In error obstinate, in wrangling loud,
For trifles eager, positive, and proud,
Forth steps at last the self-applauding wight,
Of points and letters, chaff and straws, to write:
Sagely resolved to swell each bulky piece
With venerable toys from Rome and Greece;
How oft, in Homer, Paris curled his hair;
If Aristotle's cap were round or square;
If in the cave, where Dido first was sped,
To Tyre she turned her heels, to Troy her head.
Hence Plato quoted or the Stagyrite,
To prove that flame ascends and snow is white:
Hence much hard study, without sense or breeding,
And all the grave impertinence of reading.
If Shakespeare says, the noon-day sun is bright,
His scholiast will remark, it then was light;
Turn Caxton, Wynkyn, each old Goth and Hun,
To rectify the reading of a pun.
Thus, nicely trifling, accurately dull,
How one may toil, and toil—to be a fool!—D. Mallet.
READING TO KILL TIME
As to the devotees of the circulating libraries, I dare not compliment their pass-time, or rather kill-time, with the name of reading. Call it rather a sort of beggarly daydreaming, during which the mind of the dreamer furnishes for itself nothing but laziness and a little mawkish sensibility; while the whole material and imagery of the doze is supplied ab extra by a sort of mental camera obscura manufactured at the printing office, which pro tempore fixes, reflects and transmits the moving phantasms of one man's delirium, so as to people the barrenness of an hundred other brains afflicted with the same trance or suspension of all common sense and all definite purpose. We should therefore transfer this species of amusement (if indeed those can be said to retire a musis, who were never in their company, or relaxation be attributable to those whose bows are never bent) from the genus reading to the comprehensive class characterized by the power of reconciling the two contrary yet co-existing propensities of human nature, namely, indulgence of sloth and hatred of vacancy. In addition to novels and tales of chivalry in prose or rhyme (by which last I mean neither rhythm nor metre) this genus comprises as its species gaming, swinging, or swaying on a chair or gate; spitting over a bridge; smoking; snuff-taking; tête à tête quarrels after dinner between husband and wife; conning word by word all the advertisements of the daily advertizers in a public-house on a rainy day, &c., &c., &c.—S. T. Coleridge. Biographia Literaria.
TALKING FROM BOOKS
Dr. Johnson this day, when we were by ourselves [on the journey to the Hebrides] observed, how common it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality of thinking. He was pleased to say, 'You and I do not talk from books.'—J. Boswell. Life of Johnson.
There are no race of people who talk about books, or perhaps, who read books, so little as literary men.—W. M. Thackeray.
A SHORT CUT TO FAME
There is a sort of vanity some men have, of talking of and reading obscure and half-forgotten authors, because it passes as a matter of course, that he who quotes authors which are so little read, must be completely and thoroughly acquainted with those authors which are in every man's mouth. For instance, it is very common to quote Shakespeare; but it makes a sort of stare to quote Massinger. I have very little credit for being well acquainted with Virgil; but if I quote Silius Italicus, I may stand some chance of being reckoned a great scholar. In short, whoever wishes to strike out of the great road, and to make a short cut to fame, let him neglect Homer, and Virgil, and Horace, and Ariosto and Milton, and, instead of these, read and talk of Frascatorius, Sannazarius, Lorenzini, Pastorini, and the thirty-six primary sonneteers of Bettinelli;—let him neglect everything which the suffrage of ages has made venerable and grand, and dig out of their graves a set of decayed scribblers, whom the silent verdict of the public has fairly condemned to everlasting oblivion. If he complain of the injustice with which they have been treated, and call for a new trial with loud and importunate clamour, though I am afraid he will not make much progress in the estimation of men of sense, he will be sure to make some noise in the crowd, and to be dubbed a man of very curious and extraordinary erudition.—S. Smith. Moral Philosophy, Lecture IX. On the Conduct of the Understanding.
TITLE-READERS
Some read to think,—these are rare; some to write,—these are common; and some read to talk,—and these form the great majority. The first page of an author not unfrequently suffices for all the purposes of this latter class: of whom it has been said, that they treat books as some do lords; they inform themselves of their titles, and then boast of an intimate acquaintance.—C. C. Colton. Lacon.