MY BOOKS.
On the south side of my house, and communicating with my chamber, is a little room about twelve feet square. The two windows in its southern wall open a pleasant prospect to the eye. Immediately below lies my little garden; beyond are the grounds of my richer neighbors, presenting an agreeable medley of woods and meadows; about half a mile farther, a small river meanders through a fertile valley, beyond which a beautiful stretch of rich and thickly settled country is bounded at the distance of three or four miles by a range of low hills. This little apartment, which is one of the most cheerful in the house, is my favorite resort. Here are my books, and it passes by the various names of the Library, the Study, and the Book Room. The greater part of three sides of the room is hidden by the shelves containing my literary treasures; and perhaps I rather underrate their number when I say that I own two thousand volumes. This is a great number for a man of my limited means to possess, but upwards of forty years have been spent in their collection. About fifty or sixty of the most valuable I am indebted for to several departed friends, who have thus remembered me. These which I have placed upon three shelves in a corner, are amongst those I prize most highly. Many of them I have picked up at auctions at sundry times, for sometimes not a tenth of their value, and the stalls which are to be found in the streets of some of our principal cities have supplied not a few. They are of all sizes, shapes, and ages, and a regiment of Fantasticals has more pretensions to the title of an uniformed body than they have. I have not attempted classifying them according to their subject matter, thinking their numbers too few to need it. They are rather grouped, as indeed the shelves require, according to their sizes. There are, however, few of them upon which I could not lay my hands as readily as if assisted by a formal arrangement. Sundry gaps here and there, which have existed for many long months, and some of them for years, show that my acquaintances (I will not call them my friends,) have been equally expert in laying their hands upon them. Who has the first volume of my Knox's Essays? Why does he not call for the second? I can assure him that I at least do not think, to borrow the auctioneer's phrase, that “each volume is complete in itself.”
Whilst I am proud of calling myself master of many rare and curious tomes, on the other hand, I must confess, that many works of what are entitled the British Classic Authors are not to be found upon my shelves. I do not possess a single volume of Sterne's works, looking upon him as a disgrace to his cloth, and a hypocritical whiner concerning a sensibility which his life testified that he was far from really feeling; nor do I think that there is enough Attic salt in his writings to preserve his grossnesses from being offensive. For the same reason I have not a complete copy of Swift. Of those selections from the works of popular authors commonly styled their “Beauties,” I have not, I think, half a dozen volumes; and I have very few of the works of the minor poets, being somewhat of Horace's opinion concerning middling poets. But such as it is, my little stock of books is dear to me, and I purpose in the present paper to say something of a few of the volumes.
That quarto standing in the corner of one of the lower shelves, which time has deprived of half its cover and the greater part of a frontispiece representing the Council of Trent, is a work published in the year 1692, and entitled the “Young Student's Library, containing extracts and abridgements of the most valuable books published in England, and in the foreign journals, from the year sixty-five to this time; to which is added, a new essay upon All Sorts of Learning, wherein the use of the Sciences is distinctly treated on—by the Athenian Society. Also, a large Alphabetical Table, comprehending the contents of this volume, and of all the Athenian Mercuries and Supplements, &c. Printed in the year 1691. London: printed for John Dunton, at the Raven in the Poultry.” This may be looked upon as one of the oldest specimens of the periodical review. The essay upon All Sorts of Learning, is divided into sections treating of Divinity, History, Philosophy, Law, Physic and Surgery, Arithmetic, Poetry, Painting, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, &c. &c.—each section followed by a copious list of the most approved works upon the subject more particularly treated of. An arrangement somewhat similar to that of the subjects above enumerated, appears to have been followed in the Young Student's Library, which opens with reviews of the works of Dr. Lightfoot, Dr. Barrow, and Bishop Usher. Near the beginning of the volume, is a notice of a work published in Rotterdam, and entitled “The Accomplishment of Prophecies, or the Deliverance of the Church Near at Hand,” by a Mr. Jurieu, the first sentences of which will give us an idea of the paucity of readers one hundred and fifty years ago compared with their number at present. “This work has made such a noise, that there are two thousand copies disposed of in four or five months, and yet there are but a very few gone into France, which would have taken off a great many if it were suffered that it might be disposed of there, this considerable part of Europe being almost nothing, by report, in respect of the bookseller's trade: one would think that the first edition should have sufficed—nevertheless, there was soon occasion for the second, and it is that which occasioned Mr. Jurieu to add to this work the additions which are to be marked.” If we suppose that only one hundred copies went to France, there remain nineteen hundred copies for the readers of the rest of Europe, and the disposal of these in four or five months is evidently looked upon as a great sale, and one which was likely to suffice. How would the Athenian Society have stared, to learn that in a century and a half a book would not be considered popular if two thousand copies were not sold in a week in the city where it was published. There is an interesting paper near the close of the book, concerning a work entitled “The Education of Daughters, by Mr. Feuelon, Abbot, according to the copy printed at Paris. Md. by Peter Alouin, 1687, in twelves.” The Abbot seems to have been a man of much good sense, as will appear from a few extracts from the review. “This is a matter of one of the most grave and important concerns of life. Mr. Abbot Feuelon concerned at the negligence wherewith virgins are educated, thought he could not better consecrate his cares than to the instruction of this fair sex. Fathers, in reference to public good, or by a blind inclination to young men, abandon their daughters almost without giving them any education—notwithstanding, saith he, they are destined to fulfil the duties which are the foundations of human life, and which decide that which most nearly concerneth mankind. There is then nothing more important than the precepts that are given us here. And indeed the source of men cannot be too pure. But the difficulty of succeeding is greater than is imagined. For if to give a good education to young women be to be removed entirely from the world, to apply them to what concerneth housewifery and house-government, it is to be feared that their restlessness and natural curiosity will push them upon other impertinent accomplishments.... Some pretend also that it is not less dangerous to let maids take pleasure in reading and frequent conversation, fearing they should fall into the extremities of the learned and knowing women, who never come down from heroism and refined wit.” Blue-stocking ladies were not more popular formerly than now. Mr. Feuelon recommends the suaviter in modo as follows. “After that, coming to a more advanced age, he saith, that nothing backwards young women so much as the bad humors of those mothers who make perpetual lessons, and render virtue odious by too much preaching on't: Wisdom ought not to be shewn to this age but under a smiling countenance, and under a pleasant image. The most serious occupation ought to be seasoned with some honest pastimes; and a familiar and open conduct makes more progress than a more severe education, and a dry and absolute authority. Notwithstanding it's the common injustice of mothers, who taking always an austere and imperious countenance, judge not of pleasures but by the sorrow and care of their age, instead of judging thereof by the joy and sportings they had in times past. It falleth out often, that they cry out against pleasures because they themselves cannot taste of them. Howbeit, we cannot be old as soon as we come into the world; and Mr. Abbot Feuelon condemneth these constraining formalities, and these dim ideas of virtue, which render it sad and tedious to young women. Notwithstanding, continueth our author, as they are destined to moderate exercises, it is good to give them a slight imploy, for idleness is an unfathomable source of troublesomeness; and besides, the wandering imagination of a young woman turns itself easily towards dangerous objects. Therefore also he will not have them to accustom themselves so much to sleep, because that mollifies the body, and exposes the mind to the rebellion of the senses.
“Mr. Abbot Feuelon condemns utterly romances, because, according to him, young women fall into passions for chimerical intrigues and adventures. Being charmed with what they find tender and marvellous in them, what a distaste is it to them to abase themselves unto the lowest part of housewifery, and to this ordinary life we lead? He is not yet altogether against their learning some languages, but he rejects the Italian, because its only proper to read dangerous books, and he prefers the Latin tongue by reason of the DIVINE OFFICE. But without mentioning other inconveniences, he forgot that Ovid and Martial are poisoners far more pernicious than Amintas and Pastor Fido; for besides the obscenity of Martial, there is in Ovid all that love can inspire most tender, most ingenious, and most delicate. In truth, it were a thing to be wished for, that the modesty of a young woman should make her ignorant of all things that concern love; but it is convenient enough to know it in order to prevent it as much as possible. At least it was the advice of Madame de Chartres, a grave authoress in these matters, and which well may be opposed to Mr. Abbot Feuelon. The greatest part of mothers imagine (saith the author of the Princess of Cleves) that it is sufficient not to speak of gallantry before young persons, to make them keep from it. On the contrary, Madame de Chartres often depainted love to her daughter. She would tell her what there was pleasing in it, the more easily to persuade her of the misfortunes whereinto engagements lead us.
“This conduct hath something in it very acute. For nothing is more dangerous than to expose a young woman to know love by an interested person's mouth, who far from making her observe the troubles that follow this passion, hath no greater care than to hide them from her. So that it is very hard that a young person should resist love, whilst never hearing mention made of it, she begins to know it by that which is taking in it: and how shall she defend herself from a passion which only promisseth sweetnesses, and which offers such pleasing baits!”
It appears that there is a chapter devoted to the faults of young women. “Mr. Abbot Feuelon says that they must be corrected for those tears they shed so cheap,” and that “they have always been reproached with a marvellous talent of speaking;” but he endangers the cure of the first offence, by admitting that “a handsome woman, when she is in tears, is by the half more handsome.” The reviewer states that the Abbot does not spare them for those “precipitate decisions of the curious ladies, which so much displease men of good judgment. A poor man of a Province, saith he, will be the ridicule of five or six a-la-mode ladies, because his peruke is not of the best make, or because he wants a good grace, though he hath an upright heart, and a mind just and solid: when a courtier is preferred, whose whole deserts consist in fashions and cooks, and who hideth a low heart and false mind under an exterior politeness.
“Finally, he inveighs mightily against the vanity of women, their violent desire of pleasing, and the passion of dressing themselves, which they make their most important business. He pretends that this haughtiness draws after it the ruin of families, and the corruption of manners; and he neatly decides that Beauty is noisome, if it doth not advantageously serve, to marry a young woman”—which sentence the reviewer pronounces to be a little rigorous, and refutes at considerable length.
Farther on is a notice of a work entitled “A Treatise of the Excellency of Marriage; of its Necessity, and the Means of Living happily therein: where is an Apology made for Women against the Calumnies of Men. By James Chausse, Master of the Court Rolls. Printed at Paris—1685,” a work which might be advantageously republished at the present day. Mr. Chausse appears to have had a very exalted opinion of the married state, as the following passage must testify. He says, that “the most favorable judgment of the wisest about a single life is, that 'tis a virtue neither good nor bad, and that being without action, it is a kind of vice. He maintains that God made two sexes in nature, to shew they cannot subsist without being joined together; he sends us to learn of the animals, amongst which the mutual love of males for females, and females for males, is common to every individual. After this he considers men as men in a state, in a family, and in a church, and he says that in all these regards they are obliged to marry—because, adds he, 'tis necessary to endeavor to preserve their own kind, as they are citizens to the republic, successors to their families, and servants to the church; he speaks very large upon these three duties, and considering the beauty and perfections of man, he is wrapped up in admiration, and says, can there be any thing more noble than the ambition of producing creatures so perfect? He asks, if it is possible that we should be so much moved with the glory of making a fine book, drawing a beautiful picture, or a handsome statue, and should not be sensible of the glory of making a man? This appears so noble and admirable, that all men that we read of in Scriptures have thought themselves very happy in it, as Ibstan and Abdan, of which the first had thirty sons and thirty daughters, and as many sons and daughters in law; and the second had forty sons, and thirty grandsons, whom he saw altogether on horseback. ‘O God, (cries he out) can any thing be added more to the happiness of a father—can any thing be seen more memorable in the life of man!’ In my opinion, it exceeds all the acts of Cæsar and Alexander—such an increase is more noble than any act that can be found in history. Hence he supposes that Augustine had acquired more glory, if instead of leaving so many books, he had furnished the world with thirty children; and he would persuade us that the invention of Archimedes and Des Cartes are trifles in comparison of the exploits of a simple country fellow, who helps to people the world by lawful means; I say lawfully, for the author thinks no offspring good that is not from marriage. He fortifies his proofs as much as possible, and goes back to the ancient Jews, observing that marriage being one of these things that generally happen sooner or later, it is better to engage ourselves in happy time, than after a thousand declamations against it, whilst we are hurrying on to old age, when marriage can produce nothing but vexatious consequences.”—Then follows a dissertation upon the second marriages of widows, too long for me to quote.
The work of Mr. Chausse was written to persuade a gentleman, for whom he had a high regard, to marry; and he takes up all the possible objections he could think of in the following order. First, all those founded upon the conduct of women; second, those upon the nature of marriage itself; and third, the objection that marriage is an unsupportable yoke. Under the last head, the author gives the following directions for making a good marriage. “First, after having recommended ourselves to God, who presides in a more particular manner over that state, we make a choice of such a person as pleases us, and who has an agreeable temper. It would not be unpleasing to have her handsome; but since 'tis not very common to find such a one, we ought to be contented if she please us, whether she does others or no; and that 'tis not always advantageous for the wife to please all the world: but 'tis not sufficient to be pleased with her beauty, except there be a sympathy in humors. The author advises us to study the genius of those we design to marry, that we may the better succeed, in spite of the address that some make use of to hide their weakness; he adds, for the better security, that we may choose one that is young, and resides near our own habitation. In the first place, he advises to a choice in a well ordered family, and to observe the equality of condition and fortune, and to take care that she has no such pre-engagements as may make her marry him by constraint.” (This latter matter the young ladies now take care of themselves.)