And yet, alas! when all our lamps are burned,Our bodies wasted, and our spirits spent,When we have all the learnèd volumes turned,Which yield men's wits both help and ornament,What can we know or what can we discern?Sir J. Davies.On the Immortality of the Soul.
And yet, alas! when all our lamps are burned,Our bodies wasted, and our spirits spent,When we have all the learnèd volumes turned,Which yield men's wits both help and ornament,What can we know or what can we discern?
Sir J. Davies.On the Immortality of the Soul.
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vainWhich, with pain purchased doth inherit pain:As, painfully to pore upon a book,To seek the light of truth; while truth the whileDoth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.W. Shakespeare.Love's Labour's Lost.
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vainWhich, with pain purchased doth inherit pain:As, painfully to pore upon a book,To seek the light of truth; while truth the whileDoth falsely blind the eyesight of his look:Light seeking light doth light of light beguile:So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
W. Shakespeare.Love's Labour's Lost.
'Tis an honest injury to nature to steal from her some hours of repose; unsufferable to the soul to let the golden hours of the morning pass without advantage, seeing she is then more capable of culture, and seems to be renewed as well as the day. It were an excellent posture to paint Caesar in, as he swum with a book in the one hand, and a sword in the other; since he made his tent an academy, and was at leisure to read the physiognomy of the heavens in military tumults. This shows he knew how to prize time, and hated idleness as much as a superior; and indeed, to speak to Christians, we ought to look how we spend our hours here, knowing they are but the preludium of that which shall be no time but Eternity.
Judgement is long ere it be settled, experience being the best nurse of it, and we see seldom learning and wisdom concur, because the former is gotsub umbra, but business doth winnow observations, and the better acquaintance with breathing volumes of men; it teacheth us both better to read them and to apply what we have read....
Health ought to be nicely respected by a student. For the labours of the mind are as far beyond them of the body, as the diseases of the one are above the other; and how can a spirit actuate when she is caged in a lump of fainting flesh? Unseasonable times of study are very obnoxious, as after meals, when Nature is wholly retired to concoction; or at night times, when she begins to droop for want of rest, hence so many rheums, defluxions, catarrhs, &c., thatI have heard it spoken of one of the greatest ambulatory pieces of learning at this day, that he would redeem (if possible) his health with the loss of half his learning.—John Hall.Horae Vacivae.
I know what it is to have had to toil when the brain was throbbing, the mind incapable of originating a thought, and the body worn and sore with exhaustion; and I know what it is in such an hour, instead of having recourse to those gross stimulants to which all worn men, both of the higher and lower classes, are tempted, to take down my Sophocles or my Plato (for Plato was a poet), my Goethe, or my Dante, Shakespeare, Shelley, Wordsworth, or Tennyson; and I know what it is to feel the jar of nerve gradually cease, and the darkness in which all life had robed itself to the imagination become light, discord pass into harmony, and physical exhaustion rise by degrees into a consciousness of power.—F. W. Robertson.Lectures and Addresses.
Books, taken indiscriminately, are no cure to the diseases and afflictions of the mind. There is a world of science necessary in the taking them. I have known some people in great sorrow fly to a novel or the last light book in fashion. One might as well take a rose-draught for the plague! Light reading does not do when the heart is really heavy. I am told that Goethe, when he lost his son, took to study a science that was new to him. Ah! Goethe was a physician who knew what he was about. In a great grief like this you cannot tickle and divert the mind; you must wrench it away, abstract, absorb—bury it in an abyss, hurry it into a labyrinth. Therefore, for the irremediable sorrows of middle life and old age, I recommended a strict chronic course of science and hard reasoning—counter-irritation. Bring the brain to act upon the heart! If science is too much against the grain (for we have not all got mathematical heads), something in the reach of the humblest understanding, but sufficiently searching to thehighest—new language—Greek, Arabic, Scandinavian, Chinese, or Welsh! For the loss of fortune the dose should be applied less directly to the understanding—I would administer something elegant and cordial. For as the heart is crushed and lacerated by a loss in the affections, so it is rather the head that aches and suffers by the loss of money. Here we find the higher class of poets a very valuable remedy. For observe that poets of the grander and more comprehensive kind of genius have in them two separate men quite distinct from each other—the imaginative man, and the practical, circumstantial man; and it is the happy mixture of these that suits diseases of the mind, half imaginative and half practical.... For hypochondria and satiety what is better than a brisk alterative course of travels—especially early, out-of-the-way, marvellous, legendary travels! How they freshen up the spirits! How they take you out of the humdrum yawning state you are in.... Then, for that vice of the mind which I call sectarianism—not in the religious sense of the word, but little, narrow prejudices, that make you hate your next-door neighbour, because he has his eggs roasted when you have yours boiled; and gossiping and prying into people's affairs, and backbiting, and thinking heaven and earth are coming together, if some broom touch a cobweb that you have let grow over the window-sill of your brains—what like a large and generous, mildly aperient course of history! How it clears away all the fumes of the head!—better than the hellebore with which the old leeches of the Middle Ages purged the cerebellum. There, amidst all that great whirl andsturmbad(storm-bath), as the Germans say, of kingdoms and empires, and races and ages, how your mind enlarges beyond that little feverish animosity to John Styles: or that unfortunate prepossession of yours, that all the world is interested in your grievances against Tom Stokes and his wife!
I can only touch, you see, on a few ingredients in this magnificent pharmacy—its resources are boundless, but require the nicest discretion. I remember to have cured a disconsolate widower, who obstinately refused every other medicament, by a strict course of geology.... I made no less notable a cure of a young scholar at Cambridge, who was meant for the Church, when he suddenly caught a coldfit of freethinking, with great shiverings, from wading out of his depth in Spinoza.... His theological constitution, since then, has become so robust that he has eaten up two livings and a deanery! In fact, I have a plan for a library that, instead of heading its compartments, 'Philology, Natural Science, Poetry,' &c., one shall head them according to the diseases for which they are severally good, bodily and mental—up from a dire calamity, or the pangs of the gout, down to a fit of the spleen or a slight catarrh; for which last your light reading comes in with a whey-posset and barley-water. But when some one sorrow, that is yet reparable, gets hold of your mind like a monomania—when you think, because heaven has denied you this or that, on which you had set your heart, that all your life must be a blank—oh! then diet yourself well on biography—the biography of good and great men.... I have said nothing of the Book of Books, for that is thelignum vitae, the cardinal medicine for all. These are but the subsidiaries.—E. G. E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton.The Caxtons.
Cast your eyes down any list of English writers ... and almost the only names that strike you as belonging to personally cheerful men are Beaumont and Fletcher, Suckling, Fielding, Farquhar, Steele, O'Keefe, Andrew Marvell, and Sterne.... I am only speaking of the rarity of a certain kind of sunshine in our literature, and expressing a little rainy-day wish that we had a little more of it. It ought to be collected. There should be a joyous set of elegant extracts—aLiteratura HilarisorGaudens,—in a score of volumes, that we could have at hand, like a cellaret of good wine, against April or November weather. Fielding should be the port, and Farquhar the champagne, and Sterne the malmsey; and whenever the possessor cast an eye on his stock he should know that he had a choice draught for himself after a disappointment, or for a friend after dinner,—some cordial extract of Parson Adams, or Plume, or Uncle Toby, generous as heart could desire, and as wholesome for it as laughter for the lungs.—J. H. Leigh Hunt.Cheerful Poets.
A congenial book can be taken up by any lover of books, with the certainty of its transporting the reader within a few minutes to a region immeasurably removed from that which he desires to quit. The shape or pattern of the magic carpet whereon he flies through space and time, is of no consequence. The son of science is rapt by a problem; the philosopher by an abstruse speculation; the antiquary is carried centuries back into the chivalric past; the lover of poetry is borne upon glittering wings into the future. The charm works well for all. Books are the blessed chloroform of the mind.... It is not a very high claim that is here set forth on behalf of Literature—that of Pass-time, and yet what a blessed boon even that is! Conceive the hours ofinertia(a thing different from idleness) that it has mercifully consumed for us! hours wherein nothing could be done, nothing, perhaps, bethought, of our own selves, by reason of some impending calamity. Wisely does the dentist furnish his hateful antechamber with books of all sorts. Who could abide for an hour in such an apartment with nothing to occupy his thoughts save the expectation of that wrench to come!... Indeed, it must be confessed that where Books fail as an anodyne, is rather in cases of physical than of mental pain. Through the long watches of the night, and by the bedside of some slowly dying dear one, it is easier to obtain forgetfulness—the only kind of rest that it may be safe or possible to take—by means of reading, than to do so when one is troubled with mere toothache. Nor does this arise from selfishness—since we would endure twenty toothaches, if they might give ease to the sufferer—but because the sharpness of the pang prevents our applying our mind to anything else; while the deep dull sorrow of the soul permits an intervening thought, and over it slides another, and then another, until a layer of such is formed, and the mind of the reader gets wholly free, for a brief but blessed time, partitioned off, as it were, from his real trouble.—J. Payn.Chambers's Journal, 1864.
I sometimes wish for a catalogue of lounging books—books that one takes up in the gout, low spirits,ennui, or when in waiting for company. Some novels, gay poetry, odd whimsical authors, as Rabelais, &c. A catalogue raisonné of such might be itself a good lounging book.—H. Walpole, Earl of Orford.Letters.
So whan I saw I might not slepe,Til now late, this other night,Upon my bedde I sat upright,And bad oon reche me a book,A romaunce, and he hit me tookTo rede and dryve the night away;For me thoghte it better playThan playen either at chesse or tables.G. Chaucer.The Book of the Duchesse.
So whan I saw I might not slepe,Til now late, this other night,Upon my bedde I sat upright,And bad oon reche me a book,A romaunce, and he hit me tookTo rede and dryve the night away;For me thoghte it better playThan playen either at chesse or tables.
G. Chaucer.The Book of the Duchesse.
Since I cannot in the way of gratefulness express unto your lordship, as I would, those hearty sentiments I have of your goodness to me; I will at the last endeavour, in the way of duty and observance, to let you see how the little needle of my soul is throughly touched at the great loadstone of yours, and followeth suddenly and strongly, which way soever you beckon it. In this occasion, the magnetic motion was impatient to have the book in my hands that your lordship gave so advantageous a character of; whereupon I sent presently (as late as it was) to Paul's church-yard for this favourite of yours,Religio Medici: which after awhile found me in a condition fit to receive a blessing by a visit from any of such masterpieces, as you look upon with gracious eyes; for I was newly gotten into my bed. This good-natured creature I could easily persuade to be my bedfellow, and to wake with me as long as I had any edge to entertain myself with the delights I sucked from so noble a conversation. And truly, my lord, I closednot my eyes till I had enriched myself with, or at least exactly surveyed all the treasures that are lapped up in the folds of those few sheets. To return only a general commendation of this curious piece, or at large to admire the author's spirit and smartness, were too perfunctory an account, and too slight a one, to so discerning and steady an eye as yours, after so particular and encharged a summons to read heedfully this discourse. I will therefore presume to blot a sheet or two of paper with my reflections upon sundry passages.—Sir K. Digby(Letter to Edward, Earl of Dorset).
Before my meals,... and after, I let myself loose from all my thoughts; and now would forget that I ever studied. A full mind takes away the body's appetite, no less than a full body makes a dull and unwieldy mind.—Joseph Hall(Letter to Lord Denny).
At Mr. Dilly's to-day [April 15, 1778] ... before dinner Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheridan'sAccount of the late Revolution in Sweden, and seemed to read it ravenously, as if he devoured it, which was to all appearance his method of studying. 'He knows how to read better than any one (said Mrs. Knowles); he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it.' He kept it wrapt up in the tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been thrown to him.—J. Boswell.Life of Johnson.
If you find the Miltons in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of right Gloucester, blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure a stray ash of tobacco wafted into the crevices, look to that passage more especially: depend upon it, it contains good matter.—C. Lamb(Letter to S. T. Coleridge).
... Albeit, when I did dictate [these Chronicles], I thought thereof no more than you, who possibly were drinking the whilst, as I was. For in the composing of this lordly book I never lost nor bestowed any more, nor any other time, than what was appointed to serve me for taking of my bodily refection, that is, whilst I was eating and drinking. And, indeed, that is the fittest and most proper hour, wherein to write these high matters and deep sentences: as Homer knew very well, the paragon of all philologues, and Ennius, the father of the Latin poets, as Horace calls him, although a certain sneaking jobbernol alleged that his verses smelled more of the wine than oil.—F. Rabelais.The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Author's Prologue.
I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot settle my spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who was generally to be seen upon Snow-hill (as yet Skinner's-streetwas not), between the hours of ten and eleven in the morning, studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I used to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular contacts. An illiterate encounter with a porter's knot, or a bread basket, would have quickly put to flight all the theology I am master of, and have left me worse than indifferent to the five points.—C. Lamb.Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading.
O for a Booke and a shadie nooke,Eyther in-a-doore or out,With the greene leaves whisp'ring overhede,Or the Streete cryes all about,Where I may Reade all at my ease,Both of the Newe and Olde,For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke,Is better to me than golde.J. Wilson.
O for a Booke and a shadie nooke,Eyther in-a-doore or out,With the greene leaves whisp'ring overhede,Or the Streete cryes all about,Where I may Reade all at my ease,Both of the Newe and Olde,For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke,Is better to me than golde.
J. Wilson.
Than mote we to bokes that we finde,Through which that olde thinges been in minde,And to the doctrine of these olde wyse,Yeven credence, in every skilful wyse,And trowen on these olde aproved storiesOf holinesse, of regnes, of victories,Of love, of hate, of other sundry thinges,Of whiche I may not maken rehersinges.And if that olde bokes were a-weye,Y-loren were of remembraunce the keye.Wel oghte us than on olde bokes leve,Ther-as ther is non other assay by preve.And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte,On bokes for to rede I me delyte,And in myn herte have hem in reverence;And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence,That ther is wel unethe game noonThat from my bokes make me to goon,But hit be other up-on the haly-day,Or elles in the joly tyme of May;Whan that I here the smale foules singe,And that the floures ginne for to springe,Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun!G. Chaucer.The Legend of Good Women.
Than mote we to bokes that we finde,Through which that olde thinges been in minde,And to the doctrine of these olde wyse,Yeven credence, in every skilful wyse,And trowen on these olde aproved storiesOf holinesse, of regnes, of victories,Of love, of hate, of other sundry thinges,Of whiche I may not maken rehersinges.And if that olde bokes were a-weye,Y-loren were of remembraunce the keye.Wel oghte us than on olde bokes leve,Ther-as ther is non other assay by preve.And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte,On bokes for to rede I me delyte,And in myn herte have hem in reverence;And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence,That ther is wel unethe game noonThat from my bokes make me to goon,But hit be other up-on the haly-day,Or elles in the joly tyme of May;Whan that I here the smale foules singe,And that the floures ginne for to springe,Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun!
G. Chaucer.The Legend of Good Women.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;Or surely you'll grow double:Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?The sun, above the mountain's head,A freshening lustre mellowThrough all the long green fields has spread,His first sweet evening yellow.Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet,How sweet his music! on my life,There's more of wisdom in it.And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!He, too, is no mean preacher:Come forth into the light of things,Let Nature be your Teacher.She has a world of ready wealth,Our minds and hearts to bless—Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,Truth breathed by cheerfulness.One impulse from a vernal woodMay teach you more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can.Sweet is the love which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.Enough of Science and of Art;Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.W. Wordsworth.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;Or surely you'll grow double:Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun, above the mountain's head,A freshening lustre mellowThrough all the long green fields has spread,His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:Come, hear the woodland linnet,How sweet his music! on my life,There's more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!He, too, is no mean preacher:Come forth into the light of things,Let Nature be your Teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,Our minds and hearts to bless—Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal woodMay teach you more of man,Of moral evil and of good,Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the love which Nature brings;Our meddling intellectMis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.
W. Wordsworth.
Take me to some still abode,Underneath some woody hill;By some timber-skirted road,By some willow-shaded rill;Where along the rocky brookFlying echoes sweetly sound,And the hoarsely-croaking rookBuilds upon the trees around.Take me to some lofty roomLighted from the western sky,Where no glare dispels the gloomTill the golden eve is nigh,Where the works of searching thought,Chosen books, may still impartWhat the wise of old have taught,What has tried the meek of heart.Books in long-dead tongues, that stirredLiving hearts in other climes;Telling to my eyes, unheard,Glorious deeds of olden times.Books that purify the thought,Spirits of the learned dead,Teachers of the little taught,Comforters when friends are fled.W. Barnes.
Take me to some still abode,Underneath some woody hill;By some timber-skirted road,By some willow-shaded rill;
Where along the rocky brookFlying echoes sweetly sound,And the hoarsely-croaking rookBuilds upon the trees around.
Take me to some lofty roomLighted from the western sky,Where no glare dispels the gloomTill the golden eve is nigh,
Where the works of searching thought,Chosen books, may still impartWhat the wise of old have taught,What has tried the meek of heart.
Books in long-dead tongues, that stirredLiving hearts in other climes;Telling to my eyes, unheard,Glorious deeds of olden times.
Books that purify the thought,Spirits of the learned dead,Teachers of the little taught,Comforters when friends are fled.
W. Barnes.
Summer fading, winter comes—Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,Window robins, winter rooks,And the picture story-books.Water now is turned to stoneNurse and I can walk upon;Still we find the flowing brooksIn the picture story-books.All the pretty things put by,Wait upon the children's eye,Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,In the picture story-books.We may see how all things are,Seas and cities, near and far,And the flying fairies' looksIn the picture story-books.How am I to sing your praise,Happy chimney-corner days,Sitting safe in nursery nooks,Reading picture story-books?R. L. Stevenson.A Child's Garden of Verses.
Summer fading, winter comes—Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,Window robins, winter rooks,And the picture story-books.
Water now is turned to stoneNurse and I can walk upon;Still we find the flowing brooksIn the picture story-books.
All the pretty things put by,Wait upon the children's eye,Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,In the picture story-books.
We may see how all things are,Seas and cities, near and far,And the flying fairies' looksIn the picture story-books.
How am I to sing your praise,Happy chimney-corner days,Sitting safe in nursery nooks,Reading picture story-books?
R. L. Stevenson.A Child's Garden of Verses.
Hail! ancient Book, most venerable code!Learning's first cradle, and its last abode!The huge unnumbered volumes which we see,By lazy plagiaries are stolen from thee.Yet future times, to thy sufficient store,Shall ne'er presume to add one letter more.Thee will I sing, in comely wainscoat bound,And golden verge enclosing thee around;The faithful horn before, from age to age,Preserving thy invaluable page;Behind, thy patron saint in armour shines,With sword and lance, to guard thy sacred lines:Beneath his courser's feet the dragon liesTransfixed; his blood thy scarlet cover dyes;The instructive handle's at the bottom fixed,Lest wrangling critics should pervert the text.Or if to ginger-bread thou shalt descend,And liquorish learning to thy babes extend;Or sugared plane, o'erspread with beaten gold,Does the sweet treasure of thy letters hold;Thou still shalt be my song—Apollo's choirI scorn to invoke; Cadmus my verse inspire:'Twas Cadmus who the first materials broughtOf all the learning which has since been taught,Soon made complete! for mortals ne'er shall knowMore than contained of old the Christ-cross row;What masters dictate, or what doctors preach,Wise matrons hence e'en to our children teach:But as the name of every plant and flower(So common that each peasant knows its power)Physicians in mysterious cant express,To amuse the patient, and enhance their fees;So from the letters of our native tongue,Put in Greek scrawls, a mystery too is sprung,Schools are erected, puzzling grammars made,And artful men strike out a gainful trade;Strange characters adorn the learned gate,And heedless youth catch at the shining bait;The pregnant boys the noisy charms declare,And Tau's and Delta's, make their mothers stare;The uncommon sounds amaze the vulgar ear,And what's uncommon never costs too dear.Yet in all tongues the Horn-book is the same,Taught by the Grecian master, or the English dame.But how shall I thy endless virtues tell,In which thou durst all other books excel?No greasy thumbs thy spotless leaf can soil,Nor crooked dog-ears thy smooth corners spoil;In idle pages no errata stand,To tell the blunders of the printer's hand:No fulsome dedication here is writ,Nor flattering verse, to praise the author's wit:The margin with no tedious notes is vexed,Nor various readings to confound the text:All parties in thy literal sense agree,Thou perfect centre of concordancy!Search we the records of an ancient date,Or read what modern histories relate,They all proclaim what wonders have been doneBy the plain letters taken as they run:'Too high the floods of passion used to roll,And rend the Roman youth's impatient soul;His hasty anger furnished scenes of blood,And frequent deaths of worthy men ensued:In vain were all the weaker methods tried,None could suffice to stem the furious tide,Thy sacred line he did but once repeat,And laid the storm, and cooled the raging heat.'Thy heavenly notes, like angels' music, cheerDeparting souls, and soothe the dying ear.An aged peasant, on his latest bed,Wished for a friend some godly book to read:The pious grandson thy known handle takes,And (eyes lift up) this savoury lecture makes:'Great A,' he gravely read: the important soundThe empty walls and hollow roof rebound:The expiring ancient reared his drooping head,And thanked his stars that Hodge had learned to read.'Great B,' the younker bawls; O heavenly breath!What ghostly comforts in the hour of death!What hopes I feel! 'Great C,' pronounced the boy;The grandsire dies with ecstasy of joy.Yet in some lands such ignorance abounds,Whole parishes scarce know thy useful sounds.Of Essex hundreds Fame gives this report,But Fame, I ween, says many things in sport.Scarce lives the man to whom thou'rt quite unknown,Though few the extent of thy vast Empire own.Whatever wonders magic spells can doOn earth, in air, in sea, in shades below;What words profound and dark wise Mahomet spoke,When his old cow an angel's figure took;What strong enchantments sage Canidia knew,Or Horace sung, fierce monsters to subdue,O mighty Book, are all contained in you!All human arts, and every science meet,Within the limits of thy single sheet:From thy vast root all learning's branches grow,And all her streams from thy deep fountain flow.And, lo! while thus thy wonders I indite,Inspired I feel the power of which I write;The gentler gout his former rage forgets,Less frequent now, and less severe the fits:Loose grow the chains which bound my useless feet;Stiffness and pain from every joint retreat;Surprising strength comes every moment on,I stand, I step, I walk, and now I run.Here let me cease, my hobbling numbers stop,And at thy handle hang my crutches up.T. Tickle.
Hail! ancient Book, most venerable code!Learning's first cradle, and its last abode!The huge unnumbered volumes which we see,By lazy plagiaries are stolen from thee.Yet future times, to thy sufficient store,Shall ne'er presume to add one letter more.
Thee will I sing, in comely wainscoat bound,And golden verge enclosing thee around;The faithful horn before, from age to age,Preserving thy invaluable page;Behind, thy patron saint in armour shines,With sword and lance, to guard thy sacred lines:Beneath his courser's feet the dragon liesTransfixed; his blood thy scarlet cover dyes;The instructive handle's at the bottom fixed,Lest wrangling critics should pervert the text.
Or if to ginger-bread thou shalt descend,And liquorish learning to thy babes extend;Or sugared plane, o'erspread with beaten gold,Does the sweet treasure of thy letters hold;Thou still shalt be my song—Apollo's choirI scorn to invoke; Cadmus my verse inspire:'Twas Cadmus who the first materials broughtOf all the learning which has since been taught,Soon made complete! for mortals ne'er shall knowMore than contained of old the Christ-cross row;What masters dictate, or what doctors preach,Wise matrons hence e'en to our children teach:But as the name of every plant and flower(So common that each peasant knows its power)Physicians in mysterious cant express,To amuse the patient, and enhance their fees;So from the letters of our native tongue,Put in Greek scrawls, a mystery too is sprung,Schools are erected, puzzling grammars made,And artful men strike out a gainful trade;Strange characters adorn the learned gate,And heedless youth catch at the shining bait;The pregnant boys the noisy charms declare,And Tau's and Delta's, make their mothers stare;The uncommon sounds amaze the vulgar ear,And what's uncommon never costs too dear.Yet in all tongues the Horn-book is the same,Taught by the Grecian master, or the English dame.
But how shall I thy endless virtues tell,In which thou durst all other books excel?No greasy thumbs thy spotless leaf can soil,Nor crooked dog-ears thy smooth corners spoil;In idle pages no errata stand,To tell the blunders of the printer's hand:No fulsome dedication here is writ,Nor flattering verse, to praise the author's wit:The margin with no tedious notes is vexed,Nor various readings to confound the text:All parties in thy literal sense agree,Thou perfect centre of concordancy!Search we the records of an ancient date,Or read what modern histories relate,They all proclaim what wonders have been doneBy the plain letters taken as they run:'Too high the floods of passion used to roll,And rend the Roman youth's impatient soul;His hasty anger furnished scenes of blood,And frequent deaths of worthy men ensued:In vain were all the weaker methods tried,None could suffice to stem the furious tide,Thy sacred line he did but once repeat,And laid the storm, and cooled the raging heat.'
Thy heavenly notes, like angels' music, cheerDeparting souls, and soothe the dying ear.An aged peasant, on his latest bed,Wished for a friend some godly book to read:The pious grandson thy known handle takes,And (eyes lift up) this savoury lecture makes:'Great A,' he gravely read: the important soundThe empty walls and hollow roof rebound:The expiring ancient reared his drooping head,And thanked his stars that Hodge had learned to read.'Great B,' the younker bawls; O heavenly breath!What ghostly comforts in the hour of death!What hopes I feel! 'Great C,' pronounced the boy;The grandsire dies with ecstasy of joy.
Yet in some lands such ignorance abounds,Whole parishes scarce know thy useful sounds.Of Essex hundreds Fame gives this report,But Fame, I ween, says many things in sport.Scarce lives the man to whom thou'rt quite unknown,Though few the extent of thy vast Empire own.Whatever wonders magic spells can doOn earth, in air, in sea, in shades below;What words profound and dark wise Mahomet spoke,When his old cow an angel's figure took;What strong enchantments sage Canidia knew,Or Horace sung, fierce monsters to subdue,O mighty Book, are all contained in you!All human arts, and every science meet,Within the limits of thy single sheet:From thy vast root all learning's branches grow,And all her streams from thy deep fountain flow.And, lo! while thus thy wonders I indite,Inspired I feel the power of which I write;The gentler gout his former rage forgets,Less frequent now, and less severe the fits:Loose grow the chains which bound my useless feet;Stiffness and pain from every joint retreat;Surprising strength comes every moment on,I stand, I step, I walk, and now I run.Here let me cease, my hobbling numbers stop,And at thy handle hang my crutches up.
T. Tickle.
Old Story Books! Old Story Books! we owe ye much, old friends,Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends.Who can forget ye? who can spurn the ministers of joyThat waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy?I know that ye could win my heart when every bribe or threatFailed to allay my stamping rage, or break my sullen pet:A 'promised story' was enough, and I turned, with eager smile,To learn about the naughty 'pig that would not mount the stile'.There was a spot in days of yore whereon I used to stand,With mighty question in my head and penny in my hand;Where motley sweets and crinkled cakes made up a goodly show,And 'story books' upon a string appeared in brilliant row.What should I have? the peppermint was incense in my nose,But I had heard of 'hero Jack', who slew his giant foes:My lonely coin was balanced long, before the tempting stall,'Twixt book and bull's eye—but, forsooth! 'Jack' got it after all.Talk of your 'vellum, gold embossed', 'morocco', 'roan', and 'calf',The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half;And as to pictures—well we know that never one was madeLike that where 'Bluebeard' swings aloft his wife-destroying blade.'Hume's England'—pshaw! what history of battles, states, and men,Can vie with Memoirs 'all about sweet little Jenny Wren'?And what are all the wonders that e'er struck a nation dumb,To those recorded as performed by 'Master Thomas Thumb'?Miss 'Riding Hood', poor luckless child! my heart grew big with dreadWhen the grim 'wolf', in 'grandmamma's' best bonnet, showed his head;I shuddered when, in innocence, she meekly peeped beneath,And made remarks about 'great eyes', and wondered at 'great teeth'.And then the 'House that Jack built', and the 'Beanstalk' Jack cut down,And 'Jack's eleven brothers', on their travels of renown;And 'Jack', whose cracked and plastered head ensured him lyric fame,These, these, methinks, make 'vulgar Jack' a rather classic name.Fair 'Valentine', I loved him well; but, better still the bearThat hugged his brother in her arms with tenderness and care.I lingered spellbound o'er the page, though eventide wore late,And left my supper all untouched to fathom 'Orson's' fate.Then 'Robin with his merry men', a noble band were they,We'll never see the like again, go hunting where we may.In Lincoln garb, with bow and barb, rapt Fancy bore me on,Through Sherwood's dewy forest paths, close after 'Little John'.Miss 'Cinderella' and her 'shoe' kept long their reigning powers,Till harder words and longer themes beguiled my flying hours;And 'Sinbad', wondrous sailor he, allured me on his track,And set me shouting when he flung the old man from his back.And oh! that tale—the matchless tale that made me dream at night—Of 'Crusoe's' shaggy robe of fur, and 'Friday's' death-spurred flight;Nay, still I read it, and again, in sleeping visions, seeThe savage dancers on the sand—the raft upon the sea.Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I doubt if 'Reason's Feast'Provides a dish that pleases more than 'Beauty and the Beast';I doubt if all the ledger-leaves that bear a sterling sum,Yield happiness like those that told of 'Master Horner's plum'.Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I never pass ye byWithout a sort of furtive glance—right loving, though 'tis sly;And fair suspicion may arise—that yet my spirit grievesFor dear 'Old Mother Hubbard's Dog' and 'Ali Baba's Thieves'.Eliza Cook.
Old Story Books! Old Story Books! we owe ye much, old friends,Bright-coloured threads in Memory's warp, of which Death holds the ends.Who can forget ye? who can spurn the ministers of joyThat waited on the lisping girl and petticoated boy?I know that ye could win my heart when every bribe or threatFailed to allay my stamping rage, or break my sullen pet:A 'promised story' was enough, and I turned, with eager smile,To learn about the naughty 'pig that would not mount the stile'.
There was a spot in days of yore whereon I used to stand,With mighty question in my head and penny in my hand;Where motley sweets and crinkled cakes made up a goodly show,And 'story books' upon a string appeared in brilliant row.What should I have? the peppermint was incense in my nose,But I had heard of 'hero Jack', who slew his giant foes:My lonely coin was balanced long, before the tempting stall,'Twixt book and bull's eye—but, forsooth! 'Jack' got it after all.
Talk of your 'vellum, gold embossed', 'morocco', 'roan', and 'calf',The blue and yellow wraps of old were prettier by half;And as to pictures—well we know that never one was madeLike that where 'Bluebeard' swings aloft his wife-destroying blade.'Hume's England'—pshaw! what history of battles, states, and men,Can vie with Memoirs 'all about sweet little Jenny Wren'?And what are all the wonders that e'er struck a nation dumb,To those recorded as performed by 'Master Thomas Thumb'?
Miss 'Riding Hood', poor luckless child! my heart grew big with dreadWhen the grim 'wolf', in 'grandmamma's' best bonnet, showed his head;I shuddered when, in innocence, she meekly peeped beneath,And made remarks about 'great eyes', and wondered at 'great teeth'.And then the 'House that Jack built', and the 'Beanstalk' Jack cut down,And 'Jack's eleven brothers', on their travels of renown;And 'Jack', whose cracked and plastered head ensured him lyric fame,These, these, methinks, make 'vulgar Jack' a rather classic name.
Fair 'Valentine', I loved him well; but, better still the bearThat hugged his brother in her arms with tenderness and care.I lingered spellbound o'er the page, though eventide wore late,And left my supper all untouched to fathom 'Orson's' fate.Then 'Robin with his merry men', a noble band were they,We'll never see the like again, go hunting where we may.In Lincoln garb, with bow and barb, rapt Fancy bore me on,Through Sherwood's dewy forest paths, close after 'Little John'.
Miss 'Cinderella' and her 'shoe' kept long their reigning powers,Till harder words and longer themes beguiled my flying hours;And 'Sinbad', wondrous sailor he, allured me on his track,And set me shouting when he flung the old man from his back.And oh! that tale—the matchless tale that made me dream at night—Of 'Crusoe's' shaggy robe of fur, and 'Friday's' death-spurred flight;Nay, still I read it, and again, in sleeping visions, seeThe savage dancers on the sand—the raft upon the sea.
Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I doubt if 'Reason's Feast'Provides a dish that pleases more than 'Beauty and the Beast';I doubt if all the ledger-leaves that bear a sterling sum,Yield happiness like those that told of 'Master Horner's plum'.Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I never pass ye byWithout a sort of furtive glance—right loving, though 'tis sly;And fair suspicion may arise—that yet my spirit grievesFor dear 'Old Mother Hubbard's Dog' and 'Ali Baba's Thieves'.
Eliza Cook.
And as it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest: as Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest falling too much in love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and barren in language only. When their judgements are firm and out of danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language: yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tincted with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good too; and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be once in safety.—Ben Jonson.Timber.
A man who, without a good fund of knowledge and parts, adopts a Court life, makes the most ridiculous figure imaginable. He is a machine, little superior to the Court clock; and, as this points out the hours, he points out the frivolous employment of them. He is, at most, a comment upon the clock; and, according to the hours that it strikes, tells you, now it is levee, now dinner, now supper time, &c. The end which I propose by your education is, to unite in you all the knowledge of a scholar, with the manners of a courtier, and to join, what is seldom joined in any of my countrymen, Books and the World. They are commonly twenty years old before they have spoken to anybody above their Schoolmaster and the Fellows of their college. If they happen to have learning, it is only Greek and Latin; but not one word of Modern History or Modern Languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it; but, in truth, they stay at home all that while; for being veryawkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages, they go into no foreign company, at least none good; but dine and sup with one another only, at the tavern.—Lord Chesterfield.Letters to his Son.
Mr. B—— has just put into my hands Mr. Locke'sTreatise on Education, and he commands me to give him my thoughts upon it in writing. He has a very high regard for this author, and tells me that my tenderness for Billy will make me think some of the first advice given in it a little harsh, perhaps; but, although he has not read it through, only having dipped into it here and there, he believes, from the name of the author, I cannot have a better directory; and my opinion of it, after I have well considered it, will inform him, he says, of my own capacity and prudence, and how far he may rely upon both in the point of a first education.—S. Richardson.Pamela.
I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first readanyEnglish book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.—S. Johnson.(Boswell'sLife.)
I would put a child into a library (where no unfit books are) and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading anything that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach. If that be the case, the child will soon find it out and desist; if not, he of course gains the instruction; which is so much the more likely to come, from the inclination with which he takes up the study.—S. Johnson.(Boswell'sLife.)
Books are but one inlet of knowledge; and the powers of the mind, like those of the body, should be left open to all impressions. I applied too close to my studies, soon after I was of your age, and hurt myself irreparably by it. Whatever may be the value of learning, health and good spirits are of more.... By conversing with themighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all ages and nations.... As to the books you will have to read by choice or for amusement, the best are the commonest. The names of many of them are already familiar to you. Read them as you grow up with all the satisfaction in your power, and make much of them. It is, perhaps, the greatest pleasure you will have in life; the one you will think of longest, and repent of least. If my life had been more full of calamity than it has been (much more than I hope yours will be), I would live it over again, my poor little boy, to have read the books I did in my youth.—W. Hazlitt.On the Conduct of Life; or Advice to a Schoolboy.
The first taste or feeling I had of books, was of the pleasure I took in reading the fables of Ovid'sMetamorphoses; for, being but seven or eight years old, I would steal and sequester myself from all other delights, only to read them: Forsomuch as the tongue wherein they were written was to me natural; and it was the easiest book I knew, and by reason of the matter therein contained most agreeing with my young age. For of King Arthur, of Lancelot du Lake, of Amadis, of Huon of Bordeaux, and such idle time-consuming and wit-besotting trash of books wherein youth doth commonly amuse itself, I was not so much as acquainted with their names, and to this day know not their bodies, nor what they contain, so exact was my discipline. WherebyI became more careless to study my other prescript lessons. And well did it fall out for my purpose that I had to deal with a very discreet master, who out of his judgement could with such dexterity wink at and second my untowardliness, and such other faults that were in me. For by that means I read over Virgil'sAeneas, Terence, Plautus, and other Italian comedies, allured thereunto by the pleasantness of their several subjects: Had he been so foolishly-severe, or so severely froward as to cross this course of mine, I think, verily, I had never brought anything from the college but the hate and contempt of books, as doth the greatest part of our nobility. Such was his discretion, and so warily did he behave himself, that he saw and would not see: he would foster and increase my longing: suffering me but by stealth and by snatches to glut myself with those books, holding ever a gentle hand over me, concerning other regular studies.—Montaigne.
Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now [then aged fifty-four]. My judgement, to be sure, was not so good; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, 'Young man, ply your book diligently now and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.'—S. Johnson.(Boswell'sLife.)
The perusal of the Roman classics was at once my exercise and reward. Dr. Middleton'sHistory, which I then appreciated above its true value, naturally directed me to the writings of Cicero. The most perfect editions, that of Olivet, which may adorn the shelves of the rich, that of Ernesti, which should lie on the table of the learned, were not within my reach. For the familiar epistles I used the text and English commentary of Bishop Ross; but my general edition was that of Verburgius, published at Amsterdam in two large volumes in folio, with an indifferent choice ofvarious notes.... Cicero in Latin, and Xenophon in Greek, are indeed the two ancients whom I would first propose to a liberal scholar....
In the infancy of my reason I turned over, as an idle amusement, the most serious and important treatise: in its maturity, the most trifling performance could exercise my taste or judgement; and more than once I have been led by a novel into a deep and instructive train of thinking.—E. Gibbon.Autobiography.
When only eleven years old, with three pence in my pocket—my whole fortune—I perceived, at Richmond, in a bookseller's window, a little book, marked 'Price Three pence'—Swift'sTale of a Tub. Its odd title excited my curiosity; I bought it in place of my supper. So impatient was I to examine it, that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Gardens, and sat down to read, on the shady side of a haystack. The book was so different from anything I had read before—it was something so new to my mind, that, though I could not at all understand some parts of it, still it delighted me beyond measure, and produced, what I have always considered, a sort of birth of intellect. I read on till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed. When I could see no longer, I put it into my pocket, and fell asleep beside the stack, till the birds awaked me in the morning; and then I started off, still reading my little book. I could relish nothing beside; I carried it about with me wherever I went, till, when about twenty years old, I lost it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy.—W. Cobbett.