Chapter XXV (2)

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.

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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.]

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ON NOVELTY IN LITERATURE.