VII. MAKING BOOKS.

WRITING HISTORY.

T is strange that there should be so little

reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have anything else to amuse them. There must be an external impulse; — emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it. Language is scanty, and inadequate to express the nice gradations and mixtures of our feelings. No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events. - JOHNSON, Boswell's Life.

Corruption of Language. More lasting effect was produced by Translators, who, in later times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early. times, they enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly contributed: for composing in a language which is not their mother-tongue, they necessarily acquire an arti

ficial and formal style, which, not SO much through the merit of a few as owing to the perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this reason only. Men who write in newspapers, and magazines, and reviews, write for present effect; in most cases this is as much their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but when it is so they consider, like public speakers, not so much what is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as larks are with lookingglasses.

*

*

*

Even with the better part of the Public that Author will always obtain the most favorable reception, who keeps most upon a level with them in intellectuals, and puts them to the least trouble of thinking. He who addresses himself with the whole endeavors of a powerful mind to the understanding faculty, may find fit readers; but they

will be few. He who labors for posterity in the fields of research, must look to posterity for his reward. SOUTHEY, Colloquies.

But the way to rise to rapid celebrity is to be a plausible advocate of prevailing doctrines, and especially to defend with some appearance of novelty something which men like to believe, but have no good reason for believing.-ARCHBISHOP WHATELY, Miscellaneous Remains.

I will hazard the assertion that no man ever did, or ever will become more truly eloquent, without being a constant reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language. FISHER AMES, Quarterly Review.

It is observable that the most excellent profane Authors, whether Greek or Roman, lose most of their graces whenever we find them literally translated.

*

*

*

*

The natural conclusion from hence is that in the Classical Authors, the expression, the sweetness of the numbers, occasioned by a musical placing of words, constitute a great part of their beauties: whereas, in the Sacred Writings, they consist more in the greatness of the things themselves, than in the words and expressions. — STERNE, Sermons.

I would recommend as a maxim to you what Bishop Sherlock formerly told me Dr. Bentley

remarked to him, that a man was never writ out of the reputation he had fairly won but by himself. BISHOP WARBURTON to Sterne; Life of Sterne by P. Fitzgerald.

Quand vous composerez, mettez vous en bonne humeur pour donner un facile et grand effort à vôtre esprit; mais quand vous Vous mettrez à corriger vôtre ouvrage, resserez cet esprit, devenez severe contre vous-méme, ne vous pardonnez rien. - BORDELON, La Belle Education.

Take part always with thy judgement against thy fancy in anything wherein they shall dissent. If thou suspectest thy conceits too luxuriant, herein account thy suspicion a legal conviction, and damn whatsoever thou doubtest of. Warily Tully, benè monent, qui vetant quicquam facere, de quo dubitas, æquum sit an iniquum. - FULLER, Selections by B. Montagu.

There is a close connection between the thoughts and words; and where a man hath throughly digested the one, the other will follow not only with ease but propriety, when he is a perfect master of the language he writeth in.-H. FELTON, D.D., Dissertation on Reading the Classics, &c., 1723.

He that hath abilities to conceive perfection, will not easily be content without it; and since. perfection can not be reached, will lose the opportunity of doing well in the vain hope of unattainable excellence. - JOHNSON, The Rambler.

If one looks into the writers on that subject, little satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is cach as good as an other's, since they are all founded on conjecture. — G. WHite, Natural History of Selborne.

It will be seen that about thirty years ago, I had entertained a very comprehensive design for a History of Britain; which, however, was soon abandoned, from the conviction that a long life of leisure would scarcely suffice for its completion, and that it would have been utterly inconsistent even with my less laborious professional pursuits, and when my time was more than afterwards at my own disposal; but from the moment of my acceptance of official station, my time became exclusively the property of the Public. From that moment there was an end at once of history as a study, — it became the plaything of an occasional hour of leisure and relaxation from the toil of my official avocations. The periods of excessive and incessant labor were of very long, the occasional hours of leisure and relaxation, were few, rare, and of very short duration. The study of History had ever been with me a favorite pursuit. These Fragments and Scraps are, therefore, the hasty productions of the very few hours of relaxation which, occasionally before, but very rarely after

--