PETER PINDAR.
Le Sage, the merry author of Gil Blas, delights to expatiate in praise of a Spanish soup, denominated, in that language, an Olla Podrida, a dish formed by a motley mixture of many ingredients, of which some one can tickle the most fastidious palate.
Essays should resemble this Olio, if their author wish for readers. When a student sits down to a system, he expects the formality and method of the schools, but how frequent would be the yawn, if periodical writings resembled Locke’s Essay on Understanding? Of works intended for amusement, the essence is sprightliness and variety. Without these requisites a reader would rise from the literary repast, and, in Shakespeare’s phrase, pronounce it but lenten entertainment.
When cookery was young, viands the most simple were sought; and, in an ancient bill of fare, acorns and spring water were the first articles. Time has created alteration; and the refinement of modern luxury requires made dishes. Plain food daily grows into disrepute, and, for the substantial sirloin we substitute ragouts and fricacees, replete with spicery. To gratify modern taste, every thing must be high seasoned. This irregular appetite affects the library, as well as the table, and extends to the books, which we read, as well as to the dishes, which we taste. Motley miscellany, in all its Proteus forms, aptly christened by the British booksellers “light, summer reading,” is the favourite amusement of all gentle students. On this occasion, one might declaim against modern degeneracy; might compare the tinsel of Kelly with the gold of Addison; might sigh for solid books and dishes, and invoke Hooker and Bacon to write, and a turnspit of Queen Elizabeth to cook for us. But this species of railing is grown so trite that “’tis a custom more honoured in the breach, than in the observance.” It is better, with a willing adroitness, to comply, with what we cannot change, and to form the “stuff” of our argument, as a tailor cuts a coat, by the rule of fashion.
A literary adventurer, confident of amusing himself, though almost hopeless of amusing others, prepares to scribble in conformity to the preceding sentiment. Though still juvenile, he has, for a period of some duration, been in the habit of marking the hues of “many-colored life.” The morning he gives to books, and the evening to men; and, from every page that he twirls, and from every character which he sees, he endeavours, like his renowned predecessor, the Spectator, to extract amusement or instruction. He is not, however, like him, only an observer in society, but cheerfully converses even with “wayfaring men, though fools,” that he may learn some particulars of life’s journey. With all the restlessness of busy indolence, and with all the volatility of a humming bird, he roams from object to object, as caprice inspires. This is the province of a lounger; he is one of “the privileged orders” in society, and to wander is his vocation.
Thus inquisitive from habit, and thus restless from temper, he fancies, perhaps presumptuously, that he may now become the herald of what he has seen and heard. In giving his lucubrations to the world, he confesses that his nerves thrill with the tremors of timidity. Though he thinks, with Dr. Young, that “fondness of fame, is avarice of air,” yet, in spite of sober belief, juvenile ambition
“Will sink with spleen, or swell with pride,
As the gay palm is granted, or denied.”
As he is a volunteer in the literary corps, he hopes that severe discipline will not be exercised. He implores of the critics a dispensation from an observance of the more rigid rules of method, as he never was educated in that “drowsy school.” A lover of the desultory style, his effusions shall keep pace with Sterne’s—in digression and eccentricity, though halting far behind him in wit. Such a writer, the logicians must permit to wander at large,
“Nor to a narrow path confin’d,