By the by, I observe a point in which your taste and mine differ from
each other materially. It is about new publications. I read them
unwillingly. You abstain from them with difficulty, and as a matter of
duty and self-denial. Their novelty has very little attraction for me;
and in literature I am fond of confining myself to the best company,
which consists chiefly of my old acquaintance, with whom I am desirous
of becoming more intimate; and I suspect that nine times out of ten it
is more profitable, if not more agreeable, to read an old book over
again, than to read a new one for the first time. If I hear of a new
poem, for instance, I ask myself first, whether it is superior to Homer,
Shakespeare, Ariosto, Virgil, or Racine; and, in the next place, whether
I already have all these authors completely at my fingers' ends. And
when both questions have been answered in the negative, I infer that it
is better (and, to me, it is certainly pleasanter) to give such time as
I have to bestow on the reading of poetry to Homer, Ariosto and Co., and
so of other things.
Is it not better to try, at least, to elevate and adorn one's mind, by
the constant study and contemplation of the great models, than merely to
know of one's own knowledge that such a book an't worth reading?--J. W.
WARD, EARL OF DUDLEY (Letter to the Bishop of Llandaff).