The Book Lovers' Anthology

ast our herit

l? No; by each

ald souls that

hymns, to greet

ethlehem-by th

ato-by thy s

Tully!-and,

e Everlasti

als, on whose

eathing day-ou

urne beyond; i

uths whose life

up the Adam f

ture as the P

ath ye bid us

ages, and beho

avestone left

ulwer-Lytton,

ND MIGHT

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. If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, farming, trade, or medicine, they are

INARY DELIG

mes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, &c.! their names alone are the subject of whole volumes; we have thousands of authors of all s

ND HAPP

rning is an a

birth; hon

ornament of

ous ign

er knew more swe

loyed upon

The Lady o

PLEASURES

always please

ever craving f

soon the wear

rrow that were

asts, that sundry

sts that will

study will no c

tudious minds

!-joys ineffa

rouder pleasur

lected in tho

efforts, then e

easons feels h

st and honours

rldly gain, alt

arning may to

h, though in so

earning may a

ry, though th

e will make the

nd's own feelin

gathers in h

gain or prais

and raise them

be. The

TO BE PR

t degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer 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 selection of books. Y

EAT, DRINK,

and the food of my mind; indeed, more than metaphorically, meat, drink, and clothing for me and mine. I verily believe that no one in my station was ever so rich before, and I am very sure that no one in any station had ever a more

THE HIGHE

with confidence, What is the event they most desire? What gift? What but the book that shall come, which they have sought through all libraries, through all languages, that shall be to their mature eyes what many a tinsel-covered toy pamphlet was to their childhood, and shall speak to the imagination? Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature. If we encountered a man of rare intellect

massive, our protest or private addition so rare and insignificant,-and this commonly on the ground of other reading or hearing

RE DERIVED

of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joy,-with a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our su

BT TO

ses brick-coloured 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 sentences or pages, and lo! the air swims with li

H F

books kept me aloof from the ring, the dog-pit, the tavern, and the saloon, with their degrading orgies. For the closet associate of Pope and Addison-the mind accustomed to the noble, though silent, di

w-how powerfully intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and the heart from breaking,-nay, not to b

me. But, luckily, the mental palate and digestion were still sensible and vigorous; and whilst I passed untasted every dish at the Rhenish table d'h?te, I could yet enjoy my Peregrine Pickle,

poor-law commissioners; all animal food, from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted; as well as all fluids stronger than that which lays dust, washes pinafores, and waters poly

a Turk against the juice of the grape. But, eschewing wine, I had still my Butler

aly, of Germany and Spain-the champagne of Molière, and the Monte Pulciano of Boccaccio, the hock of Schiller, and the sherry of Cervantes. Depressed bodily by the fluid that damps ever

e a full share; but still, paradoxical as it may sound, my burden has been greatly lightened by a load of books. The manner of this will be best understood by a feline illustration. Everybody has heard of the two Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other; but it is not so generally known that they left behind them an orphan kitten, which, true to the breed, began to eat

opher-many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet song of the poet, for all which I cry incessantly, not aloud, but in my heart, Thanks and honour to the glorious masters of the pen, and the great inventors of the press! Such has been my own experience of the bles

AND GL

hen the soul is

aden like a

r-storm, are po

beauty. They s

eize a ship,

. Some books ar

soul's wealth l

argosy. What

om and splendou

unsets, seen th

l fire and fier

to my knees,

a king. They

ars as Eve's fai

clasped a Son of

umes and splend

aven of thei

oks aright! Mos

grandeur, as a

d wrapt in blan

m the night, wh

ever on a str

h. A Li

DITY REAP

e not extreme and over-insolent. To divert me from any importunate imagination or insinuating conceit, there is no better way than to have recourse unto books; with ease they allure me to them, and with facility they remove them

ith the right of possession. I never travel without books, nor in peace nor in war: yet do I pass many days and months without using them. It shall be anon, say I, or to-morrow, or when I please; in the meanwhile the time runs away, and passeth without hurting me. For it is wonderful what repose I take, and how I continue in this consideration, that they are at

S NURSE

ys of elders g

ut the course o

own, and so do

oks of printed

ve he rules, or

, if writers lo

s time past an

books, and books

rd. Worthin

PIETY, DEL

usbandman his

op not in du

sets his a

s he fight, an

tion that must p

slow advice is

ve good counsel

active part th

arnéd counsel

disease, forb

sophers is p

structions af

st their age

ting books, a

ins for strange a

nor delight no

doubt both day a

er please, or

one of these f

piety, del

gaze upon the

er's hidden

these things w

ght in easy m

ell that thou m

die is all w

m. Translati

TERTAINME

rary, 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 knowledge through pleasure. By reading a man does as it were antedate

ommonly dress when they make a visit. Respect to themselves makes them polish their thoughts, and exert the force of their understanding more than they would or can do in ordinary conversation: so that the reader has as it were the spirit and essence in a narrow compass; which was drawn off from a much larger proportion of time, lab

, 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 overcharges Nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vig

same difference between a man of mere practice and another of learning as there is between an empiric and a physician. The first may have a good recipe, or two; and if diseases and patients were very scarce, and all alike, he might do tolerably well. But if you inquire concerning the causes of distempers, the constitution of human bodies, the danger of symptoms, and the methods of cure, upon which the success of medicine depends, he knows little of the matter. On t

ION OR A

ould be in any great poem, according to the meaning which the word must bear in this distinction, unless it is meant that it should involve its own antithesis. But if he says, 'No-amongst those which amuse,'-then what a beast must he be to degrade, and in this way, what has done the most of any human work to raise and dignify human nature. But the truth is, you see, that the idiot does not wish to degrade it; on the contrary, he would willingly tell a lie in its

E FOR T

Apartment, M

becomes tedious and painful when we make use of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and burdensome when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in virtue. For this reason the virtue which we

KS WERE

wledged wiser than ourselves at a distance. When we recollect, however, that for this very reason they are seldom consulted and little obeyed, how much cause shall his contemporaries have

OKS AR

perusal: spite, vanity, and curiosity, hope and fear, love and hatred, every passion w

ion by finding faults that have escaped the public; others eagerly buy it in the first bloom of reputation,

sion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge, and are no more likely to grow

possibility of finding another amusement equally cheap or constant, equally independent of the hour or the weather. He that wants money to follow the chase of pleasure through her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world r

LUENCE

er how some of them had once power to absorb his passions, make him retire into a lonely wood in order to read unmolested, repel the approaches of sleep, or, when it came, infect it with visions. A capital part of the proposed task would be to recollect the books that have been read with the greatest interest, the periods when they

n very great. Still, however, it is probable that a very small number of books will have the pre-eminence in our mental history. Perhaps your memory will promptly rec

RATIVE

hat amuses you and pleases you. You should not begin with difficult works, because, if you do, you will find the pursuit dry and tiresome. I would even say to you, read novels, read frivolous books, read anything that will amuse you and give you a taste for reading. On this point all persons could put themselves on an equality. Some persons would say they would rather s

up awhile, an

bladders of

, Earl of

against

men of hig

at speak aloud for

. Lady Geraldi

OD FOR

n old farmhouse; at the garden gate a vehicle stood waiting, and I saw it was our doctor's gig. Having passed, I turned to look back. There was a faint afterglow in the sky beyond the

book that I got up an hour earlier than usual. A book worth rising for; much better worth than old Burton, who pulled Johnson out of bed. A book whi

t, perchance something more; they left a perfume in the memory; but life has passed them by for ever. I have but to muse, and one after another they rise before me. Books gentle and quieting; books noble and inspiring; books that well merit to be pored over, not once but many a time. Yet never again shall I hold them in my ha

NE INSP

as found out but in my time by a divine inspiration, as, by a diabolical suggestion on the other side, was the invention of ordnance. All the world is full of knowing men, of most learned schoolmasters, and vast libraries; and it appears to me as a truth, that neither in Plato's time, nor Cicero's, nor Papinian's, there was ever such conveniency for studying, as we see at this day there is. Nor must any adventure henceforward to come

NCE FOR

e place men who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote upon them with reeds containing ink made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue. 'See,' the genius said, 'an immense change produced in the condition of society by the two arts of which you here see the origin; the on

ULOUS ART

again into life. No 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 persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating-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 'Celia' 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 mythologist ever did such wonders as, on the actual firm Earth, so

AS MEM

rovided mortals with a remedy in books. Alexander the ruler of the world; Julius the invader of the world and of the city, the just 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 eart

ON IN

andle their flowers, who in the morning stick them in their heads, and at night straw them at their heels. Cherries be fulsome when they be through ripe, because they be plenty, and books be stale when they be printed, in that they be common. In my mind Printers and Tailors are bound chiefly to pray for gentlemen, the one hath so many fantasies to print, the other such divers fashions to make, that the pressing iron of the one is

FOR MA

in the market-place of a town, or in

studeo, pullat

scat. (Pers.

y written lea

bbled toys, which

imur. (Pers.

eak a

ne t

g if my posterity be of another mind, I shall have wherewith to be avenged, for they cannot make so little accompt of me, as then I shall do of them. All the commerce I have in this with the world is that I bo

et paenula desit

y should a f

hould be for

s saepe dabo tun

iled macke

ide (paper)

d fit occupation. A member of my life. Not of an occupation and end strange and foreign, as all other books.... What if I lend mine ears somewhat more attentively unto books, sith I but watch if I can filch something from them wherewith to enamel and up

HIS

nt sprung up t

urel, to grow

away, and

y patron

om hence, I

the use o

njured leave

se gowns fo

grocers,

f thee to se

t that I must

ke, all tor

s, and with much

thee, weeping

ed thee, close

done, I'll leave

most, now of

nd of those

ew life; while

theirs, in eve

th, my book

imely fo

nce good l

insman o

harbour t

ates negl

w'st not wh

fire's by

ick. He

ALITY

from the hono

hey deserve,

books for a

rthies and thei

glory else, l

r element, p

reatness quite

w they flourish

mbrances are

onuments th

hich remain i

ew behold the

hat to the

ived; the other

Dan

NG MON

at personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages. So t

GE QUALIT

of the books of Constantinople changed Greece for France and Italy; and in our time, that famous Library in the Palatinate changed Heidelberg for the Vatican. And this I think no small duty, nor meaner gift and retribution, which I render back again to my benefactor's honest fame, being a greater matter than riches; riches being momentany and evanishing, scarce possessed by the third heir; fame immortal, and almost ev

E NOT DE

and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself; kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true no age can restore a life, whereof, perhaps, there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the l

EARE IN

ous fears as to futurity. A reverend friend of ours (naming him) tells me, that h

neasy on these grounds; for, as he will retain his consciousn

y imagination was warm, and I happened to be in a melancholy mood, it distressed me to think of going into a state of being in which Shakespeare's poetry did not exist. A lady whom I then much

, and did not appear to disapprove of

RARIES

the glorious

ooks, which I

ough I read my

be los

ht that, as we

dear creations

e unread, I'll

my joy

iss of blisse

ts by which the

and endless

aries of

eigh

INGS THAT L

them on our pillows, or put them to our lips. Scarcely a trace of what the others did is left upon the earth, so as to be visible to common eyes. The one, the dead authors, are living men, still breathing and moving in their writings. The others, the conquerors of the world, are but the ashes in an urn. The sympathy (so to speak) between thought and thought is more intimate and vital than that between thought and action. Thought is linked to thought as flame kindles into flame: the tribute of admiration to the manes of departed heroism is like burning incense in a marble monument. Words, ideas

ORS' MET

ipating theirs! And how the world have justified their exultation! They had a right to triumph over brass and marble. It is the only visible change which changes no further; which gener

città, muoi

er mortal par

this, so small yet so comprehensive, so slight yet so lasting, so insignificant yet so venerable, turns the mighty activity of Homer, and, so turning, is enabled to live and warm us for ever. To a shape like this turns the placid

ouls of all tha

author who is a lover of books asks himself some time in his life; and which must b

e were numbere

ould I end my

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 help the appreciat

SSED

tters! that

and make one

confer with

-living unto

nborn shall

el and what d

d is lik

the writing

ding, and the

el. Mus

gloriae, yet, as Hieron observes, they will

NG LINK

hings, and a sm

dew, upon a th

thousands, perhap

e shortest lette

ech, may form

hat straits o

n paper-even a

f, his tomb, an

nes are dust, h

generation, e

g, or nothing

ogical com

. oblivion l

e found in a b

he foundatio

name up, as a

g has made th

nothing, words

e upon the hi

ame a person

omer what whis

century was

lborough's skill

e Life by Arc

Lord Byro

UE OF A

eld, 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 thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou who art able to write a Book, which on

AND R

nd thirty; and others, which are now extolled in language almost too high-flown for the merits of Don Quixote, will,

MATE TES

work to form us into men. That is the test to which I have urged that all books must at last be brought; if they do not bear it, their doom is fixed. They 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 has been or

E HOUR AND

only. It is not merely the bad book that does not last, and the good one that does. It is a distinction of species. There are good books fo

age: we ought to be entirely thankful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves if we make no good use of them. But we make the worst possible use, if we allow them to usurp the place of true books: for, strictly speaking, they are not books at all, but merely letters or newspapers in good print.... A book is written, not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly, at all

ble-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the common crowd for entrée here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society wide as the world, multitudinous 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

BELIEVE

ve my verse in

ed with your mo

ven knows, it i

life and shows no

ite the beaut

umbers number

e would say, '

ches ne'er touche

pers, yellowed

old men of less t

rights be term

metre of an

hild of yours a

twice,-in it a

akesp

ALITY

ry, foolish,

oaches troubl

otten, whom n

wrapped in thei

hee eternity

lse remaineth

eafter shall b

of thy super

trons reading

ch delighted w

rieve they lived

hee, their sex

fly above the

vive in my i

Dra

I WROTE

te her name u

waves and w

e it with a

de and made my

d she, 'that do

ing so to i

shall like

me be wipèd o

h I; 'let base

, but you shal

virtues rare s

vens write you

eath shall all

live, and lat

Spe

EMBER HOW

ember how

write your

a-sand-'O!

u're writing

e written w

wash away

l read o'er

Ianthe's

. La

IPLICITY

satiable is the thirst of men therein; as also endless is the de

g by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them, built merely for uniformity, are without chimneys, and more without fires. Once a dunce void of learning but full of b

, such is the vain humour of many men in gathering of books: yet when they have done all, they miss their end, it being in the editio

look on them, you look through them; and he that peeps through the casement of the index sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those cannot be excused who perfunctorily pass over authors of consequence, and only trade in their t

and from the dedication one may probably guess at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus, when once a gentleman admired how so pithy, learned,

eden never filed his men above six deep in one company, because he would not have them lie in useless clusters in his army, but so that every particular soldier might be dr

a learned man's compliment, may serve for my confession and conclusion: Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut

FLUOU

Josephus, or did not relish somewhat of the fable. Some men have written more than others have spoken. Pineda quotes more authors in one work than are necessary in a whole world. Of those three great inventions in Germany, there are two which are not without their incommodities, and 'tis disputable whether they exceed not their use and commodities. 'Tis not a melancholy Utinam of mine own, but the desires of bet

CATION I

ured from several volumes already printed, without adding anything new. All dictionaries are made from dictionaries; almost all new geographical books are made from other books of geography; St. Thomas

LICATION O

s, nor, perhaps, by all put together; I mean so many originals that have lived any time, and thereby given testimony to their having been thought worth preserving. For the scribblers are infinite, that like mushrooms

HORS' A

his gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inesti

T AGE HATH

e treasures of ancient knowledge lie unexamined, and original authors are neglected and forgotten, compilers and plagiaries are encouraged w

BOOKS AND ITS E

h of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let every man, if possible, gather some good books unde

mour and loose conversation for most of their knowledge and objects of thought; instead of forming their judgements 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 reasonings of men of all countries and ages; and the results must be, a

RACTION

isease, some owe their privilege simply to the narrowness of their minds and the contracted range of their sympathies with literature-which enlarged, they would soon lose it! others, again, owe it to their situation; as, for instance, in a country town, where, books being few, a man can use up all his materials, his appetite is unpalled-and he is grateful for the loan of a MS., &c.: but bring him up to London-show him the wagon-loads of unused stores-which he is at liberty to work up-tell him that these even

RARY

e, out of the

arest to me,

rits, and a f

nners, and clo

sic taste, and

xury, and swee

tting with, fr

or all, but m

with me, could

as long as I

eight, making sad

sh, out of t

nded heart i

ngs far off and

Leig

ARY OF

wn to twelve. My library, if reduced to those bounds, would consist of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton; Lord Clarendon; Jackson, Jeremy Taylor, and South; Isaac Walton, Sidney's Arcadia, Fuller's Church History, and Sir Thomas Browne; an

AND MODE

ty of events is seldom without entertainment or instruction, how indifferently soever the tale is told. Other sorts of writings have little of esteem but what they receive from the wit, learning, or genius of the authors, and are seldom met with of any excellency, because they do but trace over the paths that have been beaten by the ancients, or

TLE OF

aliant leaders, Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes; whose strength was such that they could shoot their arrows beyond the atmosphere, never to fall down again, but turn, like that of Evander, into meteors; or, like the cannon-ball, into stars. Paracelsus brought a squadron of stinkpot-flingers from the snowy mountains of Rhaetia. There came a vast body of dragoons, of different nations, under the leading of Harvey, their great aga: part armed with scythes, the weapons of death; part with lances and long knives, all steeped in poison; part shot bullets of a most malignant nature, and used white powder,

orse; Euclid was chief engineer; Plato and Aristotle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and Livy

of convening them; a bloody battle just impendent between two mighty armies of ancient and modern creatures, called books, wherein the celestial interest was but too deeply concerned. Momus, the patron of the Moderns, made an excellent speech in their favour, which was answered by Pallas, the protectress of the Ancients. The assembly was divided in their affections; when Jupiter commanded the Book of Fate

her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked, and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, Noise and Impudence, Dullness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill-manners.... 'Goddess,' said Momus, 'can you sit

over its metropolis, what blessings did she not let fall upon her seminaries of Gresham and Covent Garden! And now she reached the fatal plain of St. James's library, at what time the two armies were upon the point to engage; w

THORS

to be best in four things; Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old fri

SSI

it, and can very ingeniously imitate the manner of any of them. All their thoughts are his thoughts, and he can express himself in their language.

hat he must be daily conversant with the best authors, read them again and again, catch their spirit by living w

had but thought as justly of devotion as he does of learning!... The two testaments would

ly scriptures when he tells you that he has no other book of piet

ALONE C

c must ind

w authors a

ncient coi

alone are

n Shakespear

rce compar

in the stre

ing easy-am

alks with rh

n sits abov

tars, his f

to men thei

. La

CLAS

but from Gr

is nothing

r; but I l

ière or L

s humour wa

as gall upo

nd acids

sfy not

. La

NS OF L

on; so that better works are neglected for want of time, because a man will have more gratification of his vanity in conversation, from having read modern books than from having read the best books of antiquity. But it must be considered, that we have now more knowledge generally

ING OF N

am, First President of the Cere

l, was one of those contradictions which I was unable to account for. Is it possible, said I, that there should be any demand for new books before those already publi

of the moderns acquire a real value, by being marked with the impression of the times. Antiquity has been in the possession of others; the present is our own: let us first therefore lea

e worth, and are often subject to the merciless hands of sweating critics and clipping compilers: the works of antiquity were ever praised, those of the moderns read; the treasures of our ancestors have our esteem, and we boast the passion; those of contemporary genius engage our heart, although we blu

spirit of freedom and reason reigns among the people; they have been often known to act like fool

SICS ALW

sic literature is always modern. New books revive and re-decorate old ideas; old book

DING O

on or two. I have more confidence in the dead than the living.... 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 rifaccimentos of what has been served up entire and in a more natural 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 thrown 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 last

e 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 shoulders of youth, and which never comes too late with years. Oh! what a privilege to be able to let this hump, like Christian's burthen, drop from off one's back, and transport oneself, by the help of a little musty duodecimo, to the time when 'ignorance was bliss', and when we first got a peep at the raree-show of the world, through the gl

DING N

. But many people would 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 with 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.... The knowledge which so many other persons have of its contents deadens our curiosity and interest altogether. We set aside the subject as one on which others have made up their minds for us (as if we really could have ideas in their heads), and are quite on the alert for the next new wor

and can give an answer to those who have not yet read it, and expect an account of it; and thus show our shrewdness and the independence of our taste before the world have

NCE FOR G

ts chiefly of my old acquaintance, with whom I am desirous of becoming more intimate; and I suspect that nine times out of ten it is more profitable, if not more agreeable, to read an old book over again, than to read a new one for the first time. If I hear of a new poem, for instance, I ask myself first, whether it is superior to Homer, Shakespeare, Arios

and contemplation of the great models, than merely to know of one's own knowledge that suc

E OF MOD

hat comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift without Oedipus and Medea, while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious irony of Plato, he may find some compensation in that of Pasc

OF THIR

irit: henceforward it is settled, the book is perfect; as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue. Instantly, the book becomes noxious: the guide is a tyrant. The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude, slow to open to the incursions of Reason, having once so opened, having once received this book, stands upon it, and makes an outcry if it is disparaged. Colleges are built on it. Boo

such; not as related to nature and the human constitution, but as making a sort of Third Estate with th

used; abused, among the worst.-R.

ND NE

all these ancient folios round me are like so many old cupels? The gold has passed out of these long ago, but

Y IN OL

hose silent crypts and Falernian amphorae of the Past! No other writers speak to us with the authority of those whose ordinary speech was that of our translation of the Scriptures; to no modern is that frank unconsciousness possible which was natural to a period when reviews were not; and no later style breathes that country charm

and appreciation;-these quaint freaks of russet tell of Montaigne; these stripes of crimson fire, of Shakespeare; this sober gold, of Sir Thomas Browne; this purpling bloom, of Lamb;-in such fruits we taste the legendary gardens of Alcinoüs and the orchards of

y Philomusus, of which they have never heard and never will so much as hear the names; we see the country-gentlemen (sole cause of its surviving to our day) who buy it as a book no gentleman's library can be complete without; we see the spendthrift heir, whose horses and hounds and Pharaonic troops of friends, drowned in a Red Sea of claret, bring it to the hammer, the tall octavo in tree-calf following the ancestral oaks of the park. Such a volume is sacred to us. But it must be the original foundling of the book-stall, the engraved blazon of some extinct baronetcy within its cover, its leaves enshr

MY

ed for, book, w

pigrams, and

bold, licentiou

phur, sharp, and

lant thing, h

es; not caring

malice, who co

iser temper

covetous of l

hazard of an

ewd, profane, an

ld's loose laugh

rts with his

ise, doth it t

Jo

ER FOR A

my unbapti

wild unhall

ntence, clau

nlaid with t

God, and b

ook that is

st all, thou

thy ben

all the re

of my wo

ck. Nobl

THAT D

; which, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks or wanton canons. As one for example, 'Morte Arthur', the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two special points, in open manslaughter an

n can judge, and honest men do pity. And yet ten 'Morte Arthurs' do not the tenth part so much harm, as one of these books made in Italy and

AND

ls the mind from

cogitations

the world's dec

rts on never-en

steal our cattle

see how muta

d that we shou

annot steal o

eyes and ears do

ion of the heart

l the little

isonous mischie

robbed and rans

ch men may justl

rtue and of h

beggared in a

y goods, thieves

wels, and leav

eves from true m

utsides no man

e suspected,

e they trust, wi

orth the reading

worth the hanging

ndustry, and

h daily rob a

from another

line, a senten

est thief may h

ks some knave wi

thieves in one

k them, they ar

. An Arra

BANK A

rovision of such stuff, and at last you shall see nothing to be sold amongst us but Curranto's Bevis of Southampton or such trumpery. The Arts are already almost lost among the writings of mountebank authors. For if any one among us would study Physic, the Mathematics, Poetry, or any of the liberal sciences, they have in their warehouses so many volumes of quack-salving receipts; of false propositions; and of inartificial rhymings (of which last sort they have some of mine there, God forgive me!) that unless we be directed by

GAIN BY

in the court of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, Pro tantorum laborum praemio vix veniam impetravit. Likewise Christopher Plantin, by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp

ook of Rabelais concerning physic, Rabelais, to make him recompense, made that his jesting scurrilous work, which repaired the printer's loss with advanta

thou liest

olish books t

nnocent persons, which dried on by continuance of time can never after be washed off; thirdly, the pamphlets of this age may pass for records with the next, because publicly uncontrolled, and what we laugh at, our children may believe: fourthly, grant

IL THA

oy their parts in propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are to be looked upon as the pests of society and the enemies of mankind: they leave books behind them, as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an ill will t

s, as it were, in his very grave; corrupts

BAD AN

ved, or indi

ubjects worthie

a change of s

r nature, or i

watch that wan

it goes as w

not the scandal

ensualists prin

ich the stage g

ess let modern

or the bane of

ch, and laughed

e to seem de

gion with a s

earned philolo

able through t

me, and hunt i

reece, and in

arning without

uth, the associa

in the zeal o

labouring in th

nly and great

ive, and of

e what leisure

true knowledge

the mind a

polishes, perv

e attention, t

are as dissip

ar at length, o

entertain u

d, from year t

tion and make

elf, most mour

kind assista

itness every

ame and offer

laxing into

o writers of

anaged, and whos

ustre, and mak

cannot stint, a

my view, that

rant it, in the

anced a step a

t name promisc

ose, the regen

opted with a sc

th a nice dis

-disciplined, w

ds, have honour

orld may think th

irtue, and th

vent what else w

tic as the l

polish of the

bustle in the

, however so

nctuary, pro

in which the

qualities gro

er, Ret

RTAIN

d hope these p

ith and hope; b

off from all u

asping hands o

eased to rot the

boys their fanc

m by chance, tha

ined and sodde

rce, on dry a

some truant le

many weathers

odge about th

out, or organ's

into dust, li