T. Churchyard. Worthiness of Wales.
FOR WISDOM, PIETY, DELIGHT, OR USE
In vain that husbandman his seed doth sow,
If he his crop not in due season mow.
A general sets his army in array
In vain, unless he fight, and win the day.
'Tis virtuous action that must praise bring forth,
Without which slow advice is little worth.
Yet they who give good counsel, praise deserve,
Though in the active part they cannot serve:
In action, learnéd counsellors their age,
Profession, or disease, forbids to engage.
Nor to philosophers is praise denied,
Whose wise instructions after-ages guide;
Yet vainly most their age in study spend;
No end of writing books, and to no end:
Beating their brains for strange and hidden things,
Whose knowledge nor delight nor profit brings:
Themselves with doubt both day and night perplex,
No gentle reader please, or teach, but vex.
Books should to one of these four ends conduce
For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.
What need we gaze upon the spangled sky
Or into matter's hidden causes pry?...
If we were wise these things we should not mind
But more delight in easy matters find....
Learn to live well that thou mayst die so too,
To live and die is all we have to do.
Sir J. Denham. Translation of Mancini.
OF THE ENTERTAINMENT OF BOOKS
The diversions of reading, though they are not always of the strongest kind, yet they generally leave a better effect than the grosser satisfactions of sense: for, if they are well chosen, they neither dull the appetite nor strain the capacity. On the contrary, they refresh the inclinations, and strengthen the power, and improve under experiment: and, which is best of all, they entertain and perfect at the same time; and convey wisdom and knowledge through pleasure. By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence; because here a man knows something of the state and is the wiser for it; which he is not in the other.
In conversing with books we may choose our company, and disengage without ceremony or exception. Here we are free from the formalities of custom and respect: we need not undergo the penance of a dull story from a fop of figure; but may shake off the haughty, the impertinent, and the vain, at pleasure. Besides, authors, like women, commonly dress when they make a visit. Respect to themselves makes them polish their thoughts, and exert the force of their understanding more than they would or can do in ordinary conversation: so that the reader has as it were the spirit and essence in a narrow compass; which was drawn off from a much larger proportion of time, labour, and expense. Like an heir, he is born rather than made rich; and comes into a stock of sense, with little or no trouble of his own. 'Tis true, a fortune in knowledge which descends in this manner, as well as an inherited estate, is too often neglected and squandered away; because we do not consider the difficulty in raising it.
Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from being a burthen to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things; compose our cares and our passions; and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. However, to be constantly in the wheel has neither pleasure nor improvement in it. A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges Nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigour to the mind. Neither ought we to be too implicit or resigning to authorities, but to examine before we assent, and preserve our reason in its just liberties. To walk always upon crutches is the way to lose the use of our limbs. Such an absolute submission keeps us in a perpetual minority, breaks the spirits of the understanding, and lays us open to imposture.
But books well managed afford direction and discovery. They strengthen the organ and enlarge the prospect, and give a more universal insight into things than can be learned from unlettered observation. He who depends only upon his own experience has but a few materials to work upon. He is confined to narrow limits both of place and time: and is not fit to draw a large model and to pronounce upon business which is complicated and unusual. There seems to be much the same difference between a man of mere practice and another of learning as there is between an empiric and a physician. The first may have a good recipe, or two; and if diseases and patients were very scarce, and all alike, he might do tolerably well. But if you inquire concerning the causes of distempers, the constitution of human bodies, the danger of symptoms, and the methods of cure, upon which the success of medicine depends, he knows little of the matter. On the other side, to take measures wholly from books, without looking into men and business, is like travelling in a map, where, though countries and cities are well enough distinguished, yet villages and private seats are either overlooked, or too generally marked for a stranger to find. And therefore he that would be a master must draw by the life, as well as copy from originals, and join theory and experience together.—J. COLLIER. Essays upon several Moral Subjects.