CHAPTER XXV.

Influence of Authors on society, and of society on Authors.--National

tastes a source of literary prejudices.--True Genius always the organ of

its nation.--Master-writers preserve the distinct national character.

--Genius the organ of the state of the age.--Causes of its suppression in

a people.--Often invented, but neglected.--The natural gradations of

genius.--Men of Genius produce their usefulness in privacy.--The public

mind is now the creation of the public writer.--Politicians affect to deny

this principle.--Authors stand between the governors and the governed.--A

view of the solitary Author in his study.--They create an epoch in

history.--Influence of popular Authors.--The immortality of thought.--The

Family of Genius illustrated by their genealogy.

Literary fame, which is the sole preserver of all other fame, participates

little, and remotely, in the remuneration and the honours of professional

characters. All other professions press more immediately on the wants and

attentions of men, than the occupations of LITERARY CHARACTERS, who from

their habits are secluded; producing their usefulness often at a late

period of life, and not always valued by their own generation.

It is not the commercial character of a nation which inspires veneration

in mankind, nor will its military power engage the affections of its

neighbours. So late as in 1700 the Italian Gemelli told all Europe that he

could find nothing among us but our _writings_ to distinguish us from a

people of barbarians. It was long considered that our genius partook

of the density and variableness of our climate, and that we were

incapacitated even by situation from the enjoyments of those beautiful

arts which have not yet travelled to us--as if Nature herself had designed

to disjoin us from more polished nations and brighter skies.

At length we have triumphed! Our philosophers, our poets, and our

historians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory,

and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at least as the

commerce and the prowess of England. This singular revolution in the

history of the human mind, and by its reaction this singular revolution in

human affairs, was effected by a glorious succession of AUTHORS, who have

enabled our nation to arbitrate among the nations of Europe, and to

possess ourselves of their involuntary esteem by discoveries in science,

by principles in philosophy, by truths in history, and even by the graces

of fiction; and there is not a man of genius among foreigners who stands

unconnected with our intellectual sovereignty. Even had our country

displayed more limited resources than its awful powers have opened, and

had the sphere of its dominion been enclosed by its island boundaries, if

the same _national literary character_ had predominated, we should have

stood on the same eminence among our Continental rivals. The small cities

of Athens and of Florence will perpetually attest the influence of the

literary character over other nations. The one received the tribute of the

mistress of the universe, when the Romans sent their youth to be educated

at the Grecian city, while the other, at the revival of letters, beheld

every polished European crowding to its little court.

In closing this imperfect work by attempting to ascertain the real

influence of authors on society, it will be necessary to notice some

curious facts in the history of genius.

The distinct literary tastes of different nations, and the repugnance they

mutually betray for the master-writers of each other, is an important

circumstance to the philosophical observer. These national tastes

originate in modes of feeling, in customs, in idioms, and all the numerous

associations prevalent among every people. The reciprocal influence of

manners on taste, and of taste on manners--of government and religion on

the literature of a people, and of their literature on the national

character, with other congenial objects of inquiry, still require a more

ample investigation. Whoever attempts to reduce this diversity, and these

strong contrasts of national tastes to one common standard, by forcing

such dissimilar objects into comparative parallels, or by trying them by

conventional principles and arbitrary regulations, will often condemn what

in truth his mind is inadequate to comprehend, and the experience of his

associations to combine.

These attempts have been the fertile source in literature of what may be

called national prejudices. The French nation insists that the northerns

are defective in taste--the taste, they tell us, which is established at

Paris, and which existed at Athens: the Gothic imagination of the north

spurns at the timid copiers of the Latin classics, and interminable

disputes prevail in their literature, as in their architecture and their

painting. Philosophy discovers a fact of which taste seems little

conscious; it is, that genius varies with the soil, and produces a

nationality of taste. The feelings of mankind indeed have the same

common source, but they must come to us through the medium and by the

modifications of society. Love is a universal passion, but the poetry of

love in different nations is peculiar to each; for every great poet

belongs to his country. Petrarch, Lope de Vega, Racine, Shakspeare, and

Sadi, would each express this universal passion by the most specific

differences; and the style that would be condemned as unnatural by one

people, might be habitual with another. The _concetti_ of the Italian, the

figurative style of the Persian, the swelling grandeur of the Spaniard,

the classical correctness of the French, are all modifications of genius,

relatively true to each particular writer. On national tastes critics are

but wrestlers: the Spaniard will still prefer his Lope de Vega to the

French Racine, or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Tasso and

his Petrarch. Hence all national writers are studied with enthusiasm by

their own people, and their very peculiarities, offensive to others, with

the natives constitute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual contest

about the great writers of other nations solely arise from an association

of patriotic glory, but really because these great native writers have

most strongly excited the sympathies and conformed to the habitual tastes

of their own people.

Hence, then, we deduce that true genius is the organ of its nation. The

creative faculty is itself created; for it is the nation which first

imparts an impulse to the character of genius. Such is the real source of

those distinct tastes which we perceive in all great national authors.

Every literary work, to ensure its success, must adapt itself to the

sympathies and the understandings of the people it addresses. Hence those

opposite characteristics, which are usually ascribed to the master-writers

themselves, originate with the country, and not with the writer. LOPE DE

VEGA, and CALDEBON, in their dramas, and CERVANTES, who has left his name

as the epithet of a peculiar grave humour, were Spaniards before they were

men of genius. CORNEILLE, RACINE, and RABELAIS, are entirely of an

opposite character to the Spaniards, having adapted their genius to their

own declamatory and vivacious countrymen. PETRARCH and TASSO display a

fancifulness in depicting the passions, as BOCCACCIO narrates his

facetious stories, quite distinct from the inventions and style of

northern writers. SHAKSPEARE is placed at a wider interval from all of

them than they are from each other, and is as perfectly insular in his

genius as his own countrymen were in their customs, and their modes of

thinking and feeling.

Thus the master-writers of every people preserve the distinct national

character in their works; and hence that extraordinary enthusiasm with

which every people read their own favourite authors; but in which others

cannot participate, and for which, with all their national prejudices,

they often recriminate on each other with false and even ludicrous

criticism.

But genius is not only the organ of its nation, it is also that of the

state of the times; and a great work usually originates in the age.

Certain events must precede the man of genius, who often becomes only the

vehicle of public feeling. MACHIAVEL has been reproached for propagating a

political system subversive of all human honour and happiness; but was it

Machiavel who formed his age, or the age which created Machiavel? Living

among the petty principalities of Italy, where stratagem and assassination

were the practices of those wretched courts, what did that calumniated

genius more than lift the veil from a cabinet of bandtiti? MACHIAVEL

alarmed the world by exposing a system subversive of all human virtue and

happiness, and, whether he meant it or not, certainly led the way to

political freedom. On the same principle we may learn that BOCCACCIO would

not have written so many indecent tales had not the scandalous lives of

the monks engaged public attention. This we may now regret; but the court

of Rome felt the concealed satire, and that luxurious and numerous class

in society never recovered from the chastisement.

MONTAIGNE has been censured for his universal scepticism, and for the

unsettled notions he drew out on his motley page, which has been

attributed to his incapacity of forming decisive opinions. "Que sçais-je?"

was his motto, The same accusation may reach the gentle ERASMUS, who alike

offended the old catholics and the new reformers. The real source of their

vacillations we may discover in the age itself. It was one of controversy

and of civil wars, when the minds of men were thrown into perpetual

agitation, and opinions, like the victories of the parties, were every day

changing sides.

Even in its advancement beyond the intelligence of its own age genius is

but progressive. In nature all is continuous; she makes no starts and

leaps. Genius is said to soar, but we should rather say that genius

climbs. Did the great VERULAM, or RAWLEIGH, or Dr. MORE, emancipate

themselves from all the dreams of their age, from the occult agency of

witchcraft, the astral influence, and the ghost and demon creed?

Before a particular man of genius can appear, certain events must arise to

prepare the age for him. A great commercial nation, in the maturity of

time, opened all the sources of wealth to the contemplation of ADAM SMITH.

That extensive system of what is called political economy could not have

been produced at any other time; for before this period the materials of

this work had but an imperfect existence, and the advances which this sort

of science had made were only partial and preparatory. If the principle of

Adam Smith's great work seems to confound the happiness of a nation with

its wealth, we can scarcely reproach the man of genius, who we shall find

is always reflecting back the feelings of his own nation, even in his most

original speculations.

In works of pure imagination we trace the same march of the human

intellect; and we discover in those inventions, which appear sealed by

their originality, how much has been derived from the age and the people

in which they were produced. Every work of genius is tinctured by the

feelings, and often originates in the events, of the times. The _Inferno_

of DANTE was caught from the popular superstitions of the age, and had

been preceded by the gross visions which the monks had forged, usually for

their own purposes. "La Cittá dolente," and "la perduta gente," were

familiar to the imaginations of the people, by the monkish visions, and it

seems even by ocular illusions of Hell, exhibited in Mysteries, with

its gulfs of flame, and its mountains of ice, and the shrieks of the

condemned.[A] To produce the "Inferno" only required the giant step of

genius, in the sombre, the awful, and the fierce, DANTE. When the age of

chivalry flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy; the great man was

the great lover, and the great author the romancer. It was from his own

age that MILTON derived his greatest blemish--the introduction of

school-divinity into poetry. In a polemical age the poet, as well as the

sovereign, reflected the reigning tastes.

[Footnote A: Sismondi relates that the bed of the river Arno, at Florence,

was transformed into a representation of the Gulf of Hell, in the year

1304; and that all the variety of suffering that monkish imagination had

invented was apparently inflicted on real persons, whose shrieks and

groans gave fearful reality to the appalling scene.--ED.]

There are accidents to which genius is liable, and by which it is

frequently suppressed in a people. The establishment of the Inquisition in

Spain at one stroke annihilated all the genius of the country. Cervantes

said that the Inquisition had spoilt many of his most delightful

inventions; and unquestionably it silenced the wit and invention of a

nation whose proverbs attest they possessed them even to luxuriance. All

the continental nations have boasted great native painters and architects,

while these arts were long truly foreign to us. Theoretical critics, at a

loss to account for this singularity, accused not only our climate, but

even our diet, as the occult causes of our unfitness to cultivate them.

Yet Montesquieu and Winkelmann might have observed that the air of fens

and marshes had not deprived the gross feeders of Holland and Flanders of

admirable artists. We have teen outrageously calumniated. So far from any

national incapacity, or obtuse feelings, attaching to ourselves in respect

to these arts, the noblest efforts had long been made, not only by

individuals, but by the magnificence of Henry VIII., who invited to his

court Raphael and Titian; but unfortunately only obtained Holbein. A later

sovereign, Charles the First, not only possessed galleries of pictures,

and was the greatest purchaser in Europe, for he raised their value, but

he likewise possessed the taste and the science of the connoisseur.

Something, indeed, had occurred to our national genius, which had thrown

it into a stupifying state, from which it is yet hardly aroused. Could

those foreign philosophers have ascended to moral causes, instead

of vapouring forth fanciful notions, they might have struck at the

true cause of the deficiency in our national genius. The jealousy of

puritanic fanaticism had persecuted these arts from the first rise of the

Reformation in this country. It had not only banished them from our

churches and altar-pieces, but the fury of the people, and the "wisdom" of

parliament, had alike combined to mutilate and even efface what little

remained of painting and sculpture among us. Even within our own times

this deadly hostility to art was not extinct; for when a proposal was made

gratuitously to decorate our places of worship by a series of religious

pictures, and English artists, in pure devotion to Art, zealous to confute

the Continental calumniators, asked only for walls to cover, George the

Third highly approved of the plan. The design was put aside, as some had a

notion that the cultivation of the fine arts in our naked churches was a

return to Catholicism. Had this glorious plan been realized, the golden

age of English art might have arisen. Every artist would have invented a

subject most congenial to his powers. REYNOLDS would have emulated Raphael

in the Virgin and Child in the manger, WEST had fixed on Christ raising

the young man from the dead, BARRY had profoundly meditated on the Jews

rejecting Jesus. Thus did an age of genius perish before its birth! It was

on the occasion of this frustrated project that BARRY, in the rage of

disappointment, immortalised himself by a gratuitous labour of seven years

on the walls of the Society of Arts, for which, it is said, the French

government under Buonaparte offered ten thousand pounds.

Thus also it has happened, that we have possessed among ourselves

great architects, although opportunities for displaying their genius have

been rare. This the fate and fortune of two Englishmen attest. Without the

fire of London we might not have shown the world one of the greatest

architects, in Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN; had not a St. Paul's been required

by the nation he would have found no opportunity of displaying the

magnificence of his genius, which even then was mutilated, as the original

model bears witness to the world. That great occasion served this noble

architect to multiply his powers in other public edifices: and it is here

worth remarking that, had not Charles II. been seized by apoplexy,

the royal residence, which was begun at Winchester on a plan of Sir

Christopher Wren's, by its magnificence would have raised a Versailles for

England.

The fate of INIGO JONES is as remarkable as that of WREN. Whitehall

afforded a proof to foreigners that among a people which, before that

edifice appeared, was reproached for their total deficiency of feeling

for the pure classical style of architecture, the true taste could

nevertheless exist. This celebrated piece of architecture, however, is but

a fragment of a grander composition, by which, had not the civil wars

intervened, the fame of Britain would have balanced the glory of Greece,

or Italy, or France, and would have shown that our country is more

deficient in marble than in genius. Thus the fire of London produces a St.

Paul's, and the civil wars suppress a Whitehall. Such circumstances in the

history of art among nations have not always been developed by those

theorists who have calumniated the artists of England.

In the history of genius it is remarkable that its work is often invented,

and lies neglected. A close observer of this age pointed out to me that

the military genius of that great French captain, who so long appeared to

have conquered Europe, was derived from his applying the new principles of

war discovered by FOLARD and GUIBERT. The genius of FOLARD observed that,

among the changes of military discipline in the practice of war among

European nations since the introduction of gunpowder, one of the ancient

methods of the Romans had been improperly neglected, and, in his

Commentaries on Polybius, Folard revived this forgotten mode of warfare.

GUIBERT, in his great work, "Histoire de la Milice Française," or rather

the History of the Art of War, adopted Folard's system of charging by

columns, and breaking the centre of the enemy, which seems to be the

famous plan of our Rodney and Nelson in their maritime battles. But this

favourite plan became the ridicule of the military; and the boldness of

his pen, with the high confidence of the author, only excited adversaries

to mortify his pretensions, and to treat him as a dreamer. From this

perpetual opposition to his plans, and the neglect he incurred, GUIBEBT

died of "vexation of spirit;" and the last words on the death-bed of this

man of genius were, "One day they will know me!" FOLARD and GUIBERT

created a BUONAPARTE, who studied them on the field of battle; and he who

would trace the military genius who so long held in suspense the fate of

the world, may discover all that he performed in the neglected inventions

of preceding genius.

Hence also may we deduce the natural gradations of genius. Many men of

genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. Before

HOMER there were other epic poets; a catalogue of their names and their

works has come down to us. CORNEILLE could not have been the chief

dramatist of France had not the founders of the French drama preceded him,

and POPE could not have preceded DRYDEN. It was in the nature of things

that a GIOTTO and a CIMABUE should have preceded a RAPHAEL and a MICHAEL

ANGELO.

Even the writings of such extravagant geniuses as BRUNO and CAEDAN gave

indications of the progress of the human mind; and had RAMUS not shaken

the authority of the _Organon_ of Aristotle we might not have had the

_Novum Organon_ of BACON. Men slide into their degree in the scale of

genius often by the exercise of a single quality which their predecessors

did not possess, or by completing what at first was left imperfect. Truth

is a single point in knowledge, as beauty is in art: ages revolve till a

NEWTON and a LOCKE accomplish what an ARISTOTLE and a DESCARTES began. The

old theory of animal spirits, observes Professor Dugald Stewart, was

applied by DESCARTES to explain the mental phenomena which led NEWTON into

that train of thinking, which served as the groundwork of HARTLEY'S theory

of vibrations. The learning of one man makes others learned, and the

influence of genius is in nothing more remarkable than in its effects on

its brothers. SELDEN'S treatise on the Syrian and Arabian Deities enabled

MILTON to comprise, in one hundred and thirty beautiful lines, the two

large and learned syntagma which Selden had composed on that abstract

subject. LELAND, the father of British antiquities, impelled STOWE to work

on his "Survey of London;" and Stowe's "London" inspired CAMDEN'S

stupendous "Britannia." Herodotus produced Thucydides, and Thucydides

Xenophon. With us HUME, ROBERTSON, and GIBBON rose almost simultaneously

by mutual inspiration. There exists a perpetual action and reaction in the

history of the human mind. It has frequently been inquired why certain

periods seem to have been more favourable to a particular class of genius

than another; or, in other words, why men of genius appear in clusters. We

have theories respecting barren periods, which are only satisfactorily

accounted for by moral causes. Genius generates enthusiasm and rivalry;

but, having reached the meridian of its class, we find that there can be

no progress in the limited perfection of human nature. All excellence in

art, if it cannot advance, must decline.

Important discoveries are often obtained by accident; but the single work

of a man of genius, which has at length changed the character of a people,

and even of an age, is slowly matured in meditation. Even the mechanical

inventions of genius must first become perfect in its own solitary

abode ere the world can possess them. Men of genius then produce their

usefulness in privacy; but it may not be of immediate application, and is

often undervalued by their own generation.

The influence of authors is so great, while the author himself is so

inconsiderable, that to some the cause may not appear commensurate to its

effect. When EPICURUS published his doctrines, men immediately began to

express themselves with freedom on the established religion, and the dark

and fearful superstitions of paganism, falling into neglect, mouldered

away. If, then, before the art of multiplying the productions of the human

mind existed, the doctrines of a philosopher in manuscript or by lecture

could diffuse themselves throughout a literary nation, it will baffle the

algebraist of metaphysics to calculate the unknown quantities of the

propagation of human thought. There are problems in metaphysics, as well

as in mathematics, which can never be resolved.

A small portion of mankind appears marked out by nature and by study for

the purpose of cultivating their thoughts in peace, and of giving activity

to their discoveries, by disclosing them to the people. "Could I,"

exclaims MONTESQUIEU, whose heart was beating with the feelings of a great

author, "could I but afford new reasons to men to love their duties, their

king, their country, their laws, that they might become more sensible of

their happiness under every government they live, and in every station

they occupy, I should deem myself the happiest of men!" Such was the pure

aspiration of the great author who studied to preserve, by ameliorating,

the humane fabric of society. The same largeness of mind characterises all

the eloquent friends of the human race. In an age of religious intolerance

it inspired the President DE THOU to inculcate, from sad experience and a

juster view of human nature, the impolicy as well as the inhumanity of

religious persecutions, in that dedication to Henry IV., which Lord

Mansfield declared he could never read without rapture. "I was not born

for myself alone, but for my country and my friends!" exclaimed the genius

which hallowed the virtuous pages of his immortal history.

Even our liberal yet dispassionate LOCKE restrained the freedom of his

inquiries, and corrected the errors which the highest intellect may fall

into, by marking out that impassable boundary which must probably

for ever limit all human intelligence; for the maxim which LOCKE

constantly inculcates is that "Reason must be the last judge and guide in

everything." A final answer to those who propagate their opinions,

whatever they may be, with a sectarian spirit, to force the understandings

of other men to their own modes of belief, and their own variable

opinions. This alike includes those who yield up nothing to the genius of

their age to correct the imperfections of society, and those who, opposing

all human experience, would annihilate what is most admirable in its

institutions.

The public mind is the creation of the Master-Writers--an axiom as

demonstrable as any in Euclid, and a principle as sure in its operation as

any in mechanics. BACON'S influence over philosophy, and GROTICS'S over

the political state of society, are still felt, and their principles

practised far more than in their own age. These men of genius, in

their solitude, and with their views not always comprehended by their

contemporaries, became themselves the founders of our science and our

legislation. When LOCKE and MONTESQUIEU appeared, the old systems of

government were reviewed, the principle of toleration was developed, and

the revolutions of opinion were discovered.

A noble thought of VITRUVIUS, who, of all the authors of antiquity, seems

to have been most deeply imbued with the feelings of the literary

character, has often struck me by the grandeur and the truth of its

conception. "The sentiments of excellent writers," he says, "although

their persons be for ever absent, exist in future ages; and in councils

and debates are of greater authority than those of the persons who are

present."

But politicians affect to disbelieve that abstract principles possess any

considerable influence on the conduct of the subject. They tell us that

"in times of tranquillity they are not wanted, and in times of confusion

they are never heard;" this is the philosophy of men who do not choose

that philosophy should disturb their fireside! But it is in leisure, when

they are not wanted, that the speculative part of mankind create them, and

when they are wanted they are already prepared for the active multitude,

who come, like a phalanx, pressing each other with a unity of feeling and

an integrity of force. PALEY would not close his eyes on what was passing

before him; for, he has observed, that during the convulsions at Geneva,

the political theory of ROUSSEAU was prevalent in their contests; while,

in the political disputes of our country, the ideas of civil authority

displayed in the works of LOCKE recurred in every form. The character of a

great author can never be considered as subordinate in society; nor do

politicians secretly think so at the moment they are proclaiming it to the

world, for, on the contrary, they consider the worst actions of men as of

far less consequence than the propagation of their opinions. Politicians

have exposed their disguised terrors. Books, as well as their authors,

have been tried and condemned. Cromwell was alarmed when he saw the

"Oceana" of HARRINGTON, and dreaded the effects of that volume more than

the plots of the Royalists; while Charles II. trembled at an author only

in his manuscript state, and in the height of terror, and to the honour of

genius, it was decreed, that "Scribere est agere."--"The book of

Telemachus," says Madame de Staël, "was a courageous action." To insist

with such ardour on the duties of a sovereign, and to paint with such

truth a voluptuous reign, disgraced Fenelon at the court of Louis XIV.,

but the virtuous author raised a statue for himself in all hearts.

MASSILLON'S _Petit Carême_ was another of these animated recals of man to

the sympathies of his nature, which proves the influence of an author;

for, during the contests of Louis XV. with the Parliaments, large editions

of this book were repeatedly printed and circulated through the kingdom.

In such moments it is that a people find and know the value of a great

author, whose work is the mighty organ which convoys their voice to their

governors.

But, if the influence of benevolent authors over society is great, it must

not be forgotten that the abuse of this influence is terrific. Authors

preside at a tribunal in Europe which is independent of all the powers of

the earth--the tribunal of Opinion! But since, as Sophocles has long

declared, "Opinion is stronger than Truth," it is unquestionable that the

falsest and the most depraved notions are, as long as these opinions

maintain their force, accepted as immutable truths; and the mistakes of

one man become the crimes of a whole people.

Authors stand between the governors and the governed, and form the single

organ of both. Those who govern a nation cannot at the same time enlighten

the people, for the executive power is not empirical; and the governed

cannot think, for they have no continuity of leisure. The great systems of

thought, and the great discoveries in moral and political philosophy, have

come from the solitude of contemplative men, seldom occupied in public

affairs or in private employments. The commercial world owes to two

retired philosophers, LOCKE and SMITH, those principles which dignify

trade into a liberal pursuit, and connect it with the happiness and the

glory of a people. A work in France, under the title of "L'Ami des

Hommes," by the Marquis of MIRABEAU, first spread there a general passion

for agricultural pursuits; and although the national ardour carried all to

excess in the reveries of the "Economistes," yet marshes were drained and

waste lands inclosed. The "Emilius" of ROUSSEAU, whatever may be its

errors and extravagances, operated a complete revolution in modern Europe,

by communicating a bolder spirit to education, and improving the physical

force and character of man. An Italian marquis, whose birth and habits

seemed little favourable to study, operated a moral revolution in the

administration of the laws. BECCARIA dared to plead in favour of humanity

against the prejudices of many centuries in his small volume on "Crimes

and Punishments," and at length abolished torture; while the French

advocates drew their principles from that book, rather than from their

national code, and our Blackstone quoted it with admiration! LOCKE and

VOLTAIRE, having written on "Toleration," have long made us tolerant. In

all such cases the authors were themselves entirely unconnected with their

subjects, except as speculative writers.

Such are the authors who become universal in public opinion; and it then

happens that the work itself meets with the singular fate which that great

genius SMEATON said happened to his stupendous "Pharos:" "The novelty

having yearly worn off, and the greatest real praise of the edifice being

that nothing has happened to it--nothing has occurred to keep the

talk of it alive." The fundamental principles of such works, after

having long entered into our earliest instruction, become unquestionable

as self-evident propositions; yet no one, perhaps, at this day can rightly

conceive the great merits of Locke's Treatises on "Education," and on

"Toleration;" or the philosophical spirit of Montesquieu, and works of

this high order, which first diffused a tone of thinking over Europe. The

principles have become so incorporated with our judgment, and so

interwoven with our feelings, that we can hardly now imagine the fervour

they excited at the time, or the magnanimity of their authors in the

decision of their opinions. Every first great monument of genius raises a

new standard to our knowledge, from which the human mind takes its impulse

and measures its advancement. The march of human thought through ages

might be indicated by every great work as it is progressively succeeded by

others. It stands like the golden milliary column in the midst of Rome,

from which all others reckoned their distances.

But a scene of less grandeur, yet more beautiful, is the view of the

solitary author himself in his own study--so deeply occupied, that

whatever passes before him never reaches his observation, while, working

more than twelve hours every day, he still murmurs as the hour strikes;

the volume still lies open, the page still importunes--"And whence all

this business?" He has made a discovery for us! that never has there been

anything important in the active world but what is reflected in the

literary--books contain everything, even the falsehoods and the crimes

which have been only projected by men! This solitary man of genius is

arranging the materials of instruction and curiosity from every country

and every age; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a new

order of ideas for his own times; he possesses secrets which men hide from

their contemporaries, truths they dared not utter, facts they dared not

discover. View him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busied

over a copious page, and his eye sparkling with gladness! He has concluded

what his countrymen will hereafter cherish as the legacy of genius--you

see him now changed; and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into his

very gestures--could you listen to the vaticinator! But the next age only

will quote his predictions. If he be the truly great author, he will be

best comprehended by posterity, for the result of ten years of solitary

meditation has often required a whole century to be understood and to be

adopted. The ideas of Bishop BERKELEY, in his "Theory of Vision," were

condemned as a philosophical romance, and now form an essential part of

every treatise of optics; and "The History of Oracles," by FONTENELLE,

says La Harpe, which, in his youth, was censured for its impiety, the

centenarian lived to see regarded as a proof of his respect for religion.

"But what influence can this solitary man, this author of genius, have on

his nation, when he has none in the very street in which he lives? and it

may be suspected as little in his own house, whose inmates are hourly

practising on the infantine simplicity which marks his character, and that

frequent abstraction from what is passing under his own eyes?"

This solitary man of genius is stamping his own character on the minds of

his own people. Take one instance, from others far more splendid, in the

contrast presented by FRANKLIN and Sir WILLIAM JONES. The parsimonious

habits, the money-getting precepts, the wary cunning, the little scruple

about means, the fixed intent upon the end, of Dr. FRANKLIN, imprinted

themselves on his Americans. Loftier feelings could not elevate a man of

genius who became the founder of a trading people, and who retained the

early habits of a journeyman; while the elegant tastes of Sir WILLIAM

JONES could inspire the servants of a commercial corporation to open new

and vast sources of knowledge. A mere company of merchants, influenced by

the literary character, enlarges the stores of the imagination and

provides fresh materials for the history of human nature.

FRANKLIN, with that calm good sense which is freed from the passion of

imagination, has himself declared this important truth relating to the

literary character:--"I have always thought that one man of tolerable

abilities may work great changes and accomplish great affairs among

mankind, if he first forms a good plan; and cutting off all amusements, or

other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of

that same plan his sole study and business." Fontenelle was of the same

opinion, for he remarks that "a single great man is sufficient to

accomplish a change in the taste of his age." The life of GRANVILLE SHARP

is a striking illustration of the solitary force of individual character.

It cannot be doubted that the great author, in the solitude of his

study, has often created an epoch in the annals of mankind. A single

man of genius arose in a barbarous period in Italy, who gave birth not

only to Italian, but to European literature. Poet, orator, philosopher,

geographer, historian, and antiquary, PETRARCH kindled a line of

light through his native land, while a crowd of followers hailed their

father-genius, who had stamped his character on the age. DESCARTES, it has

been observed, accomplished a change in the taste of his age by the

perspicacity and method for which he was indebted to his mathematical

researches; and "models of metaphysical analysis and logical discussions"

in the works of HUME and SMITH have had the same influence in the writings

of our own time.

Even genius not of the same colossal size may aspire to add to the

progressive mass of human improvement by its own single effort. When an

author writes on a national subject, he awakens all the knowledge which

slumbers in a nation, and calls around him, as it were, every man of

talent; and though his own fame may be eclipsed by his successors, yet

the emanation, the morning light, broke from his solitary study. Our

naturalist, RAY, though no man was more modest in his claims, delighted to

tell a friend that "Since the publication of his catalogue of Cambridge

plants, many were prompted to botanical studies, and to herbalise in their

walks in the fields." Johnson has observed that "An emulation of study was

raised by CHEKE and SMITH, to which even the present age perhaps owes many

advantages, without remembering or knowing its benefactors. ROLLIN is only

a compiler of history, and to the antiquary he is nothing! But races yet

unborn will be enchanted by that excellent man, in whose works 'the heart

speaks to the heart,' and whom Montesquieu called 'The Bee of France'." The

BACONS, the NEWTONS, and the LEIBNITZES were insulated by their own

creative powers, and stood apart from the world, till the dispersers of

knowledge became their interpreters to the people, opening a communication

between two spots, which, though close to each other, were long separated

--the closet and the world! The ADDISONS, the FONTENELLES, and the

FEYJOOS, the first popular authors in their nations who taught England,

France, and Spain to become a reading people, while their fugitive page

imbues with intellectual sweetness every uncultivated mind, like the

perfumed mould taken up by the Persian swimmer. "It was but a piece of

common earth, but so delicate was its fragrance, that he who found it, in

astonishment asked whether it were musk or amber. 'I am nothing but earth;

but roses were planted in my soil, and their odorous virtues have

deliciously penetrated through all my pores: I have retained the infusion

of sweetness, otherwise I had been but a lump of earth!'"

I have said that authors produce their usefulness in privacy, and that

their good is not of immediate application, and often unvalued by their

own generation. On this occasion the name of EVELYN always occurs to me.

This author supplied the public with nearly thirty works, at a time

when taste and curiosity were not yet domiciliated in our country; his

patriotism warmed beyond the eightieth year of his age, and in his dying

hand he held another legacy for his nation. EVELYN conveys a pleasing idea

of his own works and their design. He first taught his countrymen how to

plant, then to build: and having taught them to be useful _without doors_,

he then attempted to divert and occupy them _within doors_, by his

treatises on chalcography, painting, medals, libraries. It was during the

days of destruction and devastation both of woods and buildings, the civil

wars of Charles the First, that a solitary author was projecting to make

the nation delight in repairing their evil, by inspiring them with

the love of agriculture and architecture. Whether his enthusiasm was

introducing to us a taste for medals and prints, or intent on purifying

the city from smoke and nuisances, and sweetening it by plantations of

native plants, after having enriched our orchards and our gardens, placed

summer-ices on our tables, and varied even the salads of our country;

furnishing "a Gardener's Kalendar," which, as Cowley said, was to last as

long "as months and years;" whether the philosopher of the Royal Society,

or the lighter satirist of the toilet, or the fine moralist for active as

well as contemplative life--in all these changes of a studious life, the

better part of his history has not yet been told. While Britain retains

her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the "Sylva" of EVELYN

will endure with her triumphant oaks. In the third edition of that work

the heart of the patriot expands at its result; he tells Charles II.

"how many millions of timber trees, besides infinite others, have been

propagated and planted _at the instigation and by the sole direction of

this work_." It was an author in his studious retreat who, casting a

prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our

naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have

been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which

the genius of EVELYN planted.[A]

[Footnote A: Since this was first printed, the "Diary" of EVELYN has

appeared; and although it could not add to his general character, yet I

was not too sanguine in my anticipations of the diary of so perfect a

literary character, who has shown how his studies were intermingled with

the business of life.]

The same character existed in France, where DE SERRES, in 1599, composed a

work on the cultivation of mulberry-trees, in reference to the art of

raising silkworms. He taught his fellow-citizens to convert a leaf

into silk, and silk to become the representative of gold. Our author

encountered the hostility of the prejudices of his times, even from Sully,

in giving his country one of her staple commodities; but I lately received

a medal recently struck in honour of DE SERRES by the Agricultural Society

of the Department of the Seine. We slowly commemorate the intellectual

characters of our own country; and our men of genius are still defrauded

of the debt we are daily incurring of their posthumous fame. Let monuments

be raised and let medals be struck! They are sparks of glory which might

be scattered through the next age!

There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of genius which is carried

on through all ages, and will for ever connect the nations of the earth.

THE IMMORTALITY OF THOUGHT EXISTS FOR MAN! The veracity of HERODOTUS,

after more than two thousand years, is now receiving a fresh confirmation.

The single and precious idea of genius, however obscure, is eventually

disclosed; for original discoveries have often been the developments of

former knowledge. The system of the circulation of the blood appears to

have been obscurely conjectured by SERVETUS, who wanted experimental

facts to support his hypothesis: VESALIUS had an imperfect perception

of the right motion of the blood: CÆSALPINUS admits a circulation

without comprehending its consequences; at length our HARVEY, by

patient meditation and penetrating sagacity, removed the errors of his

predecessors, and demonstrated the true system. Thus, too, HARTLEY

expanded the hint of "the association of ideas" from LOCKE, and raised a

system on what LOCKE had only used for an accidental illustration. The

beautiful theory of vision by BERKELEY, was taken up by him just where

LOCKE had dropped it: and as Professor Dugald Stewart describes, by

following out his principles to their remoter consequences, BERKELEY

brought out a doctrine which was as true as it seemed novel. LYDGATE'S

"Fall of Princes," says Mr. Campbell, "probably suggested to Lord

SACKVILLE the idea of his 'Mirror for Magistrates'." The "Mirror for

Magistrates" again gave hints to SPENSER in allegory, and may also "have

possibly suggested to SHAKSPEARE the idea of his historical plays." When

indeed we find that that great original, HOGARTH, adopted the idea of his

"Idle and Industrious Apprentice," from the old comedy of _Eastward Hoe_,

we easily conceive that some of the most original inventions of genius,

whether the more profound or the more agreeable, may thus be tracked in

the snow of time.

In the history of genius therefore there is no chronology, for to its

votaries everything it has done is PRESENT--the earliest attempt stands

connected with the most recent. This continuity of ideas characterizes the

human mind, and seems to yield an anticipation of its immortal nature.

There is a consanguinity in the characters of men of genius, and a

genealogy may be traced among their races. Men of genius in their

different classes, living at distinct periods, or in remote countries,

seem to reappear under another name; and in this manner there exists in

the literary character an eternal transmigration. In the great march of

the human intellect the same individual spirit seems still occupying the

same place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great work

through a line of centuries. It was on this principle that one great poet

has recently hailed his brother as "the ARIOSTO of the North," and ARIOSTO

as "the SCOTT of the South." And can we deny the real existence of the

genealogy of genius? Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton! this is a

single line of descent!

ARISTOTLE, HOBBES, and LOCKE, DESCARTES, and NEWTON, approximate more than

we imagine. The same chain of intellect which ARISTOTLE holds, through the

intervals of time, is held by them; and links will only be added by their

successors. The naturalists PLINY, GESNER, ALDROVANDUS, and BUFFON, derive

differences in their characters from the spirit of the times; but each

only made an accession to the family estate, while he was the legitimate

representative of the family of the naturalists. ARISTOPHANES, MOLIERE,

and FOOTE, are brothers of the family of national wits; the wit of

Aristophanes was a part of the common property, and Molière and Foote were

Aristophanic. PLUTARCH, LA MOTHE LE VAYER, and BAYLE, alike busied in

amassing the materials of human thought and human action, with the same

vigorous and vagrant curiosity, must have had the same habits of life.

If Plutarch were credulous, La Mothe Le Vayer sceptical, and Bayle

philosophical, all that can be said is, that though the heirs of the

family may differ in their dispositions, no one will arraign the integrity

of the lineal descent. VARRE did for the Romans what PAUSANIAS had done

for the Greeks, and MONTFAUCON for the French, and CAMDEN for ourselves.

My learned and reflecting friend, whose original researches have enriched

our national history, has this observation on the character of WICKLIFFE:

--"To complete our idea of the importance of Wickliffe, it is only

necessary to add, that as his writings made John Huss the reformer of

Bohemia, so the writings of John Huss led Martin Luther to be the reformer

of Germany; so extensive and so incalculable are the consequences which

sometimes follow from human actions."[A] Our historian has accompanied

this by giving the very feelings of Luther in early life on his first

perusal of the works of John Huss; we see the spark of creation caught at

the moment: a striking influence of the generation of character! Thus a

father-spirit has many sons; and several of the great revolutions in the

history of man have been carried on by that secret creation of minds

visibly operating on human affairs. In the history of the human mind, he

takes an imperfect view, who is confined to contemporary knowledge, as

well as he who stops short with the Ancients. Those who do not carry

researches through the genealogical lines of genius, mutilate their minds.

Such, then, is the influence of AUTHORS!--those "great lights of the

world," by whom the torch of genius has been successively seized and

perpetually transferred from hand to hand, in the fleeting scene.

DESCARTES delivers it to NEWTON, BACON to LOCKE; and the continuity of

human affairs, through the rapid generations of man, is maintained from,

age to age!

[Footnote A: Turner's "History of England," vol. ii. p. 432.]

LITERARY MISCELLANIES.

* * * * *

MISCELLANISTS.

Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people; for

it is they who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned,

and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of the

public. Literary Miscellanies are classed among philological studies. The

studies of philology formerly consisted rather of the labours of arid

grammarians and conjectural critics, than of that more elegant philosophy

which has, within our own time, been introduced into literature,

and which, by its graces and investigation, augment the beauties of

original genius. This delightful province has been termed in Germany the

_Æsthetic_, from a Greek term signifying sentiment or feeling. Æsthetic

critics fathom the depths, or run with the current of an author's

thoughts, and the sympathies of such a critic offer a supplement to the

genius of the original writer. Longinus and Addison are Æsthetic critics.

The critics of the adverse school always look for a precedent, and if none

is found, woe to the originality of a great writer!

Very elaborate criticisms have been formed by eminent writers, in which

great learning and acute logic have only betrayed the absence of the

Æsthetic faculty. Warburton called Addison an empty superficial writer,

destitute himself of an atom of Addison's taste for the beautiful; and

Johnson is a flagrant instance that great powers of reasoning are more

fatal to the works of imagination than had ever been suspected.

By one of these learned critics was Montaigne, the venerable father of

modern Miscellanies, called "a bold ignorant fellow." To thinking readers,

this critical summary will appear mysterious; for Montaigne had imbibed

the spirit of all the moral writers of antiquity; and although he has made

a capricious complaint of a defective memory, we cannot but wish the

complaint had been more real; for we discover in his works such a

gathering of knowledge that it seems at times to stifle his own energies.

Montaigne was censured by Scaliger, as Addison was censured by Warburton;

because both, like Socrates, smiled at that mere erudition which consists

of knowing the thoughts of others and having no thoughts of our own. To

weigh syllables, and to arrange dates, to adjust texts, and to heap

annotations, has generally proved the absence of the higher faculties.

When a more adventurous spirit of this herd attempts some novel discovery,

often men of taste behold, with indignation, the perversions of their

understanding; and a Bentley in his Milton, or a Warburton on a Virgil,

had either a singular imbecility concealed under the arrogance of the

scholar, or they did not believe what they told the public; the one in his

extraordinary invention of an interpolating editor, and the other in his

more extraordinary explanation of the Eleusinian mysteries. But what was

still worse, the froth of the head became venom, when it reached the

heart.

Montaigne has also been censured for an apparent vanity, in making himself

the idol of his lucubrations. If he had not done this, he had not

performed the promise he makes at the commencement of his preface. An

engaging tenderness prevails in these _naïve_ expressions which shall not

be injured by a version. "Je l'ay voué à la commodité particulière de mes

parens et amis; à ce que m'ayans perdu (ce qu'ils out à faire bientost)

ils y puissent retrouver quelques traicts de mes humeurs, et que par ce

moyen ils nourrissent plus entière et plus vifue la conoissance qu'ils out

eu de moi."

Those authors who appear sometimes to forget they are writers, and

remember they are men, will be our favourites. He who writes from the

heart, will write to the heart; every one is enabled to decide on his

merits, and they will not be referred to learned heads, or a distant day.

"Why," says Boileau, "are my verses read by all? it is only because they

speak truths, and that I am convinced of the truths I write."

Why have some of our fine writers interested more than others, who

have not displayed inferior talents? Why is Addison still the first

of our essayists? he has sometimes been excelled in criticisms more

philosophical, in topics more interesting, and in diction more coloured.

But there is a personal charm in the character he has assumed in his

periodical Miscellanies, which is felt with such a gentle force, that

we scarce advert to it. He has painted forth his little humours, his

individual feelings, and eternised himself to his readers. Johnson and

Hawkesworth we receive with respect, and we dismiss with awe; we come from

their writings as from public lectures, and from Addison's as from private

conversations. Montaigne preferred those of the ancients, who appear to

write under a conviction of what they said; the eloquent Cicero declaims

but coldly on liberty, while in the impetuous Brutus may be perceived a

man who is resolved to purchase it with his life. We know little of

Plutarch; yet a spirit of honesty and persuasion in his works expresses a

philosophical character capable of imitating, as well as admiring, the

virtues he records.

Sterne perhaps derives a portion of his celebrity from the same influence;

he interests us in his minutest motions, for he tells us all he feels.

Richardson was sensible of the power with which these minute strokes of

description enter the heart, and which are so many fastenings to which the

imagination clings. He says, "If I give speeches and conversations, I

ought to give them justly; for the humours and characters of persons

cannot be known, unless I repeat _what_ they say, and their _manner_ of

saying." I confess I am infinitely pleased when Sir William Temple

acquaints us with the size of his orange-trees, and with the flavour of

his peaches and grapes, confessed by Frenchmen to equal those of France;

with his having had the honour to naturalise in this country four kinds of

grapes, with his liberal distribution of them, because "he ever thought

all things of this kind the commoner they are the better." In a word, with

his passionate attachment to his garden, where he desired his heart to be

buried, of his desire to escape from great employments, and having passed

five years without going to town, where, by the way, "he had a large house

always ready to receive him." Dryden has interspersed many of these little

particulars in his prosaic compositions, and I think that his character

and dispositions may be more correctly acquired by uniting these scattered

notices, than by any biographical account which can now be given of this

man of genius.

From this agreeable mode of writing, a species of compositions may be

discriminated, which seems above all others to identify the reader with

the writer; compositions which are often discovered in a fugitive state,

but to which their authors were prompted by the fine impulses of genius,

derived from the peculiarity of their situation. Dictated by the heart, or

polished with the fondness of delight, these productions are impressed by

the seductive eloquence of genius, or attach us by the sensibility of

taste. The object thus selected is no task imposed on the mind of the

writer for the mere ambition of literature, but is a voluntary effusion,

warm with all the sensations of a pathetic writer. In a word, they

are the compositions of genius, on a subject in which it is most deeply

interested; which it revolves on all its sides, which it paints in

all its tints, and which it finishes with the same ardour it began. Among

such works may be placed the exiled Bolingbroke's "Reflections upon

Exile;" the retired Petrarch and Zimmerman's Essays on "Solitude;" the

imprisoned Boethius's "Consolations of Philosophy;" the oppressed Pierius

Valerianus's Catalogue of "Literary Calamities;" the deformed Hay's Essay

on "Deformity;" the projecting De Foe's "Essays on Projects;" the liberal

Shenstone's Poem on "Economy."

We may respect the profound genius of voluminous writers; they are a kind

of painters who occupy great room, and fill up, as a satirist expresses

it, "an acre of canvas." But we love to dwell on those more delicate

pieces,--a group of Cupids; a Venus emerging from the waves; a Psyche or

an Aglaia, which embellish the cabinet of the man of taste.

It should, indeed, be the characteristic of good Miscellanies, to be

multifarious and concise. Usbek, the Persian of Montesquieu, is one of the

profoundest philosophers, his letters are, however, but concise pages.

Rochefoucault and La Bruyère are not superficial observers of human

nature, although they have only written sentences. Of Tacitus it has been

finely remarked by Montesquieu, that "he abridged everything because he

saw everything." Montaigne approves of Plutarch and Seneca, because their

loose papers were suited to his dispositions, and where knowledge is

acquired without a tedious study. "It is," said he, "no great attempt to

take one in hand, and I give over at pleasure, for they have no sequel or

connexion." La Fontaine agreeably applauds short compositions:

Les longs ouvrages me font peur;

Loin d'épuiser une matière,

On n'en doit prendre que la fleur;

and Old Francis Osborne has a coarse and ludicrous image in favour of such

opuscula; he says, "Huge volumes, like the ox roasted whole at Bartholomew

fair, may proclaim plenty of labour and invention, but afford less of what

is delicate, savoury, and well concocted, than _smaller pieces_." To quote

so light a genius as the enchanting La Fontaine, and so solid a mind as

the sensible Osborne, is taking in all the climates of the human mind; it

is touching at the equator, and pushing on to the pole.

Montaigne's works have been called by a cardinal "The Breviary of Idlers."

It is therefore the book of man; for all men are idlers; we have hours

which we pass with lamentation, and which we know are always returning. At

those moments miscellanists are conformable to all our humours. We dart

along their airy and concise page; and their lively anecdote or their

profound observation are so many interstitial pleasures in our listless

hours.

The ancients were great admirers of miscellanies; Aulus Gellius has

preserved a copious list of titles of such works. These titles are so

numerous, and include such gay and pleasing descriptions, that we may

infer by their number that they were greatly admired by the public, and by

their titles that they prove the great delight their authors experienced

in their composition. Among the titles are "a basket of flowers;" "an

embroidered mantle;" and "a variegated meadow." Such a miscellanist as was

the admirable Erasmus deserves the happy description which Plutarch with

an elegant enthusiasm bestows on Menander: he calls him the delight of

philosophers fatigued with study; that they have recourse to his works as

to a meadow enamelled with flowers, where the sense is delighted by a

purer air; and very elegantly adds, that Menander has a salt peculiar to

himself, drawn from the same waters that gave birth to Venus.

The Troubadours, Conteurs, and Jongleurs, practised what is yet called in

the southern parts of France, _Le guay Saber,_ or the gay science. I

consider these as the Miscellanists of their day; they had their grave

moralities, their tragical histories, and their sportive tales; their

verse and their prose. The village was in motion at their approach; the

castle was opened to the ambulatory poets, and the feudal hypochondriac

listened to their solemn instruction and their airy fancy. I would

call miscellaneous composition LE GUAY SABER, and I would have every

miscellaneous writer as solemn and as gay, as various and as pleasing, as

these lively artists of versatility.

Nature herself is most delightful in her miscellaneous scenes. When I hold

a volume of miscellanies, and run over with avidity the titles of its

contents, my mind is enchanted, as if it were placed among the landscapes

of Valais, which Rousseau has described with such picturesque beauty. I

fancy myself seated in a cottage amid those mountains, those valleys,

those rocks, encircled by the enchantments of optical illusion. I look,

and behold at once the united seasons--"All climates in one place, all

seasons in one instant." I gaze at once on a hundred rainbows, and trace

the romantic figures of the shifting clouds. I seem to be in a temple

dedicated to the service of the Goddess VARIETY.

* * * * *

PREFACES.

I declare myself infinitely delighted by a preface. Is it exquisitely

written? no literary morsel is more delicious. Is the author inveterately

dull? it is a kind of preparatory information, which may be very useful.

It argues a deficiency in taste to turn over an elaborate preface unread;

for it is the attar of the author's roses; every drop distilled at an

immense cost. It is the reason of the reasoning, and the folly of the

foolish.

I do not wish, however, to conceal that several writers, as well as

readers, have spoken very disrespectfully of this species of literature.

That fine writer Montesquieu, in closing the preface to his "Persian

Letters," says, "I do not praise my 'Persians;' because it would be a very

tedious thing, put in a place already very tedious of itself; I mean a

preface." Spence, in the preface to his "Polymetis," informs us, that

"there is not any sort of writing which he sits down to with so much

unwillingness as that of prefaces; and as he believes most people are not

much fonder of reading them than he is of writing them, he shall get over

this as fast as he can." Pelisson warmly protested against prefatory

composition; but when he published the works of Sarrasin, was wise enough

to compose a very pleasing one. He, indeed, endeavoured to justify himself

for acting against his own opinions, by this ingenious excuse, that, like

funeral honours, it is proper to show the utmost regard for them when

given to others, but to be inattentive to them for ourselves.

Notwithstanding all this evidence, I have some good reasons for admiring

prefaces; and barren as the investigation may appear, some literary

amusement can be gathered.

In the first place, I observe that a prefacer is generally a most

accomplished liar. Is an author to be introduced to the public? the

preface is as genuine a panegyric, and nearly as long a one, as that of

Pliny's on the Emperor Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum bell

for an author. If we look closer into the characters of these masters of

ceremony, who thus sport with and defy the judgment of their reader, and

who, by their extravagant panegyric, do considerable injury to the cause

of taste, we discover that some accidental occurrence has occasioned this

vehement affection for the author, and which, like that of another kind of

love, makes one commit so many extravagances.

Prefaces are indeed rarely sincere. It is justly observed by Shenstone, in

his prefatory Essay to the "Elegies," that "discourses prefixed to poetry

inculcate such tenets as may exhibit the performance to the greatest

advantage. The fabric is first raised, and the measures by which we

are to judge of it are afterwards adjusted." This observation might be

exemplified by more instances than some readers might choose to read. It

will be sufficient to observe with what art both Pope and Fontenelle have

drawn up their Essays on the nature of Pastoral Poetry, that the rules

they wished to establish might be adapted to their own pastorals. Has

accident made some ingenious student apply himself to a subordinate branch

of literature, or to some science which is not highly esteemed--look in

the preface for its sublime panegyric. Collectors of coins, dresses, and

butterflies, have astonished the world with eulogiums which would raise

their particular studies into the first ranks of philosophy.

It would appear that there is no lie to which a prefacer is not tempted. I

pass over the commodious prefaces of Dryden, which were ever adapted to

the poem and not to poetry, to the author and not to literature.

The boldest preface-liar was Aldus Manutius, who, having printed an

edition of Aristophanes, first published in the preface that Saint

Chrysostom was accustomed to place this comic poet under his pillow, that

he might always have his works at hand. As, in that age, a saint was

supposed to possess every human talent, good taste not excepted,

Aristophanes thus recommended became a general favourite. The anecdote

lasted for nearly two centuries; and what was of greater consequence to

Aldus, quickened the sale of his Aristophanes. This ingenious invention of

the prefacer of Aristophanes at length was detected by Menage.

The insincerity of prefaces arises whenever an author would disguise his

solicitude for his work, by appearing negligent, and even undesirous of

its success. A writer will rarely conclude such a preface without

betraying himself. I think that even Dr. Johnson forgot his sound

dialectic in the admirable Preface to his Dictionary. In one part he says,

"having laboured this work with so much application, I cannot but have

some degree of parental fondness." But in his conclusion he tells us, "I

dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from

censure or from praise." I deny the doctor's "frigidity." This polished

period exhibits an affected stoicism, which no writer ever felt for the

anxious labour of a great portion of life, addressed not merely to a class

of readers, but to literary Europe.

But if prefaces are rarely sincere or just, they are, notwithstanding,

literary opuscula in which the author is materially concerned. A work

with a poor preface, like a person who comes with an indifferent

recommendation, must display uncommon merit to master our prejudices, and

to please us, as it were, in spite of ourselves. Works ornamented by a

finished preface, such as Johnson not infrequently presented to his

friends or his booksellers, inspire us with awe; we observe a veteran

guard placed in the porch, and we are induced to conclude from this

appearance that some person of eminence resides in the place itself.

The public are treated with contempt when an author professes to publish

his puerilities. This Warburton did, in his pompous edition of Shakspeare.

In the preface he informed the public, that his notes "were among his

_younger amusements,_ when he turned over these _sort of writers._" This

ungracious compliment to Shakspeare and the public, merited that perfect

scourging which our haughty commentator received from the sarcastic

"Canons of Criticism."[A] Scudery was a writer of some genius, and great

variety. His prefaces are remarkable for their gasconades. In his epic

poem of Alaric, he says, "I have such a facility in writing verses, and

also in my invention, that a poem of double its length would have cost me

little trouble. Although it contains only eleven thousand lines, I believe

that longer epics do not exhibit more embellishments than mine." And to

conclude with one more student of this class, Amelot de la Houssaie, in

the preface to his translation of "The Prince" of Machiavel, instructs us,

that "he considers his copy as superior to the original, because it is

everywhere intelligible, and Machiavel is frequently obscure." I have seen

in the play-bills of strollers, a very pompous description of the

triumphant entry of Alexander into Babylon; had they said nothing about

the triumph, it might have passed without exciting ridicule; and one might

not so maliciously have perceived how ill the four candle-snuffers crawled

as elephants, and the triumphal car discovered its want of a lid. But

having pre-excited attention, we had full leisure to sharpen our eye. To

these imprudent authors and actors we may apply a Spanish proverb, which

has the peculiar quaintness of that people, _Aviendo pregonado vino,

venden vinagre:_ "Having cried up their wine, they sell us vinegar."

[Footnote A: See the essay on Warburton and his disputes in "Quarrels of

Authors,"--ED.]

A ridiculous humility in a preface is not less despicable. Many idle

apologies were formerly in vogue for publication, and formed a literary

cant, of which now the meanest writers perceive the futility. A literary

anecdote of the Romans has been preserved, which is sufficiently curious.

One Albinus, in the preface to his Roman History, intercedes for pardon

for his numerous blunders of phraseology; observing that they were the

more excusable, as he had composed his history in the Greek language, with

which he was not so familiar as his maternal tongue. Cato severely rallies

him on this; and justly observes, that our Albinus had merited the pardon

he solicits, if a decree of the senate had compelled him thus to have

composed it, and he could not have obtained a dispensation. The avowal of

our ignorance of the language we employ is like that excuse which some

writers make for composing on topics in which they are little conversant.

A reader's heart is not so easily mollified; and it is a melancholy truth

for literary men that the pleasure of abusing an author is generally

superior to that of admiring him. One appears to display more critical

acumen than the other, by showing that though we do not choose to take the

trouble of writing, we have infinitely more genius than the author. These

suppliant prefacers are described by Boileau.

Un auteur à genoux dans une humble préface

Au lecteur qu'il ennuie a beau demander grace;

Il ne gagnera rien sur ce juge irrité,

Qui lui fait son procès de pleine autorité.

Low in a humble preface authors kneel;

In vain, the wearied reader's heart is steel.

Callous, that irritated judge with awe,

Inflicts the penalties and arms the law.

The most entertaining prefaces in our language are those of Dryden; and

though it is ill-naturedly said, by Swift, that they were merely formed

To raise the volume's price a shilling,

yet these were the earliest commencements of English criticism, and the

first attempt to restrain the capriciousness of readers, and to form a

national taste. Dryden has had the candour to acquaint us with his secret

of prefatory composition; for in that one to his Tales he says, "the

nature of preface-writing is rambling; never wholly out of the way, nor in

it. This I have learnt from the practice of honest Montaigne." There is no

great risk in establishing this observation as an axiom in literature; for

should a prefacer loiter, it is never difficult to get rid of lame

persons, by escaping from them; and the reader may make a preface as

concise as he chooses.

It is possible for an author to paint himself in amiable colours, in this

useful page, without incurring the contempt of egotism. After a writer has

rendered himself conspicuous by his industry or his genius, his admirers

are not displeased to hear something relative to him from himself. Hayley,

in the preface to his poems, has conveyed an amiable feature in his

personal character, by giving the cause of his devotion to literature as

the only mode by which he could render himself of some utility to his

country. There is a modesty in the prefaces of Pope, even when this great

poet collected his immortal works; and in several other writers of the

most elevated genius, in a Hume and a Robertson, which becomes their happy

successors to imitate, and inferior writers to contemplate with awe.

There is in prefaces a due respect to be shown to the public

and to ourselves. He that has no sense of self-dignity, will

not inspire any reverence in others; and the ebriety of vanity

will he sobered by the alacrity we all feel in disturbing the

dreams of self-love. If we dare not attempt the rambling

prefaces of a Dryden, we may still entertain the reader, and

soothe him into good-humour, for our own interest. This,

perhaps, will be best obtained by making the preface (like the

symphony to an opera) to contain something analogous to the

work itself, to attune the mind into a harmony of tone.[A]

[Footnote A: See "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i., for an article on

Prefaces.]

* * * * *

STYLE.

Every period of literature has its peculiar style, derived from some

author of reputation; and the history of a language, as an object of

taste, might be traced through a collection of ample quotations from the

most celebrated authors of each period.

To Johnson may be attributed the establishment of our present refinement,

and it is with truth he observes of his "Rambler," "That he had laboured

to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from

colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations, and

that he has added to the elegance of its construction and to the harmony

of its cadence." In this description of his own refinement in style and

grammatical accuracy, Johnson probably alluded to the happy carelessness

of Addison, whose charm of natural ease long afterwards he discovered. But

great inelegance of diction disgraced our language even so late as in

1736, when the "Inquiry into the Life of Homer" was published. That

author was certainly desirous of all the graces of composition, and his

volume by its singular sculptures evinces his inordinate affection for his

work. This fanciful writer had a taste for polished writing, yet he

abounds in expressions which now would be considered as impure in literary

composition. Such vulgarisms are common--the Greeks _fell to their old

trade_ of one tribe expelling another--the scene is always at Athens, and

all the _pother_ is some little jilting story--the haughty Roman _snuffed_

at the suppleness. If such diction had not been usual with good writers at

that period, I should not have quoted Blackwall. Middleton, in his "Life

of Cicero," though a man of classical taste, and an historian of a

classical era, could not preserve himself from colloquial inelegances; the

greatest characters are levelled by the poverty of his style. Warburton,

and his imitator Hurd, and other living critics of that school, are loaded

with familiar idioms, which at present would debase even the style of

conversation.

Such was the influence of the elaborate novelty of Johnson, that every

writer in every class servilely copied the Latinised style, ludicrously

mimicking the contortions and re-echoing the sonorous nothings of our

great lexicographer; the novelist of domestic life, or the agriculturist

in a treatise on turnips, alike aimed at the polysyllabic force, and the

cadenced period. Such was the condition of English style for more than

twenty years.

Some argue in favour of a natural style, and reiterate the opinion of many

great critics that proper ideas will be accompanied by proper words;

but though supported by the first authorities, they are not perhaps

sufficiently precise in their definition. Writers may think justly, and

yet write without any effect; while a splendid style may cover a vacuity

of thought. Does not this evident fact prove that style and thinking have

not that inseparable connexion which many great writers have pronounced?

Milton imagined that beautiful thoughts produce beautiful expression. He

says,

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers.

Writing is justly called an art; and Rousseau says, it is not an art

easily acquired. Thinking may be the foundation of style, but it is

not the superstructure; it is the marble of the edifice, but not its

architecture. The art of presenting our thoughts to another, is often

a process of considerable time and labour; and the delicate task of

correction, in the development of ideas, is reserved only for writers of

fine taste. There are several modes of presenting an idea; vulgar readers

are only susceptible of the strong and palpable stroke: but there are many

shades of sentiment, which to seize on and to paint is the pride and the

labour of a skilful writer. A beautiful simplicity itself is a species of

refinement, and no writer more solicitously corrected his works than Hume,

who excels in this mode of composition. The philosopher highly approves of

Addison's definition of fine writing, who says, that it consists of

sentiments which are natural, without being obvious. This is a definition

of thought rather than of composition. Shenstone has hit the truth; for

fine writing he defines to be generally the effect of spontaneous thoughts

and a laboured style. Addison was not insensible to these charms, and he

felt the seductive art of Cicero when he said, that "there is as much

difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language and that

of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by

the light of the sun."

Mannerists in style, however great their powers, rather excite the

admiration than the affection of a man of taste; because their habitual

art dissipates that illusion of sincerity, which we love to believe is the

impulse which places the pen in the hand of an author. Two eminent

literary mannerists are Cicero and Johnson. We know these great men

considered their eloquence as a deceptive art; of any subject, it had been

indifferent to them which side to adopt; and in reading their elaborate

works, our ear is more frequently gratified by the ambitious magnificence

of their diction, than our heart penetrated by the pathetic enthusiasm of

their sentiments. Writers who are not mannerists, but who seize the

appropriate tone of their subject, appear to feel a conviction of what

they attempt to persuade their reader. It is observable, that it is

impossible to imitate with uniform felicity the noble simplicity of a

pathetic writer; while the peculiarities of a mannerist are so far from

being difficult, that they are displayed with nice exactness by middling

writers, who, although their own natural manner had nothing interesting,

have attracted notice by such imitations. We may apply to some monotonous

mannerists these verses of Boileau:

Voulez-vous du public mériter les amours?

Sans cesse en écrivant variez vos discours.

On lit peu ces auteurs nés pour nous ennuier,

Qui toujours sur un ton semblent psalmodier.

Would you the public's envied favours gain?

Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain;

The heavy author, who the fancy calms,

Seems in one tone to chant his nasal psalms.

Every style is excellent, if it be proper; and that style is most proper

which can best convey the intentions of the author to his reader. And,

after all, it is STYLE alone by which posterity will judge of a great

work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style; facts,

scientific discoveries, and every kind of information, may be seized by

all, but an author's diction cannot be taken from him. Hence very learned

writers have been neglected, while their learning has not been lost to the

world, by having been given by writers with more amenity. It is therefore

the duty of an author to learn to write as well as to learn to think; and

this art can only be obtained by the habitual study of his sensations, and

an intimate acquaintance with the intellectual faculties. These are the

true prompters of those felicitous expressions which give a tone congruous

to the subject, and which invest our thoughts with all the illusion, the

beauty, and motion of lively perception.

* * * * *

GOLDSMITH AND JOHNSON.

We should not censure artists and writers for their attachment to

their favourite excellence. Who but an artist can value the ceaseless

inquietudes of arduous perfection; can trace the remote possibilities

combined in a close union; the happy arrangement and the novel variation?

He not only is affected by the performance like the man of taste, but is

influenced by a peculiar sensation; for while he contemplates the apparent

beauties, he traces in his own mind those invisible processes by which the

final beauty was accomplished. Hence arises that species of comparative

criticism which one great author usually makes of his own manner with that

of another great writer, and which so often causes him to be stigmatised

with the most unreasonable vanity.

The character of GOLDSMITH, so underrated in his own day, exemplifies this

principle in the literary character. That pleasing writer, without any

perversion of intellect or inflation of vanity, might have contrasted his

powers with those of JOHNSON, and might, according to his own ideas, have

considered himself as not inferior to his more celebrated and learned

rival.

Goldsmith might have preferred the felicity of his own genius, which like

a native stream flowed from a natural source, to the elaborate powers of

Johnson, which in some respects may be compared to those artificial waters

which throw their sparkling currents in the air, to fall into marble

basins. He might have considered that he had embellished philosophy with

poetical elegance; and have preferred the paintings of his descriptions,

to the terse versification and the pointed sentences of Johnson. He might

have been more pleased with the faithful representations of English

manners in his "Vicar of Wakefield," than with the borrowed grandeur and

the exotic fancy of the Oriental Rasselas. He might have believed, what

many excellent critics have believed, that in this age comedy requires

more genius than tragedy; and with his audience he might have infinitely

more esteemed his own original humour, than Johnson's rhetorical

declamation. He might have thought, that with inferior literature he

displayed superior genius, and with less profundity more gaiety. He

might have considered that the facility and vivacity of his pleasing

compositions were preferable to that art, that habitual pomp, and that

ostentatious eloquence, which prevail in the operose labours of Johnson.

No one might be more sensible than himself, that he, according to the

happy expression of Johnson (when his rival was in his grave), "tetigit et

ornavit." Goldsmith, therefore, without any singular vanity, might have

concluded, from his own reasonings, that he was not an inferior writer to

Johnson: all this not having been considered, he has come down to

posterity as the vainest and the most jealous of writers; he whose

dispositions were the most inoffensive, whose benevolence was the most

extensive, and whose amiableness of heart has been concealed by its

artlessness, and passed over in the sarcasms and sneers of a more eloquent

rival, and his submissive partisans.

* * * * *

SELF-CHARACTERS.

There are two species of minor biography which may be discriminated;

detailing our own life and portraying our own character. The writing our

own life has been practised with various success; it is a delicate

operation, a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If once

we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot which

infects the entire body. To publish one's own life has sometimes been a

poor artifice to bring obscurity into notice; it is the ebriety of vanity,

and the delirium of egotism. When a great man leaves some memorial of his

days, the grave consecrates the motive. There are certain things which

relate to ourselves, which no one can know so well; a great genius obliges

posterity when he records them. But they must be composed with calmness,

with simplicity, and with sincerity; the biographic sketch of Hume,

written by himself, is a model of Attic simplicity. The Life of Lord

Herbert is a biographical curiosity. The Memoirs of Sir William Jones, of

Priestley, and of Gibbon, offer us the daily life of the student; and

those of Colley Cibber are a fine picture of the self-painter. We have

some other pieces of self-biography, precious to the philosopher.[A]

[Footnote A: One of the most interesting is that of Grifford, appended to

his translation of Juvenal; it is a most remarkable record of the

struggles of its author in early life, told with candour and simplicity.--

ED.]

The other species of minor biography, that of portraying our own

character, could only have been invented by the most refined and the

vainest nation. The French long cherished this darling egotism; and have a

collection of these self-portraits in two bulky volumes. The brilliant

Fléchier, and the refined St. Evremond, have framed and glazed their

portraits. Every writer then considered his character as necessary as his

preface. The fashion seems to have passed over to our country; Farquhar

has drawn his character in a letter to a lady; and others of our writers

have given us their own miniatures.

There was, as a book in my possession will testify, a certain verse-maker

of the name of Cantenac, who, in 1662, published in the city of Paris a

volume, containing some thousands of verses, which were, as his countrymen

express it, _de sa façon,_ after his own way. He fell so suddenly into the

darkest and deepest pit of oblivion, that not a trace of his memory would

have remained, had he not condescended to give ample information of every

particular relative to himself. He has acquainted us with his size, and

tells us, "that it is rare to see a man smaller than himself. I have that

in common with all dwarfs, that if my head only were seen, I should be

thought a large man." This atom in creation then describes his oval and

full face; his fiery and eloquent eyes: his vermil lips; his robust

constitution, and his effervescent passions. He appears to have been a

most petulant, honest, and diminutive being.

The description of his intellect is the object of our curiosity. "I am as

ambitious as any person can be; but I would not sacrifice my honour to

my ambition. I am so sensible to contempt, that I bear a mortal and

implacable hatred against those who contemn me, and I know I could never

reconcile myself with them; but I spare no attentions for those I love; I

would give them my fortune and my life. I sometimes lie; but generally in

affairs of gallantry, where I voluntarily confirm falsehoods by oaths,

without reflection, for swearing with me is a habit. I am told that my

mind is brilliant, and that I have a certain manner in turning a thought

which is quite my own. I am agreeable in conversation, though I confess I

am often troublesome; for I maintain paradoxes to display my genius, which

savour too much of scholastic subterfuges. I speak too often and too long;

and as I have some reading, and a copious memory, I am fond of showing

whatever I know. My judgment is not so solid as my wit is lively. I am

often melancholy and unhappy; and this sombrous disposition proceeds from

my numerous disappointments in life. My verse is preferred to my prose;

and it has been of some use to me in pleasing the fair sex; poetry is most

adapted to persuade women; but otherwise it has been of no service to me,

and has, I fear, rendered me unfit for many advantageous occupations, in

which I might have drudged. The esteem of the fair has, however, charmed

away my complaints. This good fortune has been obtained by me, at the cost

of many cares, and an unsubdued patience; for I am one of those who, in

affairs of love, will suffer an entire year, to taste the pleasures of one

day."

This character of Cantenac has some local features; for an English poet

would hardly console himself with so much gaiety. The Frenchman's

attachment to the ladies seems to be equivalent to the advantageous

occupations he had lost. But as the miseries of a literary man, without

conspicuous talents, are always the same at Paris as in London, there are

some parts of this character of Cantenac which appear to describe them

with truth. Cantenac was a man of honour; as warm in his resentment as his

gratitude; but deluded by literary vanity, he became a writer in prose and

verse, and while he saw the prospects of life closing on him, probably

considered that the age was unjust. A melancholy example for certain

volatile and fervent spirits, who, by becoming authors, either submit

their felicity to the caprices of others, or annihilate the obscure

comforts of life, and, like him, having "been told that their mind is

brilliant, and that they have a certain manner in turning a thought,"

become writers, and complain that they are "often melancholy, owing to

their numerous disappointments." Happy, however, if the obscure, yet too

sensible writer, can suffer an entire year, for the enjoyment of a single

day! But for this, a man must have been born in France.

* * * * *

ON READING.

Writing is justly denominated an art; I think that reading claims the same

distinction. To adorn ideas with elegance is an act of the mind superior

to that of receiving them; but to receive them with a happy discrimination

is the effect of a practised taste.

Yet it will be found that taste alone is not sufficient to obtain the

proper end of reading. Two persons of equal taste rise from the perusal of

the same book with very different notions: the one will have the ideas of

the author at command, and find a new train of sentiment awakened; while

the other quits his author in a pleasing distraction, but of the pleasures

of reading nothing remains but tumultuous sensations.

To account for these different effects, we must have recourse to a logical

distinction, which appears to reveal one of the great mysteries in the

art of reading. Logicians distinguish between perceptions and ideas.

Perception is that faculty of the mind which notices the simple impression

of objects: but when these objects exist in the mind, and are there

treasured and arranged as materials for reflection, then they are called

ideas. A perception is like a transient sunbeam, which just shows the

object, but leaves neither light nor warmth; while an idea is like the

fervid beam of noon, which throws a settled and powerful light.

Many ingenious readers complain that their memory is defective, and their

studies unfruitful. This defect arises from their indulging the facile

pleasures of perceptions, in preference to the laborious habit of forming

them into ideas. Perceptions require only the sensibility of taste, and

their pleasures are continuous, easy, and exquisite. Ideas are an art of

combination, and an exertion of the reasoning powers. Ideas are therefore

labours; and for those who will not labour, it is unjust to complain, if

they come from the harvest with scarcely a sheaf in their hands.

There are secrets in the art of reading which tend to facilitate its

purposes, by assisting the memory, and augmenting intellectual opulence.

Some our own ingenuity must form, and perhaps every student has peculiar

habits of study, as, in sort-hand, almost every writer has a system of his

own.

It is an observation of the elder Pliny (who, having been a voluminous

compiler, must have had great experience in the art of reading), that

there was no book so bad but which contained something good. To read every

book would, however, be fatal to the interest of most readers; but it is

not always necessary, in the pursuits of learning, to read every book

entire. Of many books it is sufficient to seize the plan, and to examine

some of their portions. Of the little supplement at the close of a volume,

few readers conceive the utility; but some of the most eminent writers in

Europe have been great adepts in the art of index reading. I, for my part,

venerate the inventor of indexes; and I know not to whom to yield the

preference, either to Hippocrates, who was the first great anatomiser of

the human body, or to that unknown labourer in literature, who first laid

open the nerves and arteries of a book. Watts advises the perusal of the

prefaces and the index of a book, as they both give light on its contents.

The ravenous appetite of Johnson for reading is expressed in a strong

metaphor by Mrs. Knowles, who said, "he knows how to read better than any

one; he gets at the substance of a book directly: he tears out the heart

of it." Gibbon has a new idea in the "Art of Reading;" he says "we ought

not to attend to the order of our books so much as of our thoughts. The

perusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps to ideas unconnected with

the subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and quit my proposed plan of

reading." Thus in the midst of Homer he read Longinus; a chapter of

Longinus led to an epistle of Pliny; and having finished Longinus, he

followed the train of his ideas of the sublime and beautiful in the

"Enquiry" of Burke, and concluded by comparing the ancient with the modern

Longinus.

There are some mechanical aids in reading which may prove of great

utility, and form a kind of rejuvenescence of our early studies. Montaigne

placed at the end of a book which he intended not to reperuse, the time he

had read it, with a concise decision on its merits; "that," says he, "it

may thus represent to me the air and general idea I had conceived of the

author, in reading the work." We have several of these annotations. Of

Young the poet it is noticed, that whenever he came to a striking passage

he folded the leaf; and that at his death, books have been found in his

library which had long resisted the power of closing: a mode more easy

than useful; for after a length of time they must be again read to know

why they were folded. This difficulty is obviated by those who note in a

blank leaf the pages to be referred to, with a word of criticism. Nor let

us consider these minute directions as unworthy the most enlarged minds:

by these petty exertions, at the most distant periods, may learning obtain

its authorities, and fancy combine its ideas. Seneca, in sending some

volumes to his friend Lucilius, accompanies them with notes of particular

passages, "that," he observes, "you who only aim at the useful may be

spared the trouble of examining them entire." I have seen books noted by

Voltaire with a word of censure or approbation on the page itself, which

was his usual practice; and these volumes are precious to every man of

taste. Formey complained that the books he lent Voltaire were returned

always disfigured by his remarks; but he was a writer of the old

school.[A]

[Footnote A: The account of Oldys and his manuscripts, in the third volume

of the "Curiosities of Literature," will furnish abundant proof of the

value of such _disfigurations_ when the work of certain hands.--ED.]

A professional student should divide his readings into a _uniform_ reading

which is useful, and into a _diversified_ reading which is pleasant. Guy

Patin, an eminent physician and man of letters, had a just notion of this

manner. He says, "I daily read Hippocrates, Galen, Fernel, and other

illustrious masters of my profession; this I call my profitable readings.

I frequently read Ovid, Juvenal, Horace, Seneca, Tacitus, and others, and

these are my recreations." We must observe these distinctions; for it

frequently happens that a lawyer or a physician, with great industry and

love of study, by giving too much into his diversified readings, may

utterly neglect what should be his uniform studies.

A reader is too often a prisoner attached to the triumphal car of an

author of great celebrity; and when he ventures not to judge for himself,

conceives, while he is reading the indifferent works of great authors,

that the languor which he experiences arises from his own defective taste.

But the best writers, when they are voluminous, have a great deal of

mediocrity.

On the other side, readers must not imagine that all the pleasures of

composition depend on the author, for there is something which a reader

himself must bring to the book that the book may please. There is a

literary appetite, which the author can no more impart than the most

skilful cook can give an appetency to the guests. When Cardinal Richelieu

said to Godeau, that he did not understand his verses, the honest poet

replied that it was not his fault. The temporary tone of the mind may be

unfavourable to taste a work properly, and we have had many erroneous

criticisms from great men, which may often be attributed to this

circumstance. The mind communicates its infirm dispositions to the book,

and an author has not only his own defects to account for, but also those

of his reader. There is something in composition like the game of

shuttlecock, where if the reader do not quickly rebound the feathered cock

to the author, the game is destroyed, and the whole spirit of the work

falls extinct.

A frequent impediment in reading is a disinclination in the mind to settle

on the subject; agitated by incongruous and dissimilar ideas, it is with

pain that we admit those of the author. But on applying ourselves with a

gentle violence to the perusal of an interesting work, the mind soon

assimilates to the subject; the ancient rabbins advised their young

students to apply themselves to their readings, whether they felt an

inclination or not, because, as they proceeded, they would find their

disposition restored and their curiosity awakened.

Readers may be classed into an infinite number of divisions; but an author

is a solitary being, who, for the same reason he pleases one, must

consequently displease another. To have too exalted a genius is more

prejudicial to his celebrity than to have a moderate one; for we shall

find that the most popular works are not the most profound, but such as

instruct those who require instruction, and charm those who are not too

learned to taste their novelty. Lucilius, the satirist, said, that he did

not write for Persius, for Scipio, and for Rutilius, persons eminent for

their science, but for the Tarentines, the Consentines, and the Sicilians.

Montaigne has complained that he found his readers too learned, or too

ignorant, and that he could only please a middle class, who have just

learning enough to comprehend him. Congreve says, "there is in true beauty

something which vulgar souls cannot admire." Balzac complains bitterly of

readers,--"A period," he cries, "shall have cost us the labour of a day;

we shall have distilled into an essay the essence of our mind; it may be a

finished piece of art; and they think they are indulgent when they

pronounce it to contain some pretty things, and that the style is not

bad!" There is something in exquisite composition which ordinary readers

can never understand.

Authors are vain, but readers are capricious. Some will only read old

books, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modern

publications; while others will only read new books, as if some valuable

truths are not among the old. Some will not read a book, because they are

acquainted with the author; by which the reader may be more injured than

the author: others not only read the book, but would also read the man; by

which the most ingenious author may be injured by the most impertinent

reader.

* * * * *

ON HABITUATING OURSELVES TO AN INDIVIDUAL PURSUIT.

Two things in human life are at continual variance, and without escaping

from the one we must be separated from the other; and these are _ennui_

and _pleasure_. Ennui is an afflicting sensation, if we may thus express

it, from a want of sensation; and pleasure is greater pleasure according

to the quantity of sensation. That sensation is received in proportion to

the capacity of our organs; and that practice, or, as it has been

sometimes called, "educated feeling," enlarges this capacity, is evident

in such familiar instances as those of the blind, who have a finer tact,

and the jeweller, who has a finer sight, than other men who are not so

deeply interested in refining their vision and their touch. Intense

attention is, therefore, a certain means of deriving more numerous

pleasures from its object.

Hence it is that the poet, long employed on a poem, has received a

quantity of pleasure which no reader can ever feel. In the progress of any

particular pursuit, there are a hundred fugitive sensations which are too

intellectual to be embodied into language. Every artist knows that between

the thought that first gave rise to his design, and each one which appears

in it, there are innumerable intermediate evanescences of sensation which

no man felt but himself. These pleasures are in number according to the

intenseness of his faculties and the quantity of his labour.

It is so in any particular pursuit, from the manufacturing of pins to the

construction of philosophical systems. Every individual can exert that

quantity of mind necessary to his wants and adapted to his situation; the

quality of pleasure is nothing in the present question: for I think that

we are mistaken concerning the gradations of human felicity. It does at

first appear, that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a

star, must feel a more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting

his team; or a poet experience a higher gratification in modulating verses

than a trader in arranging sums. But the happiness of the ploughman and

the trader may be as satisfactory as that of the astronomer and the poet.

Our mind can only he conversant with those sensations which surround us,

and possessing the skill of managing them, we can form an artificial

felicity; it is certain that what the soul does not feel, no more affects

it than what the eye does not see. It is thus that the trader, habituated

to humble pursuits, can never be unhappy because he is not the general of

an army; for this idea of felicity he has never received. The philosopher

who gives his entire years to the elevated pursuits of mind, is never

unhappy because he is not in possession of an Indian opulence, for the

idea of accumulating this exotic splendour has never entered the range of

his combinations. Nature, an impartial mother, renders felicity as perfect

in the school-boy who scourges his top, as in the astronomer who regulates

his star. The thing contained can only be equal to the container; a full

glass is as full as a full bottle; and a human soul may be as much

satisfied in the lowest of human beings as in the highest.

In the progress of an individual pursuit, what philosophers call the

associating or suggesting idea is ever busied, and in its beautiful

effects genius is most deeply concerned; for besides those trains of

thought the great artist falls into during his actual composition, a

distinct habit accompanies real genius through life in the activity of his

associating idea, when not at his work; it is at all times pressing and

conducting his spontaneous thoughts, and every object which suggests them,

however apparently trivial or unconnected towards itself, making what it

wills its own, while instinctively it seems inattentive to whatever has no

tendency to its own purposes.

Many peculiar advantages attend the cultivation of one master passion or

occupation. In superior minds it is a sovereign that exiles others,

and in inferior minds it enfeebles pernicious propensities. It may render

us useful to our fellow-citizens, and it imparts the most perfect

independence to ourselves. It is observed by a great mathematician, that a

geometrician would not be unhappy in a desert.

This unity of design, with a centripetal force, draws all the rays of our

existence; and often, when accident has turned the mind firmly to one

object, it has been discovered that its occupation is another name for

happiness; for it is a mean of escaping from incongruous sensations. It

secures us from the dark vacuity of soul, as well as from the whirlwind of

ideas; reason itself is a passion, but a passion full of serenity.

It is, however, observable of those who have devoted themselves to an

individual object, that its importance is incredibly enlarged to their

sensations. Intense attention magnifies like a microscope; but it is

possible to apologise for their apparent extravagance from the

consideration, that they really observe combinations not perceived by

others of inferior application. That this passion has been carried to a

curious violence of affection, literary history affords numerous

instances. In reading Dr. Burney's "Musical Travels," it would seem that

music was the prime object of human life; Richardson, the painter, in his

treatise on his beloved art, closes all by affirming, that "_Raphael_ is

not only _equal_, but _superior_ to a _Virgil_, or a _Livy_, or a

_Thucydides_, or a _Homer_!" and that painting can reform our manners,

increase our opulence, honour, and power. Denina, in his "Revolutions of

Literature," tells us that to excel in historical composition requires

more ability than is exercised by the excelling masters of any other art;

because it requires not only the same erudition, genius, imagination, and

taste, necessary for a poet, a painter, or a philosopher, but the

historian must also have some peculiar qualifications; this served as a

prelude to his own history.[A] Helvetius, an enthusiast in the fine arts

and polite literature, has composed a poem on Happiness; and imagines that

it consists in an exclusive love of the cultivation of letters and the

arts. All this shows that the more intensely we attach ourselves to an

individual object, the more numerous and the more perfect are our

sensations; if we yield to the distracting variety of opposite pursuits

with an equal passion, our soul is placed amid a continual shock of ideas,

and happiness is lost by mistakes.

[Footnote A: One of the most amusing modern instances occurs in the

Preface to the late Peter Buchan's annotated edition of "Ancient Ballads

and Songs of the North of Scotland" (2 vols. 8vo, Edin. 1828), in which he

declares--"no one has yet conceived, nor has it entered the mind of man,

what patience, perseverance, and general knowledge are necessary for an

editor of a Collection of Ancient Ballads."--ED.]

* * * * *

ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE.