I.
Let the world run after new books; commend me to the enduring fascination of old ones—not old only in authorship, but old in imprint, in form and comeliness, or perhaps uncomeliness!
What value is there in gilded edges and Turkey leather, which must be handled so gingerly, compared with the sturdy calfskin, ribbed and bevelled, which has outlived generations of human calves? and what is tinted hot-press to the page grown yellow in the atmosphere of centuries? The quaintly spelt word, the ornamented initial which begins each chapter, and the more elaborate ornamentation of dedication and title-page—all so poor now as works of art, yet in their day masterpieces of handicraft—there is a spell in them! till from that olden time
... "a thousand fantasies,
Begin to throng into my memory."
Comus.
A heavy quarto lies here bearing impress on its exterior, Workes of Lvcivs Annævs Seneca. Both Morall and Naturall. Translated by Thomas Lodge, D. of Physicke; and within is a long Latin dedication to the Illvstrissimo D. Thomæ Egertono, Domino de Ellismere, etc., etc. London, 1614.
Not so very old either; but within that time what changes have passed over the world! How often has ambition or popular discontent, or perchance honest resistance, revolutionized nations, and swept away the boundaries of kingdoms! How often some power, seemingly inadequate to the effect, has changed the currents of human thought, and exalted or degraded not only individuals, but aggregate masses of humanity, as effectively as the earthquake convulses, and then depresses or upheaves the visible surface on which they dwell!
What changes also in the especial surroundings of this individual volume! What improvements in the petty affairs of domestic life, the little arrangements of the household; in the union of science and mechanical art to produce necessaries and superfluities; in refinements of sentiment and manners; in a better relation between rulers and the ruled; and, to sum up all, in a more just appreciation by each individual of what he owes to himself and to his fellow-creatures!
All through the wide extent of this past time history and legends stretch back their ramifications, like paths through some vast extended landscape. In some places clear and well defined, and easily followed; again, leading through tangle and uncertainty, and at more than one point brought to an abrupt termination, beyond which all vestige of a way is lost. We tread here in thought a space of time which has been passed over by millions and millions—that countless throng of the nameless whose steps have left no foot-print—and where to a few only has been accorded the privilege of marking, by deed or word, the spot whereon they stood. It is the buried city of the immaterial world—where is uncovered to us noble deeds, and lofty aspirations, and holy purposes; and in darker spots are wrecks of hopes, and hearts, and immortal souls, to which all the wealth gone down in ocean counts as nothing.
To retrace again and again these paths, so often indistinct and so often awakening an interest they fail to gratify; to remove with patient toil here the doubt and there the untruth which encumber them, and anon to clear away some obstacle and open to sight a new vista, has been at all periods the occupation and the richest intellectual enjoyment of some of the most gifted minds, who accepted their ample reward in the simple success of their labors. Even the more humble wanderer through the mazy labyrinth, whose limited scope it is only to gaze and wonder, finds a charm in such investigations widely different from any other mental pursuit. It is the charm of a common humanity—the recognition and acknowledgment of a chain, invisible and intangible, and in a measure undefinable, but too strong ever to be broken, which unites each to the other the whole human family. It is not religion—neither philosophy; for in many a land, despite the barbarous precepts of a so-called religion, and where philosophy was never heard of, it vibrates in the savage heart to the necessities of the stranger. Its first link is riveted in our common origin; and its mysterious existence widely and wisely asserts itself in the interest with which, for human creatures, is ever invested the affairs of human kind.
Furthermore, it is this great social bond which attracts us to the personages of fiction, and always precisely in proportion as they assimilate to real life; and since even the most successful creations of fancy can hardly fail to fall short, in some point, of realities, so truth itself, properly presented, will always possess attractions beyond any fiction.
But it is not in battle-fields and conquests, nor yet in the impassioned eloquence or astute wisdom of senates and council chambers, that we hold closest communion with the buried of long ago; it is in that homely every-day life which we are ourselves living; in the little pleasures, regrets, and loves; in the annoyances, successes, and failures; in the very mistakes and imprudences which made up the ego ipse so like our own that we find companionship. How they return to life again in all these things! and we enter into their most private chambers—the doors are all open now—and read their most private thoughts. We know them better than did their contemporaries; and they suffer a wrong sometimes in this ruthless unveiling which our heart resents. Now, it is proper that truth should ultimately, even on earth, prevail; and that the traitorous soldier and unscrupulous courtier, after having lived their lives out in ill-gotten wealth and undeserved honor, should wear in history their true colors; that even a woman's misdeeds, when they touch public interest, should be brought to meet a public verdict; but then these little private endurances—the life-long struggle with poverty here, the unavailing concessions to unreasonable tyranny by home and hearth there, the martyrdom of life, as it may be called, which they so carefully guarded from sight—how it is all paraded now to the world, and passed from book to book!
And yet it takes all this to make up the entire truthful portrait. Indeed, so very far does it go to modify our opinions of them, that the judgments formed without it must be oftentimes very erroneous.