseph 49 
 
 Aikin, Dr. John 60 
 
 Alcott, A. Bronson 139 
 
 Alexandria, Inscription on Library at 2 
 
 Alonzo of Arragon 19 
 
 Arnold, Dr. T 146 
 
 Arnott, Dr 114 
 
 Atkinson, "W. P 288 
 
 Axon, W. E. A 242 
 
 Bacon, Francis 14 
 
 Bailey, Philip James 192 
 
 Baxter, Richard 33 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 184 
 
 Bennoch, Francis 184 
 
 Blades, wniiam 240 
 
 Boston Literary World 237 
 
 Bright, John 178 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett . . . . 176 
 
 Brny^re, La . . . . '. 44 
 
 Brydges, Sir S. Egerton •. 64 
 
 Burton, Robert 21 
 
 Biu-y, Richard de 4 
 
 Buxton, Charles 212 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 127 
 
 Channing, Dr. W. Ellery 89 
 
 Ghapin, Dr 250
 
 304 Index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey 7 
 
 Cicero 2 
 
 Clarke, Eev. J. Freeman 244 
 
 Collier, Jeremy 44 
 
 Collyer, Robert 216 
 
 Congreve, William 48 
 
 Cotton, Charles 43 
 
 Cowley, Abraham 37 
 
 Cowper, William 57 
 
 Daniel, Samael 15 
 
 Davenant, Sir William 29 
 
 Dawson, George 204 
 
 Denham, Sii- John 36 
 
 De Qoincey, Thomas 109 
 
 Diderot, Denis 55 
 
 Divine, A Seventeenth Century . . . . 2G 
 
 Dodd, Dr. William 5G 
 
 Earle, Bishop 29 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 157 
 
 Evans, Marian (George Eliot; . . . . 201 
 
 Feltham, Owen 31 
 
 Fenelon, Archbishop 48 
 
 Ferriar, Dr. John 68 
 
 Fletcher, John 20 
 
 Florio, John 13 
 
 Freeland, William 241 
 
 Friswell, James Hain 220 
 
 Fuller, Dr. Thomas 30 
 
 Gibbon, Edward 59 
 
 Godwin, William 63 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 56
 
 ' Index. 305 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Oreen, Matthew 53 
 
 Hall, Bishop Joseph 17 
 
 Hamerton, Philip Gilbert 225 
 
 Hare, Archdeacon Julius C 126 
 
 Harrison, Frederick 222 
 
 Havergal, Frances R 236 
 
 Hazlitt, William 80 
 
 Helps, Sir Arthiu- 192 
 
 Herschel, Sir John 116 
 
 Hillard, George S 171 
 
 Hindu Saying 4 
 
 Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell 175 
 
 Horace .. .. 2 
 
 Hunt, Leigh.. .. 93 
 
 Inchbald, Mrs, 63 
 
 Irving, Washington 93 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel 58 
 
 Kempis, Thomas k 8 
 
 Kingsley, Charles . . . .• 193 
 
 Lamb, Charles G9 
 
 Landor, Walter Savage 79 
 
 Langf ord. Dr. J. A 213 
 
 Locke, John 44 
 
 Longfellow, H. W 251 
 
 Luther, Martin 9 
 
 Lylye, John 14 
 
 Lytton (Bulwer), Lord 150 
 
 Macaulay, T. B 147 
 
 Mauiice, Eev. F. D 169 
 
 Mtoage, Giles 32 
 
 Middleton, Dr. Conyers 50
 
 3o6 Index. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Milton, John 30 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley . . . . 51 
 
 Montaigne, Michael de S 
 
 Montesquieu, Baron 51 
 
 Moore, Dr. John 57 
 
 Overbnry, Sir Thomas 25 
 
 Palmer, Samuel 170 
 
 Parfeer, Theodore 177 
 
 Peacock, Love 113 
 
 Persian, From the 4 
 
 PhiUips, G. S. (January Searle) . . . . 187 
 
 Phillips, WendeU .. .. 183 
 
 Plato 1 
 
 Plutarch 8 
 
 Pope, Alexander 51 
 
 Prayer, Book of Common 14 
 
 Procter, Bryan Waller (Barry Oom- 
 
 waU) no 
 
 Quick, Eev. K. H 239 
 
 Richardson, Charles F 244 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul F 67 
 
 Rioj a, Francesco di 29 
 
 Boscoe, WiUiam 62 
 
 KusMn, John 194 
 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur Ill 
 
 Seneca 3 
 
 Shakespeare, 'William 16 
 
 Shenstone, William 55 
 
 Shirley, James 27 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip 14
 
 Index. 307 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Socrates 1 
 
 Solomon 1 
 
 Southey, Robert 68 
 
 Steele, Sir Richard 43 
 
 Sterne, Laixrence 55 
 
 Stevenson, Robert Loius 244 
 
 Stirling-MasweU, Lady 173 
 
 St. Paul 4 
 
 Temple, Sii- William 43 
 
 Thackeray, W. M 193 
 
 Thirlwall, Bishop 139 
 
 Trollope, Anthony 220 
 
 Waller, Sir William 27 
 
 Walpole, Horace . . . . 55 
 
 Ware, Mary C 237 
 
 Watts, Dr. Isaac 50 
 
 Whipple, E 241 
 
 WiUmott, Rev. R. Aris 174 
 
 Wither, George 2G 
 
 Wyttenbach, Daniel 60 
 
 Appendix : 
 
 William Hazlitt, as Essayist and 
 
 Critic 255 
 
 Leigh Hunt, his Genius and 
 
 Characteristics .. 273
 
 MANCHESTER : 
 
 PRINTED BY A. IRELAND AND CO., 
 
 PALI. MALL.
 
 ©pinions of tl^e i^wse. 
 
 The Times. 
 A choice little volume, the compilation of 
 which has evidently been a labour of love, 
 and the result is a store-house of admirable 
 quotations, which readers should make 
 much of. 
 
 Daily Neios. 
 
 A beautifully-printed little volume, after 
 
 the pattern of the famous " Elzevir " classics. 
 
 The extracts seem to be the fruit of extensive 
 
 original reading of dead and living authors. 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. 
 A pretty little gift-book, containing the 
 thoughts on books and the love of reading 
 of many writers from Solomon to Carlyle. 
 Printed on thick paper, in small but admi- 
 rably clear type, it is small enough to be 
 carried in the pocket of a coat without any 
 inconvenience. 
 
 Atlienoiwn. 
 A very charming little volume, arranged 
 in a way that shows a true love of litera- 
 ture. The extracts supply some delightful 
 reading.
 
 Acaderiii/. 
 This little book deserves the name of 
 "Enchiridion" better than many others so 
 entitled. It will serve to confirm in his 
 creed the devout lover of books, by reminding 
 him of what many of the literary hierarchy 
 of various lands and ages have written con- 
 cerning them. The selection is very catholic. 
 
 Literary World. 
 A very dainty little tome. The binding, 
 in enamelled white cloth.-svith black lettering 
 and red edges, or in white and gold with gilt 
 edges, is exquisite. It consists of selections 
 from one hundred and twenty authors, both 
 ancient and modern, in praise of the solace 
 and companionship of books. 
 
 Manchester Guardian. 
 A dainty gift-book which wiU give great 
 pleasure to every lover of literature. Its 
 appearance is of the most attractive charac- 
 ter. Ko better gift could be devised for a 
 studious youth or girl, for it should certainly 
 foster a taste for literature that in after 
 years will be at once a strength and a solace. 
 
 Bradford Observer. 
 The motto chosen for this exquisite 
 marvel of typography, " Infinite riches in a 
 little room," fitly describes both its matter 
 and its manner. The grace and aptness of 
 the quotations on "the solace and com- 
 panionship cf books" and the wise selection 
 of authors are alike striking. The opening 
 sentences are from Solomon, and then the
 
 reader finds himself in company •with a long 
 succession of the wisest and the most dis- 
 tinguished men of letters, who tell him what 
 books have been to them, and should be to 
 all open minds. These present a brilliant 
 company which could only have been sum- 
 moned by one closely familiar with men of 
 letters of all times. 
 
 Scotsman. 
 It is beautifully got up, and printed with 
 great clearness and beauty. It contains a 
 selection from many wi'iters, of wise sayings 
 on the solace and companionship of books, 
 the like of which we do not remember to 
 have met with before. There is no book 
 more intrinsically suited for a wise present 
 than this. 
 
 CJiarabers's Jouraal. 
 A beautiful little book. In it you have, 
 as its motto indicates, " Infinite riches in a 
 little room"— the selected writers ranging 
 from Solomon and Cicero down to Carlyle 
 and Kuskin and Emerson. All the extracts 
 are good — every tit-bit is sweet and tooth- 
 some. AH will thank the compUer heartily 
 and gratefully for this delightful supply of 
 " medicine for the mind." 
 
 The Cliristiaii Leader. 
 This is the daintiest book of a season 
 unusually fruitful in typographical gems. 
 It contains the distilled essence of a 
 reader of fifty years' acquaintance with the 
 best authors of past and present times.
 
 Everj-thing that printer and binder could 
 possibly do to make the volume "a thing cf 
 bearrty" has been done, so that externally 
 it is a perfect work of art ; and the selections, 
 worthy of such a setting, will indeed be " a 
 joy for ever" to all who become possessors 
 of the book. No section of the vast field of 
 the world's literature has been overlooked ; 
 apostles and philosophers, evangelists and 
 novelists, the leaders of science and the sons 
 of song, are laid under tribute ; we have 
 them all, from Bt. Paul jtnd Plato, Horace 
 and Cicero, to Carlyle, Emerson, andEuskin. 
 The collection deserves praise not only for 
 its sound judgment and exquisite taste, but 
 also for its catholicity. The maker of this 
 little book does not bow down to mere names. 
 He takes the really good thing, no matter 
 where he finds it. 
 
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