It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be
found most originality. Our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly
with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or
plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster
than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our
writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to
imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are seldom quoted!
This is one of the results of that adventurous spirit which is now
stalking forth and raging for its own innovations. We have not only
rejected AUTHORITY, but have also cast away EXPERIENCE; and often the
unburthened vessel is driving to all parts of the compass, and the
passengers no longer know whither they are going. The wisdom of the
wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by QUOTATION.
It seems, however, agreed, that no one would quote if he could think;
and it is not imagined that the well-read may quote from the delicacy of
their taste, and the fulness of their knowledge. Whatever is
felicitously expressed risks being worse expressed: it is a wretched
taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
We quote to save proving what has been demonstrated, referring to where
the proofs may be found. We quote to screen ourselves from the odium of
doubtful opinions, which the world would not willingly accept from
ourselves; and we may quote from the curiosity which only a quotation
itself can give, when in our own words it would be divested of that tint
of ancient phrase, that detail of narrative, and that _naïveté_ which we
have for ever lost, and which we like to recollect once had an
existence.
The ancients, who in these matters were not, perhaps, such blockheads as
some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite
ornaments of oratory. Cicero, even in his philosophical works, is as
little sparing of quotations as Plutarch. Old Montaigne is so stuffed
with them, that he owns, if they were taken out of him little of himself
would remain; and yet this never injured that original turn which the
old Gascon has given to his thoughts. I suspect that Addison hardly ever
composed a Spectator which was not founded on some quotation, noted in
those three folio manuscript volumes which he previously collected; and
Addison lasts, while Steele, who always wrote from first impressions and
to the times, with perhaps no inferior genius, has passed away, insomuch
that Dr. Beattie once considered that he was obliging the world by
collecting Addison's papers, and carefully omitting Steele's.
Quotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till
one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had
stagnated their own cause. "Retournons à nos moutons," was the cry of
the client. But these vagrant prowlers must be consigned to the beadles
of criticism. Such do not always understand the authors whose names
adorn their barren pages, and which are taken, too, from the third or
the thirtieth hand. Those who trust to such false quoters will often
learn how contrary this transmission is to the sense and the application
of the original. Every transplantation has altered the fruit of the
tree; every new channel the quality of the stream in its remove from the
spring-head. Bayle, when writing on "Comets," discovered this; for
having collected many things applicable to his work, as they stood
quoted in some modern writers, when he came to compare them with their
originals, he was surprised to find that they were nothing for his
purpose! the originals conveyed a quite contrary sense to that of the
pretended quoters, who often, from innocent blundering, and sometimes
from purposed deception, had falsified their quotations. This is an
useful story for second-hand authorities!
Selden had formed some notions on this subject of quotations in his
"Table-talk," art. "_Books and Authors_;" but, as Le Clerc justly
observes, proud of his immense reading, he has too often violated his
own precept. "In quoting of books," says Selden, "quote such authors as
are usually read; others read for your own satisfaction, but not name
them." Now it happens that no writer names more authors, except
Prynne,[279] than the learned Selden. La Mothe le Vayer's curious works
consist of fifteen volumes; he is among the greatest quoters. Whoever
turns them over will perceive that he is an original thinker, and a
great wit; his style, indeed, is meagre, which, as much as his
quotations, may have proved fatal to him. But in both these cases it is
evident that even quoters who have abused the privilege of quotation are
not necessarily writers of a mean genius.
The Quoters who deserve the title, and it ought to be an honorary one,
are those who trust to no one but themselves. In borrowing a passage,
they carefully observe its connexion; they collect authorities to
reconcile any disparity in them before they furnish the one which they
adopt; they advance no fact without a witness, and they are not loose
and general in their references, as I have been told is our historian
Henry so frequently, that it is suspected he deals much in second-hand
ware. Bayle lets us into a mystery of author-craft. "Suppose an able man
is to prove that an ancient author entertained certain particular
opinions, which are only insinuated here and there through his works, I
am sure it will take him up more days to collect the passages which he
will have occasion for, than to _argue at random_ on those passages.
Having once found out his authorities and his quotations, which perhaps
will not fill six pages, and may have cost him a month's labour, he may
finish in two mornings' work twenty pages of arguments, objections, and
answers to objections; and consequently, _what proceeds from our own
genius sometimes costs much less time than what is requisite for
collecting_. Corneille would have required more time to defend a tragedy
by a great collection of authorities, than to write it; and I am
supposing the same number of pages in the tragedy and in the defence.
Heinsius perhaps bestowed more time in defending his _Herodes
infanticida_ against Balzac, than a Spanish (or a Scotch) metaphysician
bestows on a large volume of controversy, where he takes all from his
own stock." I am somewhat concerned in the truth of this principle.
There are articles in the present work occupying but a few pages, which
could never have been produced had not more time been allotted to the
researches which they contain than some would allow to a small volume,
which might excel in genius, and yet be likely not to be long
remembered! All this is labour which never meets the eye. It is quicker
work, with special pleading and poignant periods, to fill sheets with
generalising principles; those bird's-eye views of philosophy for the
_nonce_ seem as if things were seen clearer when at a distance and _en
masse_, and require little knowledge of the individual parts. Such _an
art of writing_ may resemble the famous Lullian method, by which the
_doctor illuminatus_ enabled any one to invent arguments by a machine!
Two tables, one of _attributes_, and the other of _subjects_, worked
about circularly in a frame, and placed correlatively to one another
produced certain combinations; the number of _questions_ multiplied as
they were worked! So that here was a mechanical invention by which they
might dispute without end, and write on without any particular knowledge
of their subject!
But the painstaking gentry, when heaven sends them genius enough, are
the most instructive sort, and they are those to whom we shall appeal
while time and truth can meet together. A well-read writer, with good
taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men;[280] he
searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself
excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable
books, the _deliciæ_ of literature, that will outlast the fading meteors
of his day. Epicurus is said to have borrowed from no writer in his
three hundred inspired volumes, while Plutarch, Seneca, and the elder
Pliny made such free use of their libraries; and it has happened that
Epicurus, with his unsubstantial nothingness, has "melted into thin
air," while the solid treasures have buoyed themselves up amidst the
wrecks of nations.
On this subject of quotation, literary politics,--for the commonwealth
has its policy and its cabinet-secrets,--are more concerned than the
reader suspects. Authorities in matters of fact are often called for; in
matters of opinion, indeed, which perhaps are of more importance, no one
requires any authority. But too open and generous a revelation of the
chapter and the page of the original quoted has often proved detrimental
to the legitimate honours of the quoter. They are unfairly appropriated
by the next comer; the quoter is never quoted, but the authority he has
afforded is produced by his successor with the air of an original
research. I have seen MSS. thus confidently referred to, which could
never have met the eye of the writer. A learned historian declared to me
of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he
might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if
his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a
silent virtue. Gilbert Stuart thus lived on Robertson: and as Professor
Dugald Stewart observes, "his curiosity has seldom led him into any path
where the genius and industry of his predecessor had not previously
cleared the way." It is for this reason some authors, who do not care to
trust to the equity and gratitude of their successors, will not furnish
the means of supplanting themselves; for, by not yielding up their
authorities, they themselves become one. Some authors, who are pleased
at seeing their names occur in the margins of other books than their
own, have practised this political management; such as Alexander ab
Alexandro, and other compilers of that stamp, to whose labours of small
value we are often obliged to refer, from the circumstance that they
themselves have not pointed out their authorities.
One word more on this long chapter of QUOTATION. To make a happy one is
a thing not easily to be done.[281] Cardinal du Perron used to say, that
the happy application of a verse from Virgil was worth a talent; and
Bayle, perhaps too much prepossessed in their favour, has insinuated,
that there is not less invention in a just and happy application of a
thought found in a book, than in being the first author of that thought.
The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those
conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract.
Whenever the mind of a writer is saturated with the full inspiration of
a great author, a quotation gives completeness to the whole; it seals
his feelings with undisputed authority. Whenever we would prepare the
mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding
on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonise. Perhaps no writers
of our times have discovered more of this delicacy of quotation than the
author of the "Pursuits of Literature;" and Mr. Southey, in some of his
beautiful periodical investigations, where we have often acknowledged
the solemn and striking effect of a quotation from our elder writers.