"She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."
I. We will not begin by considering the wisdom or the mistake of the general opinion here laid down. We will begin by trying to make out what is the real meaning of the leading words employed. Look carefully along the sentence, and see if you are quite sure of what is meant by such terms as "The Roman Catholic Church," "the Pantheon," "the Flavian amphitheatre," "the Supreme Pontiffs," "the Pope who crowned Napoleon," "the Pope who crowned Pepin," "the Republic of Venice," "the missionaries who landed in Kent," "Augustine," "the Saxon had set foot in Britain," "the Frank had passed the Rhine," "Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch," "idols in Mecca," "New Zealand," "London Bridge," "St. Paul's."
For really working up a subject--and this sentence now is to be our subject--I advise a blank book, and, for my part, I like to write down the key words or questions, in a vertical line, quite far apart from each other, on the first pages. You will see why, if you will read on.
II. Now go to work on this list. What do you really know about the organization of the Roman Catholic Church? If you find you are vague about it, that such knowledge as you have is only half knowledge, which is no knowledge, read till you are clear. Much information is not necessary, but good, as far as it goes, is necessary on any subject. This is a controverted subject. You ought to try, therefore, to read some statement by a Catholic author, and some statement by a Protestant. To find out what to read on this or any subject, there are different clews.
1. Any encyclopædia, good or bad, will set you on the trail. Most of you have or can have an encyclopædia at command. There are one-volume encyclopædias better than nothing, which are very cheap. You can pick up an edition of the old Encyclopædia Americana, in twelve volumes, for ten or twelve dollars. Or you can buy Appleton's, which is really quite good, for sixty dollars a set. I do not mean to have you rest on any encyclopædia, but you will find one at the start an excellent guide-post. Suppose you have the old Encyclopædia Americana. You will find there that the "Roman Catholic Church" is treated by two writers,--one a Protestant, and one a Catholic. Read both, and note in your book such allusions as interest you, which you want more light upon. Do not note everything which you do not know, for then you cannot get forward. But note all that specially interests you. For instance, it seems that the Roman Catholic Church is not so called by that church itself. The officers of that church might call it the Roman church, or the Catholic church, but would not call it the Roman Catholic church. At the Congress of Vienna, Cardinal Consalvi objected to the joint use of the words Roman Catholic church. Do you know what the Congress of Vienna was? No? then make a memorandum, if you want to know. We might put in another for Cardinal Consalvi. He was a man, who had a father and mother, perhaps brothers and sisters. He will give us a little human interest, if we stop to look him up. But do not stop for him now. Work through "Roman Catholic Church," and keep these memoranda in your book for another day.
2. Quite different from the encyclopædia is another book of reference, "Poole's Index." This is a general index to seventy-three magazines and reviews, which were published between the years 1802 and 1852. Now a great deal of the best work of this century has been put into such journals. A reference, then, to "Poole's Index" is a reference to some of the best separate papers on the subjects which for fifty years had most interest for the world of reading men and women. Let us try "Poole's Index" on "The Republic of Venice." There are references to articles on Venice in the New England Magazine, in the Pamphleteer, in the Monthly Review, Edinburgh, Quarterly, Westminster, and De Bow's Reviews. Copy all these references carefully, if you have any chance at any time of access to any of these journals. It is not, you know, at all necessary to have them in the house. Probably there is some friend's collection or public library where you can find one or more of them. If you live in or near Boston, or New York, or Philadelphia, or Charleston, or New Orleans, or Cincinnati, or Chicago, or St. Louis, or Ithaca, you can find every one.
When you have carefully gone down this original list, and made your memoranda for it, you are prepared to work out these memoranda. You begin now to see how many there are. You must be guided, of course, in your reading, by the time you have, and by the opportunity for getting the books. But, aside from that, you may choose what you like best, for a beginning. To make this simple by an illustration, I will suppose you have been using the old Encyclopædia Americana, or Appleton's Cyclopædia and Poole's Index only, for your first list. As I should draw it up, it would look like this:--
CYCLOPÆDIA. POOLE'S INDEX.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
See (for instance) Eclectic Rev., 4th S. 13, 485.
Council of Trent. Quart. Rev., 71, 108.
Chrysostom. For. Quart. Rev., 27, 184.
Congress of Vienna. Brownson's Rev., 2d S. 1, 413; 3, 309.
Cardinal Consalvi. N. Brit. Rev., 10, 21.
THE PANTHEON.
Built by Agrippa. Consecrated,
607, to St. Mary ad Martyros.
Called Rotunda.
THE FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATRE.
The Coliseum, b. by T. Flavius
Vespasian.
SUPREME PONTIFFS.
Popes. The line begins with New-Englander, 7, 169.
St. Peter, A. D. 42. Ends N. Brit. Rev., 11, 135.
with Pius IX., 1846.
POPE WHO CROWNED NAPOLEON.
Pius VII., at Notre Dame, in For. Quart. Rev., 20, 54.
Paris, Dec. 2, 1804.
POPE WHO CROWNED PEPIN.
Probably Pepin le Bref is meant.
But he was not crowned by
a Pope. Crowned by Archbishop
Boniface of Mayence,
at the advice of Pope Zachary.
b. @ 715. d. 768.
REPUBLIC OF VENICE.
452 to 1815. St. Real's History. Quart. Rev. 31, 420.
Otway's Tragedy, Venice Preserved. Month. Rev., 90, 525.
Hazlitt's Hist, of Venice. West. Rev., 23, 38.
Ruskin's Stones of Venice.
MISSIONARIES IN KENT.
Dublin Univ. Mag., 21, 212.
AUGUSTINE.
There are two Augustines. This
is St. Austin, b. in 5th century,
d. 604-614.
Southey's Book of Church.
Sharon Turner's Anglo-Saxons.
Wm. of Malmesbury.
Bede's Ecc. History.
SAXON IN BRITAIN.
Turner as above. Edin. Rev., 89, 79.
Ang.-Saxon Chronicle. Quart. Rev., 7, 92.
Six old Eng. Chronicles. Eclect. Rev., 25, 669.
FRANK PASSED THE RHINE.
Well established on west side, For. Quart. Rev., 17, 139.
at the beginning of 5th century.
GREEK ELOQUENCE AT ANTIOCH.
Muller's Antiquitates Antiochianæ Greek Orators. Ed. Rev., 36, 62.
IDOLS IN MECCA.
Burckhardt's Travels.
Burton's Travels.
NEW ZEALAND.
3 islands, as large as Italy. N. Am. Rev., 18, 328.
Discovered, 1642; taken by Cook
for England, 1769.
Gov. sent out, 1838. West. Rev., 45, 133.
Thomson's story of N. Z. Edin. Rev., 91, 231; 56, 333.
Cook's Voyages. N. Brit. Rev., 16, 176.
Sir G. Gray's Poems, &c. of Living Age.
Maoris.
LONDON BRIDGE.
5 elliptical arches. "Presents
an aspect unequalled for interest
and animation."
ST. PAUL'S.
Built in thirty years between
1675 and 1705, by Christ.
Wren.
Now I am by no means going to leave you to the reading of cyclopædias. The vice of cyclopædias is that they are dull. What is done for this passage of Macaulay in the lists above is only preliminary. It could be easily done in three hours' time, if you went carefully to work. And when you have done it, you have taught yourself a good deal about your own knowledge and your own ignorance,--about what you should read and what you should not attempt. So far it fits you for selecting your own course of reading.
I have arranged this only by way of illustration. I do not mean that I think these a particularly interesting or particularly important series of subjects. I do mean, however, to show you that the moment you will sift any book or any series of subjects, you will be finding out where your ignorance is, and what you want to know.