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and in the bosom of meditation: they are revised again and again; their obscurities removed, and their defects supplied. Conversation on the other hand is fortuitous and runs wild; the life's blood of truth is filtrated and diluted, till much of its essence is gone. The intellect that depends upon conversation for nutriment, may be compared to the man who should prefer the precarious existence of a beggar, to the possession of a regular and substantial income.

One of the most prevailing objections to a systematical pursuit of knowledge, is that it imposes upon us a methodical industry, and by consequence counteracts the more unlicensed and dignified sallies of the mind. But the industry which books demand, is of the same species as the industry requisite for the development of our own reflections; the study of other men's writings, is strikingly analogous to the invention and arrangement of our own. A better school cannot be devised for the improvement of individual mind, than for it thus to collate itself with other minds in a state of the highest and most persevering exer➡ tion. It is to be feared that, if industry be not early formed, and if that indolence, which in one form or other is always our motive for neglecting books and learning, be uniformly indulged, the mind will never rouse itself to an undaunted subtlety of thought, or acquire the constancy requi

site for the invention and execution of any great undertaking.

The reason why reading has fallen into a partial disrepute is, that few men have sufficiently reflected on the true mode of reading. It has been affirmed by astronomers, that the spots discoverable in the disk of the sun, are a species of fuel calculated to supply its continual waste, and that, in due time, they become changed into the substance of the sun itself. Thus in reading: if the systems we read, were always to remain in masses upon the mind, unconcocted and unaltered, undoubtedly in that case they would only deform it. But, if we read in a just spirit, perhaps we cannot read too much: in other words, if we mix our own reflections with what we read; if we dissect the ideas and arguments of our author; if, by having recourse to all subsidiary means, we enIdeavour to clear the recollection of him in our minds; if we compare part with part, detect his errors, new model his systems, adopt so much of him as is excellent, and explain within ourselves the reason of our disapprobation as to what is otherwise. A judicious reader will have a greater number of ideas that are his own passing through his mind, than of ideas presented to him by his author. He sifts his merits, and bolts his arguWhat he adopts from him, he renders his own, by repassing in his thoughts the notions

ments.

of which it consists, and the foundation upon which it rests, correcting its mistakes, and supplying its defects. Even the most dogmatical branches of study, grammar and mathematics, supply him with hints, and give a turn to his meditations. Reading and learning, when thus pursued, not only furnish the most valuable knowledge; but afford incitements to the mind of a thousand denominations, and add a miraculous sort of finishing to its workmanship which could have been bestowed by no other means. It furnishes, what is of all things most important, occasions for approbation and disapprobation. It creates a certain manliness of judgment, not indebted for its decisive character to partiality and arrogance, but seeing truth by its own light, even while it never divests itself of the sobriety of scepticism, and accommodated to the office of producing conviction in its intimates and hearers.

To prevent misconstruction it is perhaps necessary to observe, that the tendency of this Essay is to recommend learning. It proceeds upon the supposition that there is a class, and a numerous class of men, by whom severe and profound reading is decried. The term self-educated was defined in the beginning, to mean those who had not engaged in any methodical and persevering course of reading; and elsewhere it was said of them that they held, that the man who would be original and

impressive, must meditate rather than hear, and walk rather than read. If there be any singularity in this use of the term, it is hoped at least that the reader will not put a sense upon it in this present instance, which is foreign to the intention of the writer. He is far from thinking all men of learning respectable, and he joins most cordially in the general propensity to withhold from the mere pedant every degree of estimation. The principles intended to be maintained are, that learning is the ally, not the adversary of genius; and that he who reads in a proper spirit, can scarcely read too much.

ESSAY XII.

OF ENGLISH STYLE.

INTRODUCTION,

THE author of this volume does not hesitate to avow that he has in several respects altered his opinion upon the subject of the following Essay, since the first appearance of his book in 1797. And he would be ashamed to continue to contribute in any way to the propagation of what now appears to him to be error.

The object of his Essay was to shew the superiority of the English of the present day over the English of our ancestors. In some respects he still adheres to the same opinion. He believes that on the whole the construction of the language of our best modern writers, the best writers of the age of George the Third, is closer and neater, more free from laxity of structure, and less subject to occasional incongruities, superfluities, unnaturalness and affectation, than that of their pre decessors. But neatness, and a sustained equality of march, are not every thing.

Since the publication of this volume the author has been pretty extensively and habitually conversant with the productions of our elder writers. And they have certainly lost nothing with him in a more intimate acquaintance. He admires, and he loves them. They have, many of them, a splendour and an expansive richness of manner, that more than balance the perhaps more laborious exactness of their successors. There is also something in early language, and the new and unhackneyed sense and feeling of words, that is singularly delightful. In Spenser and Shakespear, there is a freshness in all they say, at least in the most admirable parts of their writings, that steals away the soul. It is like flowers, fresh gathered out of the gardens of Paradise. Our words are palled and stale; they have been used too often; we must be

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