Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, was the shining literary light of the so-called Augustan reign of Queen Anne, the poetry of which was distinguished by the highest degree of polish and elegance. Pope was the son of a retired linen draper, who lived in a pleasant country house near the Windsor Forest. He was so badly deformed that his life was "one long disease;" he was remarkably precocious, and had a most intelligent face, with great, flaming, tender eyes. In disposition Pope was the reverse of admirable. He was extremely sensitive, petulant, and supercilious; fierce and even coarse in his attacks on opponents; boastful of his self-acquired wealth and of his intimacy with the nobility. The great redeeming feature of his character was his tender devotion to his aged parents.
As a poet, however, Pope challenges the highest admiration. At the age of sixteen he commenced his "Pastorals," and when only twenty-one published his "Essay on Criticism," pronounced "the finest piece of argumentative and reasoning poetry in the English language." His reputation was now firmly established, and his literary activity ceased only at his death; although, during the latter portion of his life, he was so weak physically that he was unable to dress himself or even to rise from bed without assistance. Pope's great admiration was Dryden, whose style he studied and copied. He lacks the latter's strength, but in elegance and polish he remains unequaled.
Pope's most remarkable work is "The Rape of the Lock;" his greatest, the translation into English verse of Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey." His "Epistle of Eloisa to Abelard," "The Dunciad," and the "Essay On Man" are also famous productions. He published an edition of "Shakespeare," which was awaited with great curiosity, and received with equal disappointment. During the three years following its appearance, he united with Swift and Arbuthnot in writing the "Miscellanies," an extensive satire on the abuses of learning and the extravagances of philosophy. His "Epistles," addressed to various distinguished men, and covering a period of four years, were copied after those of Horace; they were marked by great clearness, neatness of diction, and good sense, and by Pope's usual elegance and grace. His "Imitations of Horace" was left unfinished at his death.
The following selection is an extract from the "Essay on Man;" ###
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.Know all the good that individuals find,Or God and nature meant to mere mankind.Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,Lie in three words,—health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;And peace, O virtue! peace is all thy own.The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain;But these less taste them as they worse obtain.Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?Of vice or virtue, whether blest or curst,Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all th' advantage prosperous vice attains,'T is but what virtue flies from and disdains:And grant the bad what happiness they would,One they must want, which is, to pass for good.Oh, blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below,Who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe!Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,Best knows the blessing, and will most be blest.
But fools the good alone unhappy call,For ills or accidents that chance to all.Think we, like some weak prince, the Eternal Cause,Prone for his favorites to reverse his laws?Shall burning AEtna, if a sage requires,Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?When the loose mountain trembles from on high,Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?
"But sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed."What, then? Is the reward of virtue bread?That, vice may merit, 't is the price of toil;The knave deserves it when he tills the soil,The knave deserves it when he tempts the main,Where folly fights for kings or dives for gain.Honor and shame from no condition rise;Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;The rest is all but leather or prunella.A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod,An honest man's the noblest work of God.One self-approving hour whole years outweighsOf stupid starers, and of loud huzzas.
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),"Virtue alone is happiness below."The only point where human bliss stands still,And tastes the good without the fall to ill;Where only merit constant pay receives,Is blest in what it takes and what it gives.
William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870, one of the most versatile, prolific, and popular of American authors, was born at Charleston, South Carolina. His family was poor, and his means of education were limited, yet he managed to prepare himself for the bar, to which he was admitted when twenty-one years of age. The law proving uncongenial, he abandoned it, and in 1828 became editor of the "Charleston City Gazette." From this time till his death his literary activity was unceasing, and his writings were so numerous that it is possible only to group them under their various heads. They comprise Biography; History; Historical Romance, both Foreign and Domestic, the latter being further divided into Colonial, Revolutionary, and Border Romances; Pure Romance; The Drama; Poetry; and Criticism; besides miscellaneous books and pamphlets.
In the midst of this remarkable literary activity, Mr. Simms still found time to devote to the affairs of state, being for several years a member of the South Carolina Legislature. He was also a lecturer, and was connected editorially with several magazines. Most of his time was spent at his summer house in Charleston, and at his winter residence, "Woodlands," on a plantation at Midway, S. C.
The following selection is from "The Life and Times of Francis Marion." ###
Art had done little to increase the comforts or the securities of his fortress. It was one, complete to his hands, from those of nature—such an one as must have delighted the generous English outlaw of Sherwood Forest; insulated by deep ravines and rivers, a dense forest of mighty trees, and interminable undergrowth. The vine and brier guarded his passes. The laurel and the shrub, the vine and sweet-scented jessamine roofed his dwelling, and clambered up between his closed eyelids and the stars. Obstructions scarcely penetrable by any foe, crowded the pathways to his tent; and no footstep not practiced in the secret, and to "the manner born," might pass unchallenged to his midnight rest. The swamp was his moat; his bulwarks were the deep ravines, which, watched by sleepless rifles, were quite as impregnable as the castles on the Rhine. Here, in the possession of his fortress, the partisan slept secure.
His movements were marked by equal promptitude and wariness. He suffered no risks from a neglect of proper precaution. His habits of circumspection and resolve ran together in happy unison. His plans, carefully considered beforehand, were always timed with the happiest reference to the condition and feelings of his men. To prepare that condition, and to train those feelings, were the chief employment of his repose. He knew his game, and how it should be played, before a step was taken or a weapon drawn.
When he himself or any of his parties left the island upon an expedition, they advanced along no beaten paths. They made them as they went. He had the Indian faculty in perfection, of gathering his course from the sun, from the stars, from the bark and the tops of trees, and such other natural guides as the woodman acquires only through long and watchful experience.
Many of the trails thus opened by him, upon these expeditions, are now the ordinary avenues of the country. On starting, he almost invariably struck into the woods, and seeking the heads of the larger water courses, crossed them at their first and small beginnings. He destroyed the bridges where he could. He preferred fords. The former not only facilitated the progress of less fearless enemies, but apprised them of his own approach. If speed was essential, a more direct but not less cautious route was pursued.
He intrusted his schemes to nobody, not even his most confidential officers. He consulted with them respectfully, heard them patiently, weighed their suggestions, and silently approached his conclusions. They knew his determinations only from his actions. He left no track behind him, if it were possible to avoid it. He was often vainly hunted after by his own detachments. He was more apt at finding them than they him. His scouts were taught a peculiar and shrill whistle, which, at night, could be heard at a most astonishing distance. We are reminded of a signal of Roderick Dhu:—
"He whistled shrill,And he was answered from the hill;Wild as the scream of the curlew,From crag to crag the signal flew."
His expeditions were frequently long, and his men, hurrying forth without due preparation, not unfrequently suffered much privation from want of food. To guard against this danger, it was their habit to watch his cook. If they saw him unusually busied in preparing supplies of the rude, portable food which it was Marion's custom to carry on such occasions, they knew what was before them, and provided themselves accordingly. In no other way could they arrive at their general's intentions. His favorite time for moving was with the setting sun, and then it was known that the march would continue all night.
His men were badly clothed in homespun,—a light wear which afforded little warmth. They slept in the open air, and frequently without a blanket. Their ordinary food consisted of sweet potatoes, garnished, on fortunate occasions, with lean beef. Their swords, unless taken from the enemy, were made out of mill saws, roughly manufactured by a forest blacksmith.
His scouts were out in all directions, and at all hours. They did the double duty of patrol and spies. They hovered about the posts of the enemy, crouching in the thicket, or darting along the plain, picking up prisoners, and information, and spoils together. They cut off stragglers, encountered patrols of the foe, and arrested his supplies on the way to the garrison. Sometimes the single scout, buried in the thick tops of the tree, looked down upon the march of his legions, or hung, perched over the hostile encampment, till it slept; then slipping down, stole through the silent host, carrying off a drowsy sentinel, or a favorite charger, upon which the daring spy flourished conspicuous among his less fortunate companions.
NOTES.—The outlaw of Sherwood Forest was Robin Hood.
Roderick Dhu is a character in Sir Walter Scott's poem, "The Lady of theLake," from which the quotation is taken.
Henry Timrod, 1829-1867, was born at Charleston, South Carolina. He inherited his father's literary taste and ability, and had the advantages of a liberal education. He entered the University of Georgia before he was seventeen years of age, and while there commenced his career as a poet. Poverty and ill health compelled him to leave the university without taking a degree; he then commenced the study of law, and for ten years taught in various private families. At the outbreak of the war, in 1860, he warmly espoused the Southern cause, and wrote many stirring war lyrics. In 1863 he joined the Army of the West, as correspondent of the Charleston "Mercury," and in 1864 he became editor of the "South Carolinian," published first at Columbia and later at Charleston. He also served for a time as assistant secretary to Governor Orr. The advance of Sherman's army reduced him to poverty, and he was compelled to the greatest drudgery in order to earn a bare living. His health soon broke down, and he died of hemorrhage of the lungs. The following little poem seems, almost, to have been written under a presentiment, so accurately does it describe the closing incidents of the poet's life.
The first volume of Timrod's poems appeared in 1860. A later edition, with a memoir of the author, was published in New York in 1873. ###
Somewhere on this earthly planetIn the dust of flowers that be,In the dewdrop, in the sunshine,Sleeps a solemn day for me.
At this wakeful hour of midnightI behold it dawn in mist,And I hear a sound of sobbingThrough the darkness,—Hist! oh, hist!
In a dim and musky chamber,I am breathing life away;Some one draws a curtain softly,And I watch the broadening day.
As it purples in the zenith,As it brightens on the lawn,There's a hush of death about me,And a whisper, "He is gone!"
Noah Porter, 1811-1892, was born at Farmington, Conn., and graduated at Yale in 1831. He remained in New Haven as a school-teacher, a tutor in college, and a student in the theological department until 1836, when he entered the ministry. In 1846 he was recalled to the college as Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics; and in 1858 he also assumed the duties of the professorship of Systematic Theology, for a period of seven years. Upon the retirement of President Woolsey in 1871, he was elected to fill the office, which he held until 1886, being the eleventh president of the college.
President Porter's greatest literary work is entitled, "The Human Intellect: With an Introduction upon Psychology and the Human Soul." It is remarkable for the clear thought and sound judgment it displays, as well as for its broad scholarship; and it has been pronounced "the most complete and exhaustive exhibition of the cognitive faculties of the human soul to be found in our language." His other important works are: "The Sciences of Nature versus the Science of Man," which is a review of the doctrines of Herbert Spencer; "American Colleges and the American Public;" and the book from which the following selection is taken, namely, "Books and Reading." Besides these he wrote numerous essays, contributions to periodicals, etc. During his professorship he was called upon to act as chief editor in the important work of revising "Webster's Dictionary." The edition of 1864 was the result of his careful oversight, and the subsequent revisions were also under his superintendence. ##
In reading, we do well to propose to ourselves definite ends and purposes. The more distinctly we are aware of our own wants and desires in reading, the more definite and permanent will be our acquisitions. Hence it is a good rule to ask ourselves frequently, "Why am I reading this book, essay, or poem? or why am I reading it at the present time rather than any other?" It may often be a satisfying answer, that it is convenient; that the book happens to be at hand: or that we read to pass away the time. Such reasons are often very good, but they ought not always to satisfy us. Yet the very habit of proposing these questions, however they may be answered, will involve the calling of ourselves to account for our reading, and the consideration of it in the light of wisdom and duty.
The distinct consciousness of some object at present before us, imparts a manifoldly greater interest to the contents of any volume. It imparts to the reader an appropriate power, a force of affinity, by which he insensibly and unconsciously attracts to himself all that has a near or even a remote relation to the end for which he reads. Anyone is conscious of this who reads a story with the purpose of repeating it to an absent friend; or an essay or a report with the design of using its facts or arguments in a debate; or a poem with the design of reviving its imagery, and reciting its finest passages. Indeed, one never learns to read effectively until he learns to read in such a spirit—not always, indeed, for a definite end, yet always with a mind attent to appropriate and retain and turn to the uses of culture, if not to a more direct application.
The private history of every self-educated man, from Franklin onwards, attests that they all were uniformly not only earnest but select in their reading, and that they selected their books with distinct reference to the purposes for which they used them. Indeed, the reason why self-trained men so often surpass men who are trained by others in the effectiveness and success of their reading, is that they know for what they read and study, and have definite aims and wishes in all their dealings with books. The omnivorous and indiscriminate reader, who is at the same time a listless and passive reader, however ardent is his curiosity, can never be a reader of the most effective sort.
Another good rule is suggested by the foregoing. Always have some solid reading in hand; i. e., some work or author which we carry forward from one day to another, or one hour of leisure to the next, with persistence, till we have finished whatever we have undertaken. There are many great and successful readers who do not observe this rule, but it is a good rule notwithstanding.
The writer once called upon one of the most extensive and persevering of modern travelers, at an early hour of the day, to attend him upon a walk to a distant village. It was after breakfast, and though he had but few minutes at command, he was sitting with book in hand—a book of solid history he was perusing day after day. He remarked: "This has been my habit for years in all my wanderings. It is the one habit which gives solidity to my intellectual activities and imparts tone to my life. It is only in this way that I can overcome and counteract the tendency to the dissipation of my powers and the distraction of my attention, as strange persons and strange scenes present themselves from day to day."
To the rule already given—read with a definite aim—we could add the rule—make your aims to be definite by continuously holding them rigidly to a single book at all times, except when relaxation requires you to cease to work, and to live for amusement and play. Always have at least one iron in the fire, and kindle the fire at least once every day.
It is implied in the preceding that we should read upon definite subjects, and with a certain method and proportion in the choice of our books. If we have a single object to accomplish in our reading for the present, that object will of necessity direct the choice of what we read, and we shall arrange our reading with reference to this single end. This will be a nucleus around which our reading will for the moment naturally gather and arrange itself.
If several subjects seem to us equally important and interesting, we should dispose of them in order, and give to each for the time our chief and perhaps our exclusive attention. That this is wise is so obvious as not to require illustration. "One thing at a time," is an accepted condition for all efficient activity, whether it is employed upon things or thoughts, upon men or books. If five or ten separate topics have equal claim upon our interest and attention, we shall do to each the amplest justice, if we make each in its turn the central subject of our reading. There is little danger of weariness or monotony from the workings of such a rule.
Most single topics admit or require a considerable variety of books, each different from the other, and each supplementing the other. Hence it is one of the best of practices in prosecuting a course of reading, to read every author who can cast any light upon the subject which we have in hand. For example, if we are reading the history of the Great Rebellion in England, we should read, if we can, not a single author only, as Clarendon, but a half dozen or a half score, each of whom writes from his own point of view, supplies what another omits, or corrects what he under- or overstates.
But, besides the formal histories of the period, there are the various novels, the scenes and characters of which are placed in those times, such as Scott's Woodstock; there are also diaries, such as those by Evelyn, Pepys, and Burton; and there are memoirs, such as those of Col. Hutchinson; while the last two have been imitated in scores of fictions. There are poems, such as those of Andrew Marvell, Milton, and Dryden. There are also shoals of political tracts and pamphlets, of handbills and caricatures.
We name these various descriptions of works and classes of reading, not because we suppose all of them are accessible to those readers who live at a distance from large public libraries, or because we would advise everyone who may have access to such libraries, to read all these books and classes of books as a matter of course, but because we would illustrate how great is the variety of books and reading matter that are grouped around a single topic, and are embraced within a single period.
Every person must judge for himself how long a time he can bestow upon any single subject, or how many and various are the books in respect to it which it is wise to read; but of this everyone may be assured, that it is far easier, far more agreeable, and far more economical of time and energy, to concentrate the attention upon a single subject at a time than to extend it to half a score, and that six books read in succession or together upon a single topic, are far more interesting and profitable than twice as many which treat of topics remotely related. A lady well known to the writer, of the least possible scholarly pretensions or literary notoriety, spent fifteen months of leisure, snatched by fragments from onerous family cares and brilliant social engagements, in reading the history of Greece as written by a great variety of authors and as illustrated by many accessories of literature and art.
Nor should it be argued that such rules as these, or the habits which they enjoin, are suitable for scholars only, or for people who have much leisure for reading. It should rather be urged that those who can read the fewest books and who have at command the scantiest time, should aim to read with the greatest concentration and method; should occupy all of their divided energy with single centers of interest, and husband the few hours which they can command, in reading whatever converges to a definite, because to a single, impression.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, was born in Devonshire, England, and was educated at Christ's Hospital and Cambridge University. Through poverty he was compelled to enlist in the army, but his literary attainments soon brought him into notice, and he was enabled to withdraw from the distasteful life.
Coleridge's fame arises chiefly from his poems, of which the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Genevieve," and "Christabel" may be classed among the best of English poetry. He also wrote a number of dramas, besides numerous essays on religious and political topics. As a conversationalist Coleridge had a remarkable reputation, and among his ardent admirers and friends may be ranked Southey, Wordsworth, Lovell, Lamb, and De Quincey. He and his friends Southey and Lovell married sisters, and talked at one time of founding a community on the banks of the Susquehanna. Although possessing such brilliant natural gifts, Coleridge fell far short of what he might have attained, through a great lack of energy and application, increased by an excessive use of opium. ###
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning starIn his steep course? So long he seems to pauseOn thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc!The Arve and Arveiron at thy baseRave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form,Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,How silently! Around thee and above,Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black—An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,As with a wedge! But when I look again,It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,Thy habitation from eternity!O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon theeTill thou, still present to the bodily sense,Didst vanish from my thoughts: entranced in prayer,I worshiped the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet, beguiling melody,So sweet we know not we are listening to it,Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought—Yea, with my life and life's own secret joyTill the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,Into the mighty vision passing—there,As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praiseThou owest! not alone these swelling tears,Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night,And visited all night by troops of stars,Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink—Companion of the morning star at dawn,Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawnCoherald—wake, oh wake, and utter praise!Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!Who called you forth from night and utter death,From dark and icy caverns called you forth,Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,Forever shattered, and the same forever?Who gave you your invulnerable life,Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam?And who commanded (and the silence came),Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye icefalls! ye that from the mountain's browAdown enormous ravines slope amain—Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!Who made you glorious as the gates of HeavenBeneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sunClothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowersOf loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?God!—let the torrents, like a shout of nations,Answer! and let the ice plains echo, God!God! sing ye meadow streams with gladsome voice!Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!Ye signs and wonders of the elements!Utter forth, God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou, too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene,Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast—Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thouThat as I raise my head, awhile bowed lowIn adoration, upward from thy base,Slow traveling, with dim eyes suffused with tears,Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,To rise before me.—Rise, oh ever rise!Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,Thou dread embassador from Earth to Heaven,Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.