Soul of the age!The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee byChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lieA little further, to make thee a room:Thou art a monument without a tomb,And art alive still, while thy book doth live,And we have wits to read, and praise to give.That I not mix thee so my brain excuses;I mean, with great but disproportioned Muses.For, if I thought my judgement were of years,I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshineOr sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,From thence, to honour thee, I will not seekFor names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,Euripides, and Sophocles to us,Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,To life again, to hear thy buskin treadAnd shake a stage; or when thy sock was on,Leave thee alone, for the comparisonOf all that insolent Greece or haughty RomeSent forth; or since did from their ashes come.Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to showTo whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.He was not of an age, but for all time!And all the Muses still were in their prime,When, like Apollo, he came forth to warmOur ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm.Nature herself was proud of his designs,And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines,Which were so richly spun, and woven so fitAs, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;But antiquated and deserted lie,As they were not of Nature's family.Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.For though the Poet's matter Nature beHis art doth give the fashion. And that heWho casts to write a living line, must sweat(Such as thine are), and strike the second heatUpon the Muses' anvil, turn the same(And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!For a good Poet's made as well as born;And such wert thou! Look how the father's faceLives in his issue; even so, the raceOf Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shinesIn his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines;In each of which he seems to shake a lanceAs brandished at the eyes of Ignorance.Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it wereTo see thee in our water yet appear,And make those flights upon the banks of ThamesThat so did take Eliza, and our James!Ben Jonson.
Soul of the age!The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee byChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lieA little further, to make thee a room:Thou art a monument without a tomb,And art alive still, while thy book doth live,And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
That I not mix thee so my brain excuses;I mean, with great but disproportioned Muses.For, if I thought my judgement were of years,I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshineOr sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line.
And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,From thence, to honour thee, I will not seekFor names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,Euripides, and Sophocles to us,Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,To life again, to hear thy buskin treadAnd shake a stage; or when thy sock was on,Leave thee alone, for the comparisonOf all that insolent Greece or haughty RomeSent forth; or since did from their ashes come.
Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to showTo whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.He was not of an age, but for all time!And all the Muses still were in their prime,When, like Apollo, he came forth to warmOur ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm.Nature herself was proud of his designs,And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines,Which were so richly spun, and woven so fitAs, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;But antiquated and deserted lie,As they were not of Nature's family.
Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.For though the Poet's matter Nature beHis art doth give the fashion. And that heWho casts to write a living line, must sweat(Such as thine are), and strike the second heatUpon the Muses' anvil, turn the same(And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!For a good Poet's made as well as born;And such wert thou! Look how the father's faceLives in his issue; even so, the raceOf Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shinesIn his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines;In each of which he seems to shake a lanceAs brandished at the eyes of Ignorance.Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it wereTo see thee in our water yet appear,And make those flights upon the banks of ThamesThat so did take Eliza, and our James!
Ben Jonson.
This figure that thou here seest put,It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,Wherein the graver had a strifeWith Nature, to outdo the life.Oh, could he but have drawn his witAs well in brass, as he has hitHis face, the print would then surpassAll that was ever writ in brass.But, since he cannot, reader, lookNot on his picture, but his book.Ben Jonson.
This figure that thou here seest put,It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,Wherein the graver had a strifeWith Nature, to outdo the life.Oh, could he but have drawn his witAs well in brass, as he has hitHis face, the print would then surpassAll that was ever writ in brass.But, since he cannot, reader, lookNot on his picture, but his book.
Ben Jonson.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,The labour of an age in pilèd stones,Or that his hallowed relics should be hidUnder a star-ypointing pyramid?Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou in our wonder and astonishmentHast built thyself a livelong monument.For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heartHath from the leaves of thy unvalued book,Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.J. Milton.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,The labour of an age in pilèd stones,Or that his hallowed relics should be hidUnder a star-ypointing pyramid?Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?Thou in our wonder and astonishmentHast built thyself a livelong monument.For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art,Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heartHath from the leaves of thy unvalued book,Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
J. Milton.
Three Poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,The next in majesty, in both the last:The force of Nature could no farther go;To make a third she joined the former two.J. Dryden.
Three Poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,The next in majesty, in both the last:The force of Nature could no farther go;To make a third she joined the former two.
J. Dryden.
This lamp filled up, and fired by that blest spirit,Spent his last oil in this pure heavenly flame;Laying the grounds, walls, roof of faith: this frameWith life he ends; and now doth there inheritWhat here he built, crowned with his laurel merit:Whose palms and triumphs once he loudly rang,There now enjoys what here he sweetly sang.This is his monument, on which he drewHis spirit's image, that can never die;But breathes in these live words, and speaks to the eye;In these his winding-sheets he dead doth shewTo buried souls the way to live anew,And in his grave more powerfully now preacheth.Who will not learn, when that a dead man teacheth?P. Fletcher.
This lamp filled up, and fired by that blest spirit,Spent his last oil in this pure heavenly flame;Laying the grounds, walls, roof of faith: this frameWith life he ends; and now doth there inheritWhat here he built, crowned with his laurel merit:Whose palms and triumphs once he loudly rang,There now enjoys what here he sweetly sang.
This is his monument, on which he drewHis spirit's image, that can never die;But breathes in these live words, and speaks to the eye;In these his winding-sheets he dead doth shewTo buried souls the way to live anew,And in his grave more powerfully now preacheth.Who will not learn, when that a dead man teacheth?
P. Fletcher.
Live in these conquering leaves: live all the same;And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;Live here, great heart; and love, and die, and kill;And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.Let this immortal life where'er it comesWalk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.Let mystic deaths wait on't; and wise souls beThe love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart;Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that playAmong the leaves of thy large books of day,Combined against this breast at once break in,And take away from me myself and sin;This gracious robbery shall thy bounty beAnd my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.O thou undaunted daughter of desires!By all thy dower of lights and fires;By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;By all thy lives and deaths of love;By thy large draughts of intellectual day,And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;By the full kingdom of that final kissThat seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;By all the Heaven thou hast in Him(Fair sister of the seraphim!);By all of Him we have in thee;Leave nothing of myself in me.Let me so read thy life, that IUnto all life of mine may die!R. Crashaw.
Live in these conquering leaves: live all the same;And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame;Live here, great heart; and love, and die, and kill;And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still.Let this immortal life where'er it comesWalk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.Let mystic deaths wait on't; and wise souls beThe love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,Upon this carcass of a hard cold heart;Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that playAmong the leaves of thy large books of day,Combined against this breast at once break in,And take away from me myself and sin;This gracious robbery shall thy bounty beAnd my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.O thou undaunted daughter of desires!By all thy dower of lights and fires;By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;By all thy lives and deaths of love;By thy large draughts of intellectual day,And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire;By the full kingdom of that final kissThat seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His;By all the Heaven thou hast in Him(Fair sister of the seraphim!);By all of Him we have in thee;Leave nothing of myself in me.Let me so read thy life, that IUnto all life of mine may die!
R. Crashaw.
You despise books; you, whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. All Africa, to the limits of Ethiopia and Nigritia, obeys the book of the Koran, after bowing to the book of the Gospel. China is ruled by the moral book of Confucius, and a great part of India by the Vedah. Persia was governed for ages by the books of one of the Zoroasters.
In a law-suit or criminal process, your property, your honour, perhaps your life, depends on the interpretationof a book which you never read.... You are acquainted with neither Hippocrates nor Boerhaave nor Sydenham; but you place your body in the hands of those who can read them.—Voltaire.Philosophical Dictionary: Books.
The writings of divines are nothing else but a preaching the Gospel to the eye, as the voice preacheth it to the ear. Vocal preaching hath the pre-eminence in moving the affections, and becometh diversified according to the state of the congregations which attend it: this way the milk cometh warmest from the breast. But books have the advantage in many other respects: you may read an able preacher when you have but a mean one to hear. Every congregation cannot hear the most judicious or powerful preachers: but every single person may read the books of the most powerful and judicious; preachers may be silenced or banished, when books may be at hand: books may be kept at a smaller charge than preachers: we may choose books which treat of that very subject which we desire to hear of; but we cannot choose what subject the preacher shall treat of. Books we may have at hand every day and hour: when we can have sermons but seldom, and at set times. If sermons be forgotten, they are gone. But a book we may read over and over till we remember it; and if we forget it, may again peruse it at our pleasure, or at our leisure. So that good books are a very great mercy to the world.—R. Baxter.Christian Directory.
Books of morality are daily written, yet its influence is still little in the world; so the ground is annually ploughed, and yet multitudes are in want of bread. But, surely, neither the labours of the moralist nor of the husbandman are vain: let them for a while neglect their tasks and their usefulness will be known; the wickedness that is now frequent would become universal, the bread that is now scarce would wholly fail.—S. Johnson.Adventurer, 137.
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding: we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, though without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or religious treatises will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind will at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.—S. Johnson.Adventurer, 137.
It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon thatdead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information that we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, or ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence. We are not unwilling to believe that man wiser than ourselves from whose abilities we may receive advantage without any danger of rivalry or opposition, and who affords us the light of his experience without hurting our eyes by flashes of insolence.—S. Johnson.Rambler, 87.
But to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is changed, in its preaching, in its working, by the introduction of Books. The Church is the working recognized Union of our Priests or Prophets, of those who by wise teaching guide the souls of men. While there was no Writing, even while there was no Easy-writing, orPrinting, the preaching of the voice was the natural sole method of performing this. But now with Books!—He that can write a true Book, to persuade England, is not he the Bishop and Archbishop, the Primate of England and of all England? I many a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets, Poems, Books, thesearethe real working effective Church of a modern country. Nay, not only our preaching, but even our worship, is not it too accomplished by means of PrintedBooks?... Fragments of a real 'Church Liturgy' and 'Body of Homilies', strangely disguised from the common eye, are to be found weltering in that huge froth-ocean of Printed Speech we loosely call Literature! Books are our Church too.
On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful and worthy are the things we call Books! Those poor bits of rag-paper with black ink on them;—from the Daily Newspaper to the sacred HebrewBook, what have they not done, what are they not doing!—For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the things (bits of paper, as we say, and black ink), is it not verily, at bottom, the highest act of man's faculty that produces a Book? It is theThoughtof man; the true thaumaturgic virtue; by which man works all things whatsoever. All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a Thought. This London City, with all its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic and tumult, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One;—a huge immeasurable Spirit of aThought, embodied in brick, iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had tothinkof the making of that brick.—The thing we called 'bits of paper with traces of black ink', is thepurestembodiment a Thought of man can have. No wonder it is, in all ways, the activest and noblest.—T. Carlyle.Heroes and Hero-Worship.
The modern scholars have their usual recourse to the Universities of their countries; some few, it may be, to those of their neighbours; and this in quest of books rather than men for their guides, though these are living and those in comparison but dead instructors, which, like a hand with an inscription, can point out the straight way upon the road, but can neither tell you the next turnings, resolve your doubts, or answer your questions, like a guide that has traced it over, and perhaps knows it as well ashis chamber. And who are these dead guides we seek in our journey? They are at best but some few authors that remain among us of a great many that wrote in Greek and Latin from the age of Hippocrates to that of Marcus Antoninus, which reaches not much above six hundred years.—Sir W. Temple.Ancient and Modern Learning.
The colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries, furnish no professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much wanted. In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they are imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes; and, though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty centuries for us,—some of them,—and are eager to give us a sign, and unbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo that they must not speak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has dressed them, like battalions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one cut, by the thousand and ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the right one is to be computed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination,—not a choice out of three caskets, but out of half a million caskets all alike. But it happens in our experience, that in this lottery there are at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a prize. It seems, then, as if some charitable soul, after losing a great deal of time among the false books, and alighting upon a few true ones which made him happy and wise, would do a right act in naming those which have been bridges or ships to carry him safely over dark morasses and barren oceans, into the heart of sacred cities, into palaces and temples. This would be best done by those great masters of books who from time to time appear,—the Fabricii, the Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers, Mirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons, whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of learning. But private readers, reading purely for love of the book, would serve us by leaving each the shortest note of what he found.—R. W. Emerson.Books.
To look at Teaching, for instance. Universities are a notable, respectable product of the modern ages. Their existence too is modified, to the very basis of it, by the existence of Books. Universities arose while there were yet no Books procurable; while a man, for a single Book, had to give an estate of land. That, in those circumstances, when a man had some knowledge to communicate, he should do it by gathering the learners round him, face to face, was a necessity for him. If you wanted to know what Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard. Thousands, as many as thirty thousand, went to hear Abelard and that metaphysical theology of his. And now for any other teacher who had also something of his own to teach, there was a great convenience opened: so many thousands eager to learn were already assembled yonder; of all places the best place for him was that. For any third teacher it was better still; and grew ever the better, the more teachers there came. It only needed now that the King took notice of this new phenomenon; combined or agglomerated the various schools into one school; gave it edifices, privileges, encouragements, and named itUniversitas, or School of all Sciences: the University of Paris, in its essential characters, was there. The model of all subsequent Universities; which down even to these days, for six centuries now, have gone on to found themselves. Such, I conceive, was the origin of Universities. It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility of getting Books, the whole conditions of the business from top to bottom were changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed all Universities, or superseded them! The Teacher needed not now to gather men personally round him, that he mightspeakto them what he knew: print it in a Book, and all learners far and wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own fireside, much more effectually to learn it!—Doubtless there is still peculiar virtue in Speech; even writers of Books may still, in some circumstances, find it convenient to speak also,—witness our present meeting here! There is, one would say, and must ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province for Speech aswell as for Writing and Printing. In regard to all things this must remain; to Universities among others. But the limits of the two have nowhere yet been pointed out, ascertained; much less put in practice: the University which would completely take-in that great new fact, of the existence of Printed Books, and stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth Century as the Paris one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest School, can do for us, is still but what the first School began doing—teach us toread. We learn toread, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.—T. Carlyle.Heroes and Hero-Worship.
The King observing with judicious eyesThe state of both his Universities,To one he sent a regiment: for why?That learned body wanted loyalty.To the other he sent books, as well discerningHow much that loyal body wanted learning.J. Trapp.
The King observing with judicious eyesThe state of both his Universities,To one he sent a regiment: for why?That learned body wanted loyalty.To the other he sent books, as well discerningHow much that loyal body wanted learning.
J. Trapp.
The King to Oxford sent his troop of horse,For Tories own no argument but force;With equal care to Cambridge books he sent,For Whigs allow no force but argument.Sir W. Browne.
The King to Oxford sent his troop of horse,For Tories own no argument but force;With equal care to Cambridge books he sent,For Whigs allow no force but argument.
Sir W. Browne.
Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.—F. Bacon, Lord Verulam.Of Counsell.
The readers and the hearers like my books,And yet some writers cannot them digest;But what care I? for when I make a feast,I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.Sir J. Harington.
The readers and the hearers like my books,And yet some writers cannot them digest;But what care I? for when I make a feast,I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.
Sir J. Harington.
is one that has spelt over a great many of books, and his observation is the orthography. He is the surgeon of old authors, and heals the wounds of dust and ignorance. He converses much in fragments andDesunt multa's, and if he piece it up with two lines, he is more proud of that book than the author. He runs over all sciences to peruse their syntaxes, and thinks all learning comprised in writing Latin. He tastes styles, as some discreeter palaters do wine; and tells you which is genuine, which sophisticate and bastard. His own phrase is a miscellany of old words, deceased long before the Caesars, and entombed by Varro, and the modernest man he follows is Plautus. He writesOmneisat length, andquicquid, and his gerund is most inconformable. He is a troublesome vexer of the dead, which after so long sparing must rise up to the judgement of his castigations. He is one that makes all books sell dearer, whilst he swells them into folios with his comments.—J. Earle.Microcosmographie.
Others for language all their care express,And value books, as women men, for dress:Their praise is still,—the style is excellent:The sense, they humbly take upon content.Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.A. Pope.Essay on Criticism.
Others for language all their care express,And value books, as women men, for dress:Their praise is still,—the style is excellent:The sense, they humbly take upon content.Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
A. Pope.Essay on Criticism.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,With loads of learned lumber in his head,With his own tongue still edifies his ears,And always listening to himself appears.All books he reads, and all he reads assails,From Dryden'sFablesdown to D'Urfey'sTales.With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;Garth did not write his ownDispensary.Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend,Nay, showed his faults—but when would poets mend?No place so sacred from such fops is barred,Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard.Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead:For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.A. Pope.Essay on Criticism.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,With loads of learned lumber in his head,With his own tongue still edifies his ears,And always listening to himself appears.All books he reads, and all he reads assails,From Dryden'sFablesdown to D'Urfey'sTales.With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;Garth did not write his ownDispensary.Name a new play, and he's the poet's friend,Nay, showed his faults—but when would poets mend?No place so sacred from such fops is barred,Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's churchyard.Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead:For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
A. Pope.Essay on Criticism.
There are some subjects of which almost all the world perceive the futility; yet all combine in imposing upon each other as worthy of praise. But chiefly this imposition obtains in literature, where men publicly contemn what they relish with rapture in private, and approve abroad what has given them disgust at home.—O. Goldsmith.Letters from a Citizen of the World.
They who are in the habit of passing sentence upon books,—and what ignoramus in our days does not deem himself fully qualified for sitting in the seat of the scorner?—are apt to think that they have condemned a work irretrievably, when they have pronounced it to be unintelligible. Unintelligible to whom? To themselves, the self-constituted judges. So that their sentence presumes their competency to pronounce it: and this, to every one save themselves, may be exceedingly questionable.
It is true, the very purpose for which a writer publishes his thoughts, is, that his readers should share them with him. Hence the primary requisite of a style is its intelligibleness: that is to say, it must be capable of being understood. But intelligibleness is a relative quality, varying with the capacity of the reader. The easiest book in a language is inaccessible to those who have never set foot within the pale of that language. The simplest elementary treatise in any science is obscure and perplexing, until we become familiar with the terminology of that science. Thus every writer is entitled to demand a certain amount of knowledge in those for whom he writes, and a certain degree of dexterity in using the implements of thought....
When a man says he sees nothing in a book, he very often means that he does not see himself in it: which, if it is not a comedy or a satire, is likely enough.—A. W.andJ. C. Hare.Guesses at Truth.
They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame. Only those books come down which deserve to last. Gilt edges, vellum, and morocco, and presentation copies to all the libraries, will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date. It must go with all Walpole's Noble and Royal Authors to its fate. Blackmore, Kotzebue, or Pollock may endure for a night, but Moses and Homer stand for ever. There are not in the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand Plato: never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few persons, as if God brought them in his hand. 'No book,' said Bentley, 'was ever written down by any but itself.' The permanence of all books is fixed by no effort friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.—R. W. Emerson.Spiritual Laws.
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.—R. W. Emerson.Goethe.
The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize. Nor is the public altogether to blame on this account. Most even of those who have really a great enjoyment in reading are in the same state, with respect to a book, in which a man who has never given particular attention to the art of painting is with respect to a picture. Every man who has the least sensibility or imagination derives a certain pleasure from pictures. Yet a man of the highest and finest intellect might, unless he had formed his taste by contemplating the best pictures, be easily persuaded by a knot of connoisseurs that the worst daub in Somerset House was a miracle of art.
Just such is the manner in which nine readers out of ten judge of a book. They are ashamed to dislike what men who speak as having authority declare to be good.—Lord Macaulay.Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems.
I know many persons who have the purest taste in literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon which puzzles me not a little; but I have never known any one with false taste in books, and true taste in pictures. It is also of the greatest importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all kinds of sake, in these days of book deluge, to keep out of the salt swamps of literature, and live on a little rocky island of your own, with a spring and a lake in it, pure and good. I cannot, of course, suggest the choice of your library to you: every several mind needs different books; but there are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if you read Homer, Plato, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Dante, Shakespeare, and Spenser, as much as you ought, you will not require wide enlargement of shelves to right and left of them for purposes of perpetual study.—J. Ruskin.The Elements of Drawing.
'There is no book so bad,' said the bachelor, 'but something good may be found in it.'—Cervantes.
Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems to savour less of absolute instinct, and which may be so well reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their books. These children may most truly be called the riches of their father, and many of them have with true filial piety fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the affection but the interest of the author may be highly injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings his book to an untimely end.
Lastly, the slanderer of a book is, in truth, the slanderer of the author ... neither can any one give the names of sad stuff, horrid nonsense, &c., to a book, without calling the author a blockhead; which, though in a moral sense it is a preferable appellation to that of villain, is, perhaps, rather more injurious to his worldly interest.—H. Fielding.Tom Jones.
To complain in print of the multitude of books seems to me a self-accusing vanity, whilst the querulous reprehenders add to the cause of complaint and transgress themselves in that which they seem to wish amended. 'Tis true, the births of the press are numerous, nor is there less variety in the humours and fancies of perusers, and while the number of the one exceeds not the diversity of the other some will not think that too much which others judge superfluous. The genius of one approves what another disregardeth. And were nothing to pass the press but what were suited to the universal gusto, farewell, typography!... I seek no applause from the disgrace of others, nor will I, huckster-like, discredit any man's ware to recommend mine own. I am not angry that there are so many books already (bating only the anomalies of impiety and irreligion), nor will I plead the necessity of publishing mine from feigned importunities.—J. Glanvill.The Vanity of Dogmatizing.
The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on the sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in, anyhow.—O. W. Holmes.The Poet at the Breakfast-Table.
Popish books teach and inform; what we know, we know much out of them. The fathers, church story, school-men, all may pass for popish books; and if you take away them, what learning will you leave? Besides, who must be judge? The customer or the waiter? If he disallows a book it must not be brought into the kingdom; then Lord have mercy upon all scholars! These puritan preachers, if they have anything good, they have it out of popish books, though they will not acknowledge it, for fear of displeasing the people. He is a poor divine that cannot sever the good from the bad.—J. Selden.Table Talk.
Learning hath of late years met with an obstruction in many places which suppresses it from flourishing or increasing, in spite of all its other helps, and that is the inquisition upon the press, which prohibits any book from coming forth without an imprimatur; an old relic of popery, only necessary for the concealing of such defects of government which of right ought to be discovered and amended.—C. Blount.A Just Vindication of Learning, 1693.
[Greek: Méga biblíon méga kakón]
A man who publishes his works in a volume has an infinite advantage over one who communicates his writings to the world in loose tracts and single pieces. We do not expect to meet with anything in a bulky volume till after some heavy preamble, and several words of course, to prepare the reader for what follows: nay, authors have established it as a kind of rule, that a man ought to be dull sometimes, as the most severe reader makes allowances for many rests and nodding-places in a voluminous writer. This gave occasion to the famous Greek proverb which I have chosen for my motto,That a great book is a great evil....
An essay writer must practise in the chemical method and give the virtue of a full draught in a few drops. Wereall books reduced thus to their quintessence, many a bulky author would make his appearance in a penny-paper: there would be scarce such a thing in nature as a folio: the works of an age would be contained on a few shelves, not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated....
When knowledge, instead of being bound up in books, and kept in libraries and retirements, is thus obtruded upon the public; when it is canvassed in every assembly, and exposed upon every table; I cannot forbear reflecting upon that passage in the Proverbs, 'Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets.'—J. Addison.Spectator, 124.
For books we shall generally find that the most excellent in any art or science have been still the smallest and most compendious; and this not without ground, for it is an argument that the author was a master of what he wrote, and had a clear notion and a full comprehension of the subject before him. For the reason of things lies in a little compass, if the mind could at any time be so happy as to light upon it. Most of the writings and discourses in the world are but illustration and rhetoric, which signifies as much as nothing to a mind eager in pursuit after the causes and philosophical truth of things.... The truth is, there could be no such thing as art or science, could not the mind of man gather the general natures of things out of the heap of numberless particulars, and then bind them up into such short aphorisms or propositions, that so they may be made portable to the memory, and thereby become ready and at hand for the judgement to apply and make use of as there shall be occasion.—R. South.Sermon against long extempore prayers.
There are many books written by many men, from which two truths only are discoverable by the readers; namely, that the writers thereof wanted two things,—principle and preferment.—C. C. Colton.Lacon.
An amusing catalogue might be made of books which contain but one good passage. They would be a sort of single-speech Hamiltons; if Balaam's palfrey might not be thought a more apt counterpart to them. Killigrew's play of the Parson's Wedding, which in length of massy dullness exceeds many books, is remarkable for one little spark of liveliness. The languishing fine lady of the piece exclaims most characteristically, upon coming in tired with walking: 'I am glad I am come home, for I'm e'en as weary with this walking. For God's sake, whereabouts does the pleasure of walking lie? I swear I have often sought it till I was weary, and yet I could ne'er find it.'—Charron on Wisdom, a cumbrous piece of formality, which Pope's eulogium lately betrayed me into the perusal of, has one splendid passage, page 138, (I think) English translation. It contrasts the open honours with which we invest the sword, as the means of putting man out of the world, with the concealing and retiring circumstances that accompany his introduction into it. It is a piece of gorgeous and happy eloquence.—What could Pope mean by that line,—'sage Montaigne, or more sage Charron?' Montaigne is an immense treasure-house of observation, anticipating all the discoveries of succeeding essayists. You cannot dip in him without being struck with the aphorism, that there is nothing new under the sun. All the writers on common life since him have done nothing but echo him. You cannot open him without detecting aSpectatoror starting aRambler; besides that his own character pervades the whole, and binds it sweetly together. Charron is a mere piece of formality, scholastic dry bones, without sinew or living flesh.—C. Lamb.Table Talk.
Few books have more than one thought: the generality indeed have not quite so many. The more ingenious authors of the former seem to think that, if they once get their candle lighted, it will burn on for ever. Yet even a candle gives a sorry, melancholy light unless it has a brother beside it, to shine on it and keep it cheerful. For lights and thoughtsare social and sportive: they delight in playing with and into each other. One can hardly conceive a duller state of existence than sitting at whist with three dummies: and yet many of our prime philosophers have seldom done anything else.—A. W. andJ. C. Hare.Guesses at Truth.
A heedy reader shall often discover in other men's compositions perfections far differing from the author's meaning, and such as haply he never dreamed of, and illustrateth them with richer senses and more excellent constructions.—Montaigne.
In hours of high mental activity we sometimes do the book too much honour, reading out of it better things than the author wrote,—reading, as we say, between the lines. You have had the like experience in conversation: the wit was in what you heard, not in what the speakers said. Our best thought came from others. We heard in their words a deeper sense than the speakers put into them, and could express ourselves in other people's phrases to finer purpose than they knew.—R. W. Emerson.Quotation and Originality.
There are some fine passages, I am told, in that book.
Are there? Then beware of them. Fine passages are mostlyculs de sac. For in books also does one see
Rich windows that exclude the lightAnd passages that lead to nothing.A. W. andJ. C. Hare.Guesses at Truth.
Rich windows that exclude the lightAnd passages that lead to nothing.
A. W. andJ. C. Hare.Guesses at Truth.
There's more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret things, and more books upon books than upon any other subject. We do but inter-glose ourselves. All swarmeth with commentaries; of authors there is great penury.—Montaigne.
ERASMUS. I am told there is a certain compendious art, that will help a man to accomplish himself with all the liberal sciences by a very little labour.DESIDERIUS. What is that you talk of? Did you ever see the book?ERASMUS. I did see it, and that was all, having nobody to instruct me in the use of it.DESIDERIUS. What was the subject of the book?ERASMUS. It treated of various forms of dragons, lions, leopards; and various circles, and words written in them, some in Greek, some in Latin, and some in Hebrew and other barbarous languages.DESIDERIUS. Pray, in how many days' time did the title-page promise you the knowledge of the arts and sciences?ERASMUS. In fourteen.DESIDERIUS. In truth, a very noble promise. But did you ever know anybody that has become learned by that notable art?ERASMUS. No.DESIDERIUS. No, nor nobody ever did, or ever will, till we can see an alchemist grow rich.ERASMUS. Why, is there no such art then? I wish with all my heart there was.DESIDERIUS. Perhaps you do, because you would not be at the pains which are required to become learned.ERASMUS. You are right.DESIDERIUS. It seemed meet to the Divine Being that the common riches, gold, jewels, silver, palaces, and kingdoms should be bestowed on the slothful and undeserving; but the true riches, and such as are properly our own, must be gotten by labour.
ERASMUS. I am told there is a certain compendious art, that will help a man to accomplish himself with all the liberal sciences by a very little labour.DESIDERIUS. What is that you talk of? Did you ever see the book?ERASMUS. I did see it, and that was all, having nobody to instruct me in the use of it.DESIDERIUS. What was the subject of the book?ERASMUS. It treated of various forms of dragons, lions, leopards; and various circles, and words written in them, some in Greek, some in Latin, and some in Hebrew and other barbarous languages.DESIDERIUS. Pray, in how many days' time did the title-page promise you the knowledge of the arts and sciences?ERASMUS. In fourteen.DESIDERIUS. In truth, a very noble promise. But did you ever know anybody that has become learned by that notable art?ERASMUS. No.DESIDERIUS. No, nor nobody ever did, or ever will, till we can see an alchemist grow rich.ERASMUS. Why, is there no such art then? I wish with all my heart there was.DESIDERIUS. Perhaps you do, because you would not be at the pains which are required to become learned.ERASMUS. You are right.DESIDERIUS. It seemed meet to the Divine Being that the common riches, gold, jewels, silver, palaces, and kingdoms should be bestowed on the slothful and undeserving; but the true riches, and such as are properly our own, must be gotten by labour.
ERASMUS. I am told there is a certain compendious art, that will help a man to accomplish himself with all the liberal sciences by a very little labour.
DESIDERIUS. What is that you talk of? Did you ever see the book?
ERASMUS. I did see it, and that was all, having nobody to instruct me in the use of it.
DESIDERIUS. What was the subject of the book?
ERASMUS. It treated of various forms of dragons, lions, leopards; and various circles, and words written in them, some in Greek, some in Latin, and some in Hebrew and other barbarous languages.
DESIDERIUS. Pray, in how many days' time did the title-page promise you the knowledge of the arts and sciences?
ERASMUS. In fourteen.
DESIDERIUS. In truth, a very noble promise. But did you ever know anybody that has become learned by that notable art?
ERASMUS. No.
DESIDERIUS. No, nor nobody ever did, or ever will, till we can see an alchemist grow rich.
ERASMUS. Why, is there no such art then? I wish with all my heart there was.
DESIDERIUS. Perhaps you do, because you would not be at the pains which are required to become learned.
ERASMUS. You are right.
DESIDERIUS. It seemed meet to the Divine Being that the common riches, gold, jewels, silver, palaces, and kingdoms should be bestowed on the slothful and undeserving; but the true riches, and such as are properly our own, must be gotten by labour.