FOOTNOTES:
[64] Bishop Lightfoot's 'Ignatius and Polycarp,' by Prof. A. Harnack, Ph.D, in 'Expositor' for December, 1885, p. 401.
[65] 'The Apostolic Fathers,' p. 116. By Canon Scott Holland.
[66] ἑχτρομα, 'Ep. to the Romans,' 9, with Bp. Lightfoot's note. Compare 1 Corinth. xv. 8.
[67] Herod, vii. 31, 187.
[68] 'Ep. to the Rom.' 5, 'to the Ephes.' II, with note
[69] See the useful Table in i. 222, and the excursus on 'Spurious and Interpolated Epistles' in i. 223-266. Cf. also the 'Appendix Ignatiana,' ii. 587, &c.
[70] Such as Eusebius and Theodoret. Cf. i., pp. 137-40, 161-4. The catena of quotations and references from the second to the ninth century, given in i. 127-221 (cf. the hint on p. 220) is most important for the construction of the text, and as a preliminary to the determination of the priority and authenticity of the Epistles. Harnack's objections to the quotation from Lucian (i. 129) are not shared by Baur or Renan, and are indirectly met by Bishop Lightfoot, i. 331-5.
[71] Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, William Spurstow.
[72] i, 79 For example, as regards the order of the words in the Greek text this latin translation may be treated as an authority. The Greek is rigidly followed without any regard for Latin usage. So also Greek articles are scrupulously reproduced, in violation of Latin idiom. New or unusual Latin words are introduced to correspond as exactly as possible to the original; e.g. ingloriatio = ακανχησια; multibona ordinatio = το πολυευτακταν, &c.
[73] See i. 72. For the text edited by Dr. W. Wright, see ii. 657., &c.; and for a translation, ii. 670, &c.
[74] 'De scriptis quæ sub Dionysii Areopagitæ et Ignati Antiocheni nominibus circumferuntur,' &c. (1666). The Bishop of Durham characterizes Daille's treatment of the Ignatian writings as marked 'by deliberate confusion.' He knows the facts, but makes the Vossian letters bear all the odium attached to the 'long' recension. Pearson's work, 'Vindiciæ Epistolarum S. Ignatii,' appeared six years later in 1672. This reply as compared with the attack was 'as light to darkness.' In England it closed the controversy.
[75] Trall. 5.
[76] See, for example, Rom. 4, 9: Trall. 3, 13; Ephes. 1, 3, 21.
[77] Rom. 5.
[78] Smyrn. 8.
[79] See i. 400, 405.
[80] Consult Bishop Lightfoot's Essay on this subject in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians (p. 181, &c.). The 'Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,' published in 1884, is rightly referred to now by the Bishop of Durham as confirming his positions.
[81] Comp. Irenæus, 'Hær.' iii. 3, § § 3,4; iii. 14, § 2.
[82] Essay in 'Philippians,' p. 218.
[83] Cf. Bishop Lightfoot's edition of 'St. Clement of Rome,' App. p. 252, &c.
[84] Iren. 'Hær.' iii. 3, 4.
[85] Cf. i. 568, &c.
[86] See i. 50, &c.; ii. 532. The Bishop of Durham's collection of facts and references dealing with this subject is an admirable specimen—everywhere repeated—of the exhaustive treatment he applies to single points.
[87] Letter of the Smyrnæans, § 12.
[88] He had learnt the trick of keeping lighted tow or straw in his mouth. See other instances in Milman's 'History of the Jeos,' ii. 429, n. x.
[89] Cf. Justin Martyr in Eusebius, 'Hist.' iv, 8.
[90] i. 422, 629, &c. Mr. Rendell, in the 'Studia Biblica' (oxf. 1885), has come to the same conclusion by an independent treatment.
[91] Hær. v. 33, 34.
[92] Euseb. 'Hist. Eccl.' v. 20
[93] Iren. 'Hær.' iii. 3.
[94] The genuineness of the main document (at least) is unaffected by recent attacks. The impugning process of Schürer, Lipsius, and Kelm has been successfully resisted by Renan, Hilgenfeld (in part), and the Bishop of Durham (i 588, &c.).
[95] The subjects of the Asiarchate, of the identity of Asiarch and high-priest, have suggested to the Bishop of Durham another of those exhaustive discussions which will win for him the gratitude of the students (see ii. 987, &c.)
[96] The name given by the heathen to the Christians, whom they counted godless because they had neither image nor visible representation of the Deity. See ii. 160, note to line 1.
[97] See i. 599 nn. 1, 6.
[98] On the celebrated reading, 'there came forth a dove and a quantity of blood, see ii. 974, note to i. 3. It is to be explained by the belief, that the soul departed from the body at death in the form of a bird; the dove most readily suggesting itself as the emblem of a Christian soul.
Art. VIII.—1. An Address delivered to the Students of Edinburgh University on Nov. 3, 1885. By the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh.
2. Hearing, Reading and Thinking: an address to the Students attending the Lectures of the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching. By the Rt. Hon. G.J. Goschen, M.P.
3. The Choice of Books and other Literary Pieces. By Frederic Harrison. London, 1886.
The subject of Books and Reading is in the air at the present time; Lord Iddlesleigh raised the question last November, by his admirable discourse on Desultory Reading, delivered at Edinburgh. Sir John Lubbock was not slow to follow the lead, in his lecture at the Working Men's College; and lastly, we have Mr. Goschen's more abstract and despondent remarks on Hearing, Reading, and Thinking. The discussion has been carried forward from Newspaper to Journal, and from Journal to Magazine, and has attracted representatives of the most heterogeneous elements into the ever widening circle. Sir John Lubbock wound up by enumerating a hundred of the books—
'most frequently mentioned with approval by those who have referred directly or indirectly to the pleasure of reading, and I have ventured to include some, which though less frequently mentioned, are especial favourites of my own. I have abstained for obvious reasons from mentioning works by living authors.' ('Self Help,' however, is admitted into Sir John's revised list), 'though from many of them, Tennyson, Ruskin, and others, I have myself derived the keenest enjoyment; and have omitted works of Science, with one or two exceptions, because the subject is so progressive. I feel that the attempt is over bold, and must beg for indulgence; but indeed one object I have had in view is to stimulate others, more competent far than I am, to give us the advantage of their opinions. If we had such lists drawn up by a few good guides, they would be most useful.'
The challenge thus thrown down was quickly taken up by the Editor of the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' who forthwith sent out a Circular to certain eminent men of the day, inviting them 'to jot down such a list—not necessarily containing a hundred volumes—as would help the present generation to choose their reading more wisely.' Whether the majority of the 'guides' thus appealed to have responded to the call, we are not informed; the replies of several have been published; and our thanks are due to those who have been instrumental in opening up a discussion of great variety and universal interest; though we must confess to some regret that the initiative was not given in a different form. Why the number should be fixed at one hundred; why works of Science should be excluded; why Biography and Travels should enjoy so meagre a representation on Sir John Lubbock's list, are questions to which no satisfactory answer has been given.
Who is it, we would ask in the first place, for whom this list is primarily intended? Not the man whose love of books is firmly established, for he will have chosen for himself his own walk among the innumerable highways and byepaths of literature; nor he whose tastes are just forming, for the field is too wide, and he would hardly prefer the Analects of Confucius, the Shahnameh, and the Sheking, to 'Marco's Polo's Travels,' Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' and 'Æsop's Fables.' No list, however, that could be drawn up would escape criticism, and our desire is not so much to suggest in what manner the present list might be amended, as to indicate how, in our opinion, it might have been made to serve some practical purpose.
'Books have brought some men to knowledge and some to madness. As fulness sometimes hurteth the stomach more than hunger, so fareth it with arts; and as of meats, so likewise of books, the use ought to be limited according to the quality of him that useth them.' Thus wrote Petrarch, and the comparison between the bodily and mental digestion, if trite, is very far from being a mere superficial analogy.
Those who are blessed with a judicial friend, quite competent to make a diagnosis of their literary capacity and prescribe a diet, are indeed fortunate—'sua si bona norint.' Such prescriptions have been long since made, and handed down to us. That written out by Doctor Johnson, for his friend the Rev. Mr. Astle of Ashbourne, is brief enough, and savours of the drastic remedies fashionable in the last century.[99] If on glancing over the Doctor's list our readers are inclined to assume that the Rev. Mr. Astle was possessed of a very healthy digestion, we would remind them that solid joints and heavy folios were more in vogue at that time than in these days of French cookery and periodical literature.
In later times Comte also, among others, has furnished a catalogue, or syllabus of books for general reading; but even his faithful follower Mr. Harrison admits, half apologetically, that it 'has no special relation to current views of education, to English literature, much less to the literature of the day. It was drawn up thirty years ago by a French philosopher, who passed his life in Paris, and who had read no new book for twenty years.'
'What shall I read?' There are few questions more frequently asked than this; few, perhaps, to which a thoughtless answer is more frequently given. Coming from one of that large class to which Lord Iddesleigh has given the name of 'indolent readers,' it might be assumed to be lightly asked, and might be as lightly answered by the recommendation of some three-volume novel, or the more fashionable shilling's-worth of gruesome mystery; but if the enquirer be a young book-lover, a worthy answer is far to seek. The diagnosis and opinion of the physician do not present greater difficulties, and in many cases are not attended by more momentous results. To turn a juvenile adrift in Sir John Lubbock's list would be to prescribe an exclusive diet of richly seasoned dishes and rare wines to a convalescent patient—to feed him on strong meats, on cavaire and truffles, and to omit the simple, wholesome, homely fare on which, in his condition, health and efficient progress must in the main depend.
How often has the young enquirer been imbued with a distaste for solid literature by being compelled to read 'masterpieces' long before he was able to appreciate their value, or even to comprehend their history! The system at many of our schools is much to blame in this respect. There are, we believe, comparatively few boys who acquire, until they seek it for themselves, even the roughest general outline of the world's history, to which their various episodic studies may be applied, so that each may fall into its proper place and order. 'Periods' and 'Epochs' are studied minutely and painfully, without any knowledge of the grand structure of which they form but a single fragment; and history is too often divorced from geography. A schoolboy is set to work on a play of Aristophanes before he has made acquaintance with the social and political movements of which Pericles and Cleon were the representatives. He reads his Bible and his Homer, his Virgil and Horace, his Cæsar and Livy, but probably with the vaguest ideas of their relations to one another, or their respective positions in the world's chronology. Or it may be that the whole of one term is devoted to one or two books of 'the Iliad' and 'the Odyssey,' 'the Æneid' or the 'Odes,' which are ground out line by line and word by word, all the interest and flavour of the complete work being inevitably and hopelessly dissipated in the process. Even 'the college prizeman, and the college tutor cannot read a chorus in the Trilogy but what his mind instinctively wanders on optatives, choriambi, and that happy conjecture of Smelfungus in the antistrophe.'[100] But certain books having to be got up for an examination by the cramming process, the receptacle for all this erudition only looks forward to the time when he may throw his Classics behind the fire for ever. No book with the least pretention to permanent value can be read purely by and for itself; inevitably it must draw on the reader—if he be in any sense worthy of the name—from point to point beyond its own immediate sphere, until he finds his interest expanding and his tastes forming under a natural and rapid process of evolution. Can any intelligent person read his Homer or his 'Æneid,' his Boswell, his 'Old Mortality,' or 'The Voyage of the Beagle' without asking himself who are these strange characters, and where are these strange lands that seem so familiar to us?
He who stands on a hill and surveys a wide landscape, easily recognizes the leading features of the country—the river and the homestead, the church and the corn-field—they need no guide, they tell their own tale. In like manner the great landmarks of the literature of the past are well defined and unmistakable to him who has eyes to see and a mind to comprehend. The traveller may choose his line, and as he goes his way he will not fail to find guides who will give him the directions which passing doubts and difficulties may render necessary. The world's great books stand out as the old stone walls of some great feudal fortress—prominent and indestructible. Their original uses have been superseded by the world's advance; but time and change add greatly to their interest. He, however, who finds himself entangled in the dense jungle of books that are not 'masterpieces,' and are so plentiful in modern literature, is in a sorry plight; his way lies through this jungle, be it long or short, and he cannot escape it altogether. He has heard of the quiet groves of the Academy, and of the heights of Parnassus, but he is rarely able to catch a glimpse of them. He is whirled along and loses his foothold in the eddying torrent of periodical literature; or he is entangled in the briars of controversy, and, torn and vexed, is apt to lose his way. Here then it is that he particularly needs a guide, and here it is that Sir John Lubbock bids good-bye to him, and leaves him to his own resources.
The student, thus perplexed, may be surprised to learn from Mr. Ruskin that 'any bank clerk could write a history as good as Grote's,' and that Gibbon only chronicled 'putrescence and corruption; 'he may be deeply interested in the information that Professor Bryce prefers Pindar to Hesiod, that the Lord Chief Justice knows nothing of Chinese or Sanskrit, and that Miss Braddon has spent 'great part of a busy life reading the "Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews."' But all this does not help him in his bewildering journey among the 10,000 books which are annually flooding the world of English speaking readers—a mass of which we fear that the quality advances in inverse ratio to the quantity.
Sir John Lubbock's list, as it stands, suggests a gathering of illustrious Generals and officers, without any men. They are very distinguished and admirable in appearance and qualifications, but would be doubly so if seen at the head of the army which they lead and represent. Had Sir John commenced by marshalling his hundred books in groups, either of subjects to be studied or of readers to be provided for, and then called upon the 'guides' to fill up the gaps, and supply the rank and file of his army, he would have earned the thanks of all book-lovers.
In the selection of books two considerations must alternately be paramount. One of these would have reference to the subjects to be studied, the other would have reference to the readers to be provided for. We are aware of the long controversies and technical difficulties involved in this question of Classification, which has stirred the hearts of Librarians from time immemorial, but for our present purpose the elaboration of an exhaustive scientific system is unnecessary; a statement of the rough headings and divisions, under which the books for general readers should be grouped, presents no insurmountable obstacles. Various minor considerations may subsequently assert themselves; as, for example, whether the books are required with the ultimate object of the formation of a library, and 'the cultivation of literature is an object which cannot be accomplished without the acquisition of a library of a greater or less extent,' or for the mere purpose of amusement. To draw up such a catalogue as we propose would exceed the capacity of any single individual; each section should be the work of one or more persons specially versed in the subject.
We are, of course, dealing rather with those who are aspiring to be book lovers than with those who, having already attained to that distinction, can trust to the guidance of their own inclinations. These aspirants must seek first an able and judicious guide for each department of study. One guide may be fully competent to make a list of works in history or biography, but may lack experience in philosophy or in art; while, on the other hand, the regimen prescribed for the country curate would hardly be appropriate for the mechanic or the soldier.
But, first, we must endeavour to define, by a rough process of elimination, the book lover, whether mature or in embryo. He is not the mere 'glutton of the lending library,' who bolts the contents of the monthly box without discrimination and without reflection, his main object being to while away an idle day or to gain a superficial reputation at the next dinner party at which he may be present; nor is he the collector of gaudy bindings; nor one who has never possessed nor desired to possess a library of his own, who has never read a book more than once, and has never committed to memory a single passage. He is not the man, in short, who fails to realize that 'the utility of reading depends not on the swallow but on the digestion.'
From the American Westerner who buys an Encyclopædia in parts, and finds in it all that he requires of instruction and amusement, to the princely founders of libraries—the Spencers and Parkers, the De Thous, the Sunderlands, and the Beckfords—is a wide interval, and includes all sorts and conditions of men, diverse from one another in everything but their love of books.
Sir John Lubbock, by his eminence in the world of science and the world of commerce, is admirably qualified to draw up a list of works on science and trade. But these he has unfortunately excluded from his consideration. Such lists would be invaluable to the thousands who from intellectual, or more purely mercenary motives, are now seeking for light. Had Sir John classified his list on some simple and discriminating plan, such as we have suggested, we might, as a result of the discussion, have obtained a summary of works on art by Mr. Ruskin, or a soldier's library by Lord Wolseley. Others, whose replies have been published, would have furnished special lists; and a still wider circle would, no doubt, have seen their way to rendering much help and service. We should, moreover, have been spared some rather irrelevant and wayward criticisms to which the discussion has given rise.
Two or three of the 'guides' have, with more or less success, adopted for themselves a definite system. Mr. William Morris has given us a list, the perusal of which may perchance arouse serious misgivings in the heart of the general reader, who cannot 'even with great difficulty read Old German,' and who has not yet been educated up to the point of regarding Virgil and Juvenal as 'sham classics.' The 'Admiral's' list is good, if somewhat too technical; and we would plead for the admission of Southey's 'Life of Nelson,' even, if need be, to the exclusion of the 'Annual Register' in 110 volumes. The Head Master of Harrow 'tried to think how he should answer a boy's question if he were to ask, at any point of his school life, what books it were best worth while to read before the end (let me say) of his thirtieth year;' and we venture to regard Mr. Welldon's list as the best of all in point of conciseness and practical value.
The last to enter the lists, though not under the auspices of the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' is Mr. Frederic Harrison, who comes armed with a volume entitled 'The Choice of Books,' though four-fifths of the contents have strayed far away into such remote pastures as 'The Opening of the Courts of Justice,' 'A Plea for the Tower of London,' and 'The Æsthete.' With the small residue of the book, which has remained faithful to the titlepage, we have little fault to find. Mr. Harrison, as might be expected, regards everything through the spectacles of Auguste Comte—'hinc omne principium, huc refer exitum.' Comte's 'Syllabus,' to which we have already referred, was the basis of at least one of his essays, and is the subject of his closing remarks.
For our present purpose, the first article, 'How to Read,' is undoubtedly the most valuable and practicable. It deals in a straightforward and vigorous manner with many of the snares and difficulties by which the reader is beset, and sweeps away much of the sentimental, sickly, criticism which is unfortunately prevalent at the present time. We think, however, that Mr. Harrison is inclined to raise the standard of taste too high for the mass of general readers.
'Putting aside the iced air of the difficult mountain tops of epic, tragedy, or psalm, there are some simple pieces which may serve as an unerring test of a healthy or vicious taste for imaginative work. If the "Cid," the "Vita Nuova," the "Canterbury Tales," Shakspeare's "Sonnets," and "Lycidas" pall on a man; if he care not for Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" and the "Red Cross Knight"; if he thinks "Crusoe" and the "Vicar" books for the young; if he thrill not with the "Ode to the West Wind" and the "Ode to a Grecian Urn"; if he have no stomach for "Christabelle," or the lines written on "The Wye above Tintern," he should fall on his knees and pray for a cleanlier and quieter spirit.'
Now we believe that there is many a humble aspirant to literary taste on whom the above paragraph will produce an effect similar to that of 'iced air and mountain tops' by taking his breath away. Literary palates are mercifully endowed with tastes and appreciations as varied as mere bodily palates, and we must protest against any such Procrustean method of ascertaining whether a man's 'spirit be cleanly and quiet,' or, which is terrible to contemplate, the reverse. On another page Mr. Harrison himself loudly deprecates and disclaims any narrow or sectarian view; he is nothing if not Catholic in his tastes. 'I protest that I am devoted to no school in particular; I condemn no school; I reject none. I am for the school of all the great men; and I am against the school of the smaller men.'
All taste must be founded on knowledge, and between the hard, dry teaching of the Board School or the Examination Room on the one hand, and the ætherial atmosphere of Desultory Reading and the purest literary discernment on the other, there lies an intermediate region, a 'penumbral zone,' which differs from the first in that it is entered voluntarily, and from the second in that it is attainable by all who care to enter it. The way through this region, though pleasant is laborious; system, accuracy, and discipline are essential to him who would traverse it. To be a desultory reader, in the sense defined by Lord Iddesleigh, a man must first have been a student; and not to every student is given the temperament, capacity, and opportunity, to become a desultory reader—still less can every student aspire to that refined literary taste, which Mr. Harrison possesses in so large a measure, and which, in its characteristics, he describes so well.
So far as modern literature is concerned, it may be said, that the Reviewers are, by their skill and experience, qualified to direct, and ever ready to aid the wayfarer; and in theory this is true. But, putting aside the few leading journals and periodicals, daily and weekly—of which we would only speak with the greatest respect—we fear that the reviewer's art is at a low ebb in these days. Often the side breezes of controversy, of private jealousy, or of personal interest, intervene to divert straightforward criticism; still more often does absolute incompetence render these guides worthless. A score of books may be seen, huddled together in an unbroken column of so-called criticism, with no other bond of union than their publication in course of the same week. The interested author, wading through this disconnected mass, suddenly stumbles on a few words extracted—possibly perverted—from his own preface, to which a line of commonplace commendation is affixed; and he then suddenly encounters a subject as far removed from his own as the 'Republic' of Plato is distant from 'Called Back.'
Among all these discordant voices, who shall help us to detect the true ring? Thrice happy are those privileged few who enjoy the loving care and supervision of some wise mentor to guide their choice and to watch their progress; but for the multitude, to whom such a privilege is denied, a good classified list, not excluding recent works, carefully sifted and added to by the most prominent men of the day, would be of inestimable value.
In the first place, a connected chain of histories, from the earliest times to the present day, with a selected list of contemporary memoirs and biographies, would throw a guiding gleam of light on thousands who are wandering, dark and aimless, in a labyrinth of 'masterpieces.' In this enquiry system is essential. Of desultory comments, charming and instructive in themselves and valuable in the formation of taste, we have abundant store. Who that has read Emerson's 'Essay on Books,' or Charles Lamb's 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading,' or Isaac Disraeli's 'Curiosities of Literature' and 'Literary Character,' or Byron's brilliant and impulsive criticisms on books and authors, can be without some kindling of enthusiasm and of desire to know more fully the great works thus passed in critical review? But the essential characteristics of such commentaries as these are snares to the student. The temptation to pass from one subject to another is inseparable from treatment of this kind, and so becomes a hindrance to more earnest application.
Dibdin's 'Library Companion' in some respects fulfils the requirements we have mentioned; but apart from the fact, that the information it contains is now in a great measure obsolete, too much space is devoted to the description and value of choice and rare editions. It is a book-buyer's rather than a reader's guide. Perkins's 'The Best Reading' is too bald a catalogue, and requires a vast amount of sifting, and the addition of a few words of running comment to render it serviceable. It lacks, in short, the characteristics of a catalogue raisonnée.
The Historical List which we have proposed should be prefaced by a chronological table, indicating the epochs into which the World's History divides itself, and the periods covered by each of the works recommended. This would give the student a bird's-eye view of the field which he is about to explore, and enable him, at any moment in his exploration, to take his reckonings and verify his position.
Careful distinction should be made between Chroniclers and Historians, between those who have provided the materials and those who have designed and reared the complete structure. Sometimes these chroniclers have furnished merely rough and unhewn stones, useful in themselves, but with no pretence to artistic finish or individuality of character; and these have been absorbed into the building. Other chronicles, again, are perfected in form, and are not merely integral, essential portions of the complicated structure, but become a source of endless pleasure from the merit of their workmanship. Thucydides and Clarendon are universally read, while Hecatæus has all but vanished; and Thomas May's 'History of the Long Parliament,' though pronounced by Lord Chatham to be a 'much honester and more instructive book of the same period than Lord Clarendon's,' is relegated to the shelves of the specialist or the bookworm.
Histories are scarcely less ephemeral than books of science; and the object of the list we are advocating is not to provide an exhaustive catalogue, a task which in these days would overtax the capacity of half-a-dozen Dr. Johnsons, but to select those works which will give the best continuous narrative of the period under discussion, and represent the most recent scholarship; omitting those which have been absorbed or superseded.
Mitford and Gillies have given place to Thirwall and Grote; and even the star of Hallam, outshining De Lolme, is beginning to wane before the searching light which, by the publication of State Papers and other archives, is being brought to bear on the History of England and of Modern Europe. But such materials, though ruthlessly relegating much of what we have hitherto regarded as the 'Pearls of History' to the category of 'Mock Pearls,' cannot immediately be made available for the ordinary student, or become absorbed into the popular histories of the day. We can ill spare from our list the names of those writers, who, from Livy to Lord Macaulay, have added a fascination to the study of history; though in their works most beautiful Mock Pearls abound. But the student should be warned against implicit reliance on their records.
To Clarendon has been ascribed the honor of being the first Englishman who wrote History, as we regard it; his predecessors having been in the main mere chroniclers or annalists. Clarendon elaborated the picture of which these annalists had merely supplied the materials; and the eighteenth century saw the development of this new method in the brilliant triad of contemporaries, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Our own age has witnessed a further advance in the school of philosophical historians, who, without aiming at any connected narrative of events, present to us the profound lessons which history teaches; pointing out the far-reaching causes which have influenced and are influencing events occurring in widely distant countries; causes and events which to the superficial observer seem totally disconnected. This philosophical category would form one of the most interesting, and in these days, when political empiricism shows a growing tendency to supplant statesmanlike research, not the least important portion of our historical list. If to this main stem of History there be added the due complement of branches and leaves—memoirs and biographies—the Plutarchs and Pepyses, the Walpoles and St. Simons, the Crokers and Grevilles of each generation—we shall have a tree of knowledge which would yield to none in point of interest and utility.
We have dwelt at some length on this part of the subject, first, because of its almost unlimited extent; and secondly, because, owing to this extent, there is such difficulty in making a genuine and trustworthy selection. There is, besides, an apparently constant antagonism in history between the qualities of strict accuracy and literary brilliancy. The two are not incompatible, but the striving after literary merit is as great a snare to the writer as its attainment by the writer is, in too many cases, to the student.
Of voyages and travels, 'I would also have good store, especially the earlier, when the world was fresh and unhackneyed, and men saw things invisible to the modern eye: They are fast-sailing ships to waft away from present troubles to the Fortunate Islands.'[101] Grouped under each quarter of the globe, we should have selections of the works of those travellers, who, from Herodotus to Mr. Stanley, and from Marco Polo or Captain Cook down to Miss Bird, have made us who stay at home familiar with the remotest corners of the earth. Much of the romance of travel has of necessity perished in these matter-of-fact days; but as the writing of history has developed from a mere chronicle of events into a scientific and philosophical method, so the art of travelling is now assuming a political form under pressure of the gigantic problems which are exercising the mind of the civilized world; and a section of political travels, of which Mr. Froude and Baron von Hübner have recently given us examples, should not be omitted.
Without pretending to enumerate all the departments which our catalogue should comprise—and most of them are too obvious to require enumeration—we would suggest a good selection of the best translations and editions of the Greek and Roman Classics. In mentioning translations we, of course, disclaim any recommendation of the common 'crib,' but refer to those scholarly works which have brought the classical masterpieces to the very doors of the general public; such, for example, as Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' or Prof. Jowett's 'Plato and Thucydides;' as Lord Derby's 'Iliad,' Gifford's 'Juvenal,' or Conington's 'Virgil:' nor is the crib more widely removed from such works as these, than, in the matter of editions, is Anthon's 'Virgil,' for example, from Munro's 'Lucretius.' In the opinion of Mr. Harrison, this 'is the age of accurate translation. The present generation has produced a complete library of versions of the great Classics, chiefly in prose, partly in verse, more faithful, true, and scholarly than anything ever produced before.' Mr. Harrison's own essay on the 'Poets of the Old World,' goes far to supply one at least of the branches of this section. Last, but by no means least, do we plead for a guide to 'Children's Books.' We run some risk in these days of competitive examinations and 'higher education,' of placing instruction too prominently in the front, to the exclusion of pure amusement; forgetting that it is through the imagination that the interest of a child is most readily aroused, and that, unless the interest be aroused, our educational labours will be worthless. A child can live in an atmosphere of genial fiction, and appreciate it, without the danger which lurks in a misrepresentation of what passes around him in his daily experience. It is exaggeration, not fiction, that is liable to injure the mind of a child.
On the vital question, 'how to read,' the student has received matter for careful and deliberate consideration, alike from Lord Iddesleigh and Mr. Goschen, from Mr. Harrison and Mr. Lowell. The burden of their advice is the same, though the forms differ; they all unite in deprecating and deploring the hurry, the want of application, the want of restraint which prevail in the present day. The hurrying reader, on the one hand, and the indolent reader, on the other, are the types to be avoided with the most scrupulous care. We suffer from an excess of opportunities, and require to be constantly reminded that 'it is impossible to give any method to our reading till we get nerve enough to reject.'
If we look through the long list of English literary celebrities, we cannot but be struck with the large proportion of those who have received little or no regular education in their early days, and whose opportunities of study have been of the scantiest. Ben Jonson working as a bricklayer with his book in his pocket: Wm. Cobbett reading his hard-earned 'Tale of a Tub' under the haystack, or mastering his grammar when he was a private soldier on the pay of 6d. a day; when 'the edge of my berth or that of my guard-bed was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my bookcase; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life:' Gifford, as a cobbler's apprentice, working out his problems on scraps of waste leather; or Bunyan, confined for twelve years in Bedford jail with only his Bible and 'Foxe's Book of Martyrs,' are but a few among scores of instances which will immediately suggest themselves.
There are many persons who are possessed with a strange and unaccountable conviction, that to read a book and to write a book are processes which require little, if any, previous training or preparation. The one error is sufficiently obvious to all who pay any attention to the great mass of cheap literature which is pouring from our printing-presses; the other is less easy of detection. 'The first lesson in reading is that which teaches us to distinguish between literature and merely printed matter,' is the admirable maxim laid down by Mr. Lowell, and this is one of the essential points in which the personal influence of an experienced friend is of inestimable value. As the latent beauties of some great masterpiece of art unfold themselves to our eye under the guidance of a Kugler or a Ruskin, and we are thus enabled to detect their presence or their absence in the works of other hands and other schools, so in the masterpieces of literature the realization of the points, wherein the chief merits of each lie, places us in a position to form a standard—to possess a talisman, which shall enable us unerringly to detect the true from the false. Mrs. Knowles said of Dr. Johnson, 'He knows how to read better than any one; he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears the heart out of it.' This faculty, which was exhibited in a marvellous degree also in Southey and Macaulay, is as rare as it is enviable; but there are not a few who erroneously suppose themselves to be possessed of it. The hurried, careless, method of reading is one of the chief dangers a student should guard against. In studying a work of biography, for example—but above all in studying the classics—the first requisite, and one which is, as we have said, sadly overlooked in public school teaching, is the acquisition of a simple, general outline of the period to which the work relates. In the fashionable phrase of the day, the books so read are frequently not in correspondence with their environment. To him whose views of Roman history are but a shapeless mist, if not an absolute void, Virgil and Horace are sealed books; nor can any one who is ignorant of Scotland and her traditions penetrate beyond the husk of 'Waverley' or 'Old Mortality.' To the young beginner a few judicious words of explanation at the commencement of a book may serve to awaken that interest without which reading is useless, and to make darkness light; and, similarly, a few words of discussion, when the book is completed, will have the effect of consolidating the floating ideas to which the perusal has given rise. The habit of casting aside a book as soon as the last page is read, without pondering over its contents and recalling the argument and refreshing the memory where it has failed, or allowing the 'frenzied current of the eye to be stopped for many moments of calm reflection or thought,' is apt to render worthless all the previous effort. Lord Erskine, we are told, was in the habit of making long extracts from Burke, and Lord Eldon is said to have copied out 'Coke upon Littleton' twice with his own hand. 'Writing an analysis,' says Archibishop Whately,[102] 'or table of contents, or index, or notes, is very important for the study, properly so called, of any subject. And so also is the practice of previously conversing or writing on the subject you are about to study.' Reading can produce a beneficial result only in proportion to the extent and accuracy of information previously stored in the mind of the reader. Such information is like the roots of some flourishing oak; every fresh fact is, as it were, a new fibre confirming and strengthening the growth of the tree, and attracting nourishment from new soil.
'The moment you have a definite aim, attention is quickened, the mother of memory; and all that you acquire groups and arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and growing interest.'[103] Bearing this in mind, we would urge the student to investigate every unfamiliar allusion which may occur in the course of his reading or conversation. A fact or subject thus sought out fixes itself more firmly in the memory than most of those which are merely passed in the ordinary course of reading.
The use of odd moments should not be overlooked. 'Blockheads,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'can never find out how folks cleverer than themselves came by their information. They never know what is done at dressing-time, meal-time even, or in how few minutes they can get at the sense of many pages.' It is not possible always to have a book at hand, but any one who will take the trouble to copy out, from time to time, passages which have attracted his attention, and carry them about with him to learn by heart at odd moments, may perhaps be astonished to find how much may be acquired in this manner.
There are some books which by their nature lend themselves to a snatchy method of perusal, and a few minutes may often be well employed in reading an ode of Horace, or the disjointed conversations of Dr. Johnson, but such moments should as a rule be devoted to books which are already more or less familiar. The habit of frivolously taking up, and as frivolously casting aside, a book is, however, one which should be guarded against with the utmost care. It was a strict rule in the family of Goethe the elder, that any book once commenced should be read through to the end. Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, considered a rule of this kind 'strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep them for life.'
A snare, which did not exist in the time of Goethe or of Dr. Johnson, presents itself in these days to the reader, in the ever-increasing mass of periodical literature. But the busy man, who has not time to turn aside from his own work to the thorough investigation of the topic of the hour, may sometimes, in the pages of a magazine, find the case stated tersely by distinguished advocates on both sides; and he may thus at least discern the main positions of assailant and assailed. An exhaustive and genuine review of a book is occasionally afforded by periodical literature, more rarely perhaps than is generally believed; but such essays to have any value, should be read only after the work to which they relate, a condition that is, we fear, seldom fulfilled.
The 'desultory reader' has now been defined and elevated. We can hardly be mistaken in considering that by reason of Lord Iddesleigh's admirable remarks the expression has acquired a new signification; at least a large number of those who may have fondly imagined themselves to be desultory readers have now been effectually eliminated from the category.
We live in days of 'specialism,' and the book-making specialist of our generation probably yields to none of his predecessors in the literary roll in respect of industry, skill, and accuracy; but his subject, as a rule, is his business, his breadwinner. The desultory reader regards literature as his pastime and recreation. Happy is he who has the time, the opportunity, and the education, to become a desultory reader, in Lord Iddlesleigh's sense of the word.
But admitting that Desultory Dilettanteism may under certain favourable conditions be both profitable and a fascinating attainment, and claiming as we do a very high value for good guidance in the choice of books, we must not lose sight of the fact, that the basis on which the main practical question of the selection and proper use of books rests, is not what is good in general, or in special literature, but what is fitted for each individual man. And to discover this the man himself, or his immediate ancestor, the youth or boy, must be examined. The foundation of success in any sphere of life is physical and mental, nervous and moral aptitude; and those who have to direct, or to decide for, or to advise the young respecting their career in life, should make the personal condition of their protégés their careful study. From the ascertained condition the capacity of each may be discerned, and his future capabilities may be, to some extent, foreseen. These capabilities are the indicators of the course of reading first required; by them the youth's career should chiefly be selected and decided on. Unfortunately in most cases careful forethought is neglected. Qualities that actually make the man are, in a decision that affects his hopes and happiness for life, too often overlooked; and some mere transient incident, esteemed perhaps a stroke of fortune, is accepted, without any hesitating thought about the suitability of its results, as a sufficient introduction to the business of the world. The consequence of this neglect is obvious enough. In every social and commercial sphere we find men drudging on in hopeless slavery, or ruined by the natural revolt of sensibilities that could not be controlled, against the influence of circumstances wholly inappropriate, and for which these sensibilities, most useful in their proper sphere, were not of course designed.
A young man's very desultory reading will perhaps be one of the most useful means for finding what his life's career should be. Knowing himself, or being known, as has been said, by those directing him, and by his own discursive reading having learnt what work for his peculiar abilities is open for him in the world, he probably will judge quite readily what line of study he should at first pursue, and following out this clue, at first by the aid of judicious external guidance, he will, with ever-increasing self-reliance and discrimination, proceed to fulfil the requirements of education and the inclination of his own mental disposition. This method of development is the natural order by which intellectual growth, by means of books, or any other means, proceeds. To make a choice of certain hundred books for any man's perusal, in his youth or afterwards, is but a feat of cleverness, arousing curiosity or wonder, but evolving nothing—ending in the choice. A man may be possessed of any number of good books; and possibly a thousand books might be selected, all of which would be by general consent called excellent, and worth possessing; and perhaps he would be none the better for them all. Young men do not require a hundred books at once. Indeed the fewer well-selected books a youth has to begin with, the more safe he is against excessive loss of time. His most important question is not, what shall I read? but, what need I read? The student's care should be to read as little, and to think as much as possible. Thus, he will find what thing it is that he at any time immediately requires to know, and he will make this pressing need the object of his next acquirement in books. This method tends to education; it develops mental power, and makes a cultivated man. A hundred books procured and read without appropriate sympathy, and interest, and thought, will merely make an animated bookcase of the man.
Not only should the student's books be few, but as he reads he should be constantly upon his guard. Most readers read to be informed or to be entertained; and books of information are absorbed as if all printed statements must of course be true, or even if not true must, as a record, be worth knowing. This omnivorous, careless style of reading is a grievous waste of life and energy. Were books read with critical, enquiring thought, the time misspent in reading would be wholesomely reduced, and readers would increase in mental power in due proportion to their increased information.
In books of entertainment, and especially of fiction, corresponding carefulness is necessary. There are books among the best which are, in various degrees and ways, of evil influence, and should be read with caution and reserve. To yield one's self to the enjoyment of an entertaining book may be as foolish as to give one's self into the hands of an untried agreeable companion. Ability to please is to these incautious subjects of it a most dangerous influence; and books as well as men when most attractive should be treated warily. In Rabelais and Swift, in Fielding and Smollett, coarse manners must be reprobated. In George Eliot's novels, with exceptions, and in 'Jane Eyre,' there is a subtle taint that is unwholesome to the unguarded reader. Thackeray too frequently compels us to associate with evil company; and, while admiring the writer's skill, the reader should keep well outside of almost every group in Thackeray's novels.
Distinct alike from the progressive student and the discriminating reader, is an abundant class who, without individuality, and mere omnivorous devotees of books, chiefly reading the lighter literature of the day. These people, through excess and self-indulgence, become feeble-minded, intellectually dissipated, and incapable of serious study. In every rank of life the book-devouring vice abounds; but chiefly among women, girls, and boys; men finding in the newspapers their daily pabulum. This thoughtless, fragmentary, reading has debilitated the contemporary mental fibre of the nation; and has so absorbed the time, we cannot say the attention, of the immense majority of the reading public, that many of them are ignorant even of the existence of the standard works of literature. The late discussion, therefore, about books has been of use; it has made known to the great community of people, who now can read, the fact, that there are certain books, a hundred more or less, far more worth reading than the popular and periodical literature of the day. If this discovery could be impressed upon the public mind with practical effect, the result would be a beneficial change in their condition. The abundant tattle and affected interest about names and things of mean and transient notoriety, and the discursive dinner-table gossip of the world would then perhaps subside; and English conversation would become a constant and a beneficial intellectual enjoyment.