Who is it, we would ask in the first place, for whom this list is primarily intended? Not the man whose love of books is firmly established, for he will have chosen for himself his own walk among the innumerable highways and byepaths of literature; nor he whose tastes are just forming, for the field is too wide, and he would hardly prefer the Analects of Confucius, the Shahnameh, and the Sheking, to 'Marco's Polo's Travels,' Lockhart's 'Life of Scott,' and 'Æsop's Fables.' No list, however, that could be drawn up would escape criticism, and our desire is not so much to suggest in what manner the present list might be amended, as to indicate how, in our opinion, it might have been made to serve some practical purpose.
'Books have brought some men to knowledge and some to madness. As fulness sometimes hurteth the stomach more than hunger, so fareth it with arts; and as of meats, so likewise of books, the use ought to be limited according to the quality of him that useth them.' Thus wrote Petrarch, and the comparison between the bodily and mental digestion, if trite, is very far from being a mere superficial analogy.
Those who are blessed with a judicial friend, quite competent to make a diagnosis of their literary capacity and prescribe a diet, are indeed fortunate—'sua si bona norint.' Such prescriptions have been long since made, and handed down to us. That written out by Doctor Johnson, for his friend the Rev. Mr. Astle of Ashbourne, is brief enough, and savours of the drastic remedies fashionable in the last century.[99] If on glancing over the Doctor's list our readers are inclined to assume that the Rev. Mr. Astle was possessed of a very healthy digestion, we would remind them that solid joints and heavy folios were more in vogue at that time than in these days of French cookery and periodical literature.
In later times Comte also, among others, has furnished a catalogue, or syllabus of books for general reading; but even his faithful follower Mr. Harrison admits, half apologetically, that it 'has no special relation to current views of education, to English literature, much less to the literature of the day. It was drawn up thirty years ago by a French philosopher, who passed his life in Paris, and who had read no new book for twenty years.'
'What shall I read?' There are few questions more frequently asked than this; few, perhaps, to which a thoughtless answer is more frequently given. Coming from one of that large class to which Lord Iddesleigh has given the name of 'indolent readers,' it might be assumed to be lightly asked, and might be as lightly answered by the recommendation of some three-volume novel, or the more fashionable shilling's-worth of gruesome mystery; but if the enquirer be a young book-lover, a worthy answer is far to seek. The diagnosis and opinion of the physician do not present greater difficulties, and in many cases are not attended by more momentous results. To turn a juvenile adrift in Sir John Lubbock's list would be to prescribe an exclusive diet of richly seasoned dishes and rare wines to a convalescent patient—to feed him on strong meats, on cavaire and truffles, and to omit the simple, wholesome, homely fare on which, in his condition, health and efficient progress must in the main depend.
How often has the young enquirer been imbued with a distaste for solid literature by being compelled to read 'masterpieces' long before he was able to appreciate their value, or even to comprehend their history! The system at many of our schools is much to blame in this respect. There are, we believe, comparatively few boys who acquire, until they seek it for themselves, even the roughest general outline of the world's history, to which their various episodic studies may be applied, so that each may fall into its proper place and order. 'Periods' and 'Epochs' are studied minutely and painfully, without any knowledge of the grand structure of which they form but a single fragment; and history is too often divorced from geography. A schoolboy is set to work on a play of Aristophanes before he has made acquaintance with the social and political movements of which Pericles and Cleon were the representatives. He reads his Bible and his Homer, his Virgil and Horace, his Cæsar and Livy, but probably with the vaguest ideas of their relations to one another, or their respective positions in the world's chronology. Or it may be that the whole of one term is devoted to one or two books of 'the Iliad' and 'the Odyssey,' 'the Æneid' or the 'Odes,' which are ground out line by line and word by word, all the interest and flavour of the complete work being inevitably and hopelessly dissipated in the process. Even 'the college prizeman, and the college tutor cannot read a chorus in the Trilogy but what his mind instinctively wanders on optatives, choriambi, and that happy conjecture of Smelfungus in the antistrophe.'[100] But certain books having to be got up for an examination by the cramming process, the receptacle for all this erudition only looks forward to the time when he may throw his Classics behind the fire for ever. No book with the least pretention to permanent value can be read purely by and for itself; inevitably it must draw on the reader—if he be in any sense worthy of the name—from point to point beyond its own immediate sphere, until he finds his interest expanding and his tastes forming under a natural and rapid process of evolution. Can any intelligent person read his Homer or his 'Æneid,' his Boswell, his 'Old Mortality,' or 'The Voyage of the Beagle' without asking himself who are these strange characters, and where are these strange lands that seem so familiar to us?
He who stands on a hill and surveys a wide landscape, easily recognizes the leading features of the country—the river and the homestead, the church and the corn-field—they need no guide, they tell their own tale. In like manner the great landmarks of the literature of the past are well defined and unmistakable to him who has eyes to see and a mind to comprehend. The traveller may choose his line, and as he goes his way he will not fail to find guides who will give him the directions which passing doubts and difficulties may render necessary. The world's great books stand out as the old stone walls of some great feudal fortress—prominent and indestructible. Their original uses have been superseded by the world's advance; but time and change add greatly to their interest. He, however, who finds himself entangled in the dense jungle of books that are not 'masterpieces,' and are so plentiful in modern literature, is in a sorry plight; his way lies through this jungle, be it long or short, and he cannot escape it altogether. He has heard of the quiet groves of the Academy, and of the heights of Parnassus, but he is rarely able to catch a glimpse of them. He is whirled along and loses his foothold in the eddying torrent of periodical literature; or he is entangled in the briars of controversy, and, torn and vexed, is apt to lose his way. Here then it is that he particularly needs a guide, and here it is that Sir John Lubbock bids good-bye to him, and leaves him to his own resources.
The student, thus perplexed, may be surprised to learn from Mr. Ruskin that 'any bank clerk could write a history as good as Grote's,' and that Gibbon only chronicled 'putrescence and corruption; 'he may be deeply interested in the information that Professor Bryce prefers Pindar to Hesiod, that the Lord Chief Justice knows nothing of Chinese or Sanskrit, and that Miss Braddon has spent 'great part of a busy life reading the "Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews."' But all this does not help him in his bewildering journey among the 10,000 books which are annually flooding the world of English speaking readers—a mass of which we fear that the quality advances in inverse ratio to the quantity.
Sir John Lubbock's list, as it stands, suggests a gathering of illustrious Generals and officers, without any men. They are very distinguished and admirable in appearance and qualifications, but would be doubly so if seen at the head of the army which they lead and represent. Had Sir John commenced by marshalling his hundred books in groups, either of subjects to be studied or of readers to be provided for, and then called upon the 'guides' to fill up the gaps, and supply the rank and file of his army, he would have earned the thanks of all book-lovers.
In the selection of books two considerations must alternately be paramount. One of these would have reference to the subjects to be studied, the other would have reference to the readers to be provided for. We are aware of the long controversies and technical difficulties involved in this question of Classification, which has stirred the hearts of Librarians from time immemorial, but for our present purpose the elaboration of an exhaustive scientific system is unnecessary; a statement of the rough headings and divisions, under which the books for general readers should be grouped, presents no insurmountable obstacles. Various minor considerations may subsequently assert themselves; as, for example, whether the books are required with the ultimate object of the formation of a library, and 'the cultivation of literature is an object which cannot be accomplished without the acquisition of a library of a greater or less extent,' or for the mere purpose of amusement. To draw up such a catalogue as we propose would exceed the capacity of any single individual; each section should be the work of one or more persons specially versed in the subject.