Robert Wilmot says, I say, using the present tense in setting his words before the reader, because of an author it may truly be said that “being dead he yet speaketh.” Obscure as this old author now is, for his name and his existing works are known only to those who love to pore among the tombs and the ruins of literature, yet by those who will always be enough “to make a few,” his name will continue to be known, long after many of those bubbles which now glitter as they float upon the stream of popularity are “gone for ever;” and his remains are safe for the next half millennium, if the globe should last so long without some cataclasm which shall involve its creatures and its works in one common destruction.
Wilmot is right in saying that whatever is written for the public, is as regards the individual responsibility of the writer, written for eternity, however brief may be its earthly duration;—an aweful consideration for the authors of wicked books, and for those who by becoming instrumental in circulating such books, involve themselves in the author's guilt as accessaries after the fact, and thereby bring themselves deservedly under the same condemnation.
Looking at the first question in this point of view, it may be answered without hesitation, the Doctor was so pure in heart, and consequently so innocent in mind that there was no moral reason why he ought not to have been an author. He would have written nothing but what,—religiously speaking might have been accounted among his good works,—so far as, so speaking, any works may deserve to be called good.
But the question has two handles, and we must now take it by the other.
An author more obscure in the literature of his own country than Wilmot, (unless indeed some Spanish or Italian Haslewood may have disinterred his name) has expressed an opinion, directly the reverse of Wilmot's concerning authorship. Ye who understand that noble language which the Emperor Charles V. ranked above all other living tongues may have the satisfaction of here reading it in the original.
“Muchos son los que del loable y fructuoso trabajo de escrevir, rehuir suelen; unos por no saber, a los quales su ignorancia en alguna manera escusa; otros por negligencia, que teniendo habilidad y disposicion par ello no lo hazen; y a estos es menester que Dios los perdone en lo passado, y emiende en lo por venir; otros dexan de hazello por temor de los detractores y que mal acostumbran dezir; los quales a mi parecer de toda reprehension son dignos, pues siendo el acto en si virtuoso, dexan de usarlo por temor. Mayormente que todos, o los mas que este exercicio usan, o con buen ingenio escriven, o con buen desseo querrian escrevir. Si con buen ingenio hazen buena obra, cierto es que dese ser alabada. Y së el defecto de mas no alcanzar algo, la haze diminuta de lo que mejor pudiera ser, deve se loar lo que el tal quisiera hazer, si mas supiera, o la invencion y fantasia de la obra, por que fue, o porque desseo ser bueno. De manere que es mucho mejor escrevir como quiera que se pueda hazer, que no por algun temor dexar de hazerlo.”2
2 QUESTION DE AMOR. PROLOGO.
“Many,” says this author, “are they who are wont to eschew the meritorious and fruitful labour of writing, some for want of knowledge, whom their ignorance in some manner excuses; others for negligence, who having ability and fitness for this, nevertheless do it not, and need there is for them, that God should forgive them for the past, and amend them for the time to come, others forbear writing, for fear of detractors and of those who accustom themselves to speak ill, and these in my opinion are worthy of all reprehension, because the act being in itself so virtuous, they are withheld by fear from performing it. Moreover it is to be considered that all, or most of those who practise this art, either write with a good genius, or a good desire of writing well. If having a good genius they produce a good work, certes that work deserves to be commended. And if for want of genius it falls short of this, and of what it might better have been, still he ought to be praised, who would have made his work praiseworthy if he had been able, and the invention and fancy of the work, either because it is or because he wished it to be so. So that it is much better for a man to write whatever his ability may be, than to be withheld from the attempt by fear.”
A very different opinion was expressed by one of the most learned of men, Ego multos studiosos quotidie video, paucos doctos; in doctis paucos ingeniosos; in semidoctis nullos bonos; atque adeo literæ generis humani unicum solamen, jam pestis et perniciei maximæ loco sunt.3
3 SCALIGER.