Large as may be the waste of time, and still | But of all this it would be unreasonable as unlarger the virtual extinction of books by a silent grateful to complain. Fugitive as the interest of process of oblivion, each generation far more than such literature must be, each generation naturally makes up the loss; and though suffering from a wishes to know more of its contemporaries than a glut, the world goes on adding to their number, as future age will condescend to learn and from if in fear of an intellectual famine. One might im- almost the worst of such works some casual agine that in some departments of literature there gleam of light may illumine the page of the would necessarily come a pause; for instance, future historian; some fact be rescued which will considering there is already more of first-rate enable him to adjust more accurately the transacpoetry and fiction than anybody can pretend to tions, and estimate more truly the characters, of find time to read, that none would be found to the time. The only doubt is whether here, as venture into these fields, unless persuaded that he elsewhere, the very copiousness of the materials had something to offer better than Homer, Shaks- will not produce the same effect as the dearth of peare, or Scott! Equally prolific is the literature them; whether the judicial sentence of an histoof memoirs and biography. There is a little bet-rian who shall write three hundred years hence, ter reason for this; yet the rage for it, it must be and who shall honestly examine and sift his mateconfessed, is often carried to a ludicrous extent. | rials, will not be as little to be hoped for as that No sooner does any man of mark or likelihood die, of some profound judges—delayed, and still dethan, in addition to his life, whole volumes of his layed, till death has overtaken them amidst their letters and journals are thrust upon the world.* unresolved doubts.

of which are alike, any more than men's faces-in the exhaustless variety of nature and of art, in the equally infinite variety of the analogies and relations of objects, the human intellect may expatiate forever, and never find lack of argument, wit, and fancy; but how small a portion can be preserved or retained! From the time that Ovid uttered his complaint to the present moment, the perpetual flood has been pouring upon the world—and it still rolls on broader and deeper than ever.

of wisdom, and beneath the notice of a learned | more than one great mind it has been recorded, man, yet a trowl written by a toss-pot several that they seldom read any work which strongly hundred years since was a matter worthy of the excited them without meditating one on a similar gravest research, and enough to set whole col- theme. The Latin poet complained of the injusleges by the ears." tice of our fathers in "having stolen all our good But neither do we complain of all this. As in things," by uttering them before we had the opthe case of memoirs and biographies, the labori-portunity. The complaint is one in which an auous trifling of the merest drudge in antiquities ther must look for little sympathy from the world. may supply the historian with some collateral In the infinite variety of human intellects-no two lights, and furnish materials for more vivid descriptions of the past; or, coming into contact with highly creative minds, like that of Walter Scott, may contribute the rude elements of the sublimest or most beautiful novelties of fiction. None can read his novels and despise the study of the most trivial details of local antiquities, when it is seen for what beautiful textures they may supply the threads. It is the privilege of genius such as his to extract their gold dust out of the most worthless book-books which to oth- Considering the vastness of the accumulations ers would be to the last degree tedious and unat- of literature, and the impossibility of mastering tractive-and the felicity with which he did this them, it is not wonderful that the idea should was one of his most striking characteristics. In sometimes have suggested itself that it might be hundreds of cases it is wonderful to see how a possible in a series of brief publications to distil snatch of an old border song, an antique phrase, as it were the quintessence of books, and condense used as he uses it, a story or fragment of a story folios into pamphlets. "Were all books thus refrom some obscure author, shall suddenly be in- duced," says Addison, "many a bulky author vested with an intrinsic force or beauty, which the would make his appearance in a penny paper. original would never have suggested to an ordi- There would scarce be such a thing in nature as nary reader, and which in fact they derive, in a folio; the works of an age would be contained nine instances out of ten, from the light of genius those things which chiefly interest it are always and which he brought to play upon them. In those everywhere the same, it is perhaps the inexhaustible vabright morning or evening tints even the barren riety, and not the occasional similarity of conceptions heath or the rugged mass of gray stone looks pic-Browne in his "Religio Medici" on some observed coinwhich ought to amaze us. The remarks of Sir Thomas turesque; or such uses of antiquity remind us of cidences between himself and Montaigne, are well worthe gate of the old Tolbooth, or fragments of the thy the attention of every critic who would be just to ruins of Melrose, incorporated with Abbotsford. genius. Many other supposed plagiarisms are but the unconscious reflection of sentiments and images, the The quality, above referred to, Mr. Lockhart has source of which had been long forgotten. A person must happily characterized. "The lamp of his zeal be very dull or very uncharitable-or he will be slow to suspect a mind of any originality, of the meanness of burnt on brighter and brighter amidst the dust of larceny. For any such mind must always find it easier parchments; his love and pride vivified whatever to live honestly than by stealing. As to the greater part he hung over in these dim records, and patient worthy criticism has founded the charge against great of those parallelisms and resemblances on which an unantiquarianism, long brooding and meditating, be- writers, they will, as we have said, be generally found to came gloriously transmuted into the winged spirit indicate nothing more than that the thoughts of others of national poetry." have suggested the germ of new conceptions; new by a juster application, or a more felicitous expression, or a fresh development of the original thought. They are, in truth, no more plagiarisms than a chemical compound, the result of mysterious affinities, is identical with the elements which enter into it. There is all the difference between suggestion and plagiarism, that there is between making blood from blood and receiving it into the veins by transfusion. In Shakspeare and Scott we see both how much and how little a great genius derives from sources of Lord Byron," "a volume in his gondola with a number without himself. "Observing," says Moore, in his "Life of paper marks between the leaves, I inquired of him what it was. Only a book,' he answered, 'from which the way I get the character of an original poet.' On takI am trying to crib, as I do whenever I can; and that's ing it up, and looking at it, I exclaimed, Ah, my friend Agathon!' 'What!' he cried, archly, you have been beforehand with me there, have you? Though in imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism, he was, of course, but jesting, it was, I am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite thus his vein by the perusal of others on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint caught by his imagination, as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source." (Vol. iv.)

In this way minute portions of the past are constantly entering by new combinations into fresh forms of life, and out of these old materials, continually decomposed but continually recombined, scope is afforded for an everlasting succession of imaginative literature. In the same way every work of genius, by coming, as it were, into mesmeric rapport with the affinities of kindred genius, and stimulating its latent energies, is itself the parent of many others, and furnishes the materials and rudiments of ever new combinations. Of

The greater part of those resemblances in thoughts and images which a carping criticism sets down as plagiarisms are, we are persuaded, nothing more than such combinations; and even of plagiarism, properly so called, we have as little doubt that the instances are far fewer than has generally been supposed. Many so named have been simple coincidences of thought, the result of similarly constituted minds revolving the same subjects; and, true though it be that the objects and combinations of thought are infinite, yet considering that humanity and LIVING AGE. VOL. XXI. 26

CCLXIII.

felt that from the less accurate work, we after all learn more, and receive more vivid impressions than from the more correct, but less effective, productions of an inferior artist. To attain this species of longevity, genius must not be content with being a mere mason, but must aspire to be an architect; it must seek to give preciousness to the gold and silver by the beauty of the cup or vase into which they are moulded, and to make them as valuable for their form as for their matter.

on a few shelves; not to mention millions of volumes that would be utterly annihilated." One such attempt we remember being made with considerable pretensions; but it was as futile as every such attempt must be. Without going the length of Montaigne, who says, that “ every abridgment of a book is a foolish abridgment," it may be truly said, not only that the human mind cannot profitably digest intellectual food in such a condensed shape; but that every work really worth reading bears upon it the impress of the mind that gave it birth, and ceases to attract and to impress when The French were formerly very sensitive to our reduced to a syllabus; its faults and its excellences want of artistic skill in our literary composition. alike vanish in the process. It is of much impor- Indeed, Laharp presumed to assert that "Tom tance, however, if authors who cannot be thus mu- Jones" was the only book in the English language! tilated desire to live, that they should study brevity. But we may take comfort on comparing ourselves Our voluminous forefathers, of the seventeenth cen- with the Germans. There is no country in Eutury, seem never to have attempted condensation; but | rope in which the mortality even of valuable works to have committed all that they thought to writing, is so frequently the result of a neglect of this sort and, for the most part, in all the redundance of the as Germany; none in which critics, historians, forms first suggested. They acted as though we, theologians, are so content to give to the world their posterity, should have nothing to do but to their crude and imperfect thoughts; marked, insit down and read what they had written. They deed, by a prodigality, but as often by an abuse of were much mistaken; and the consequence is that learning; by a command of ample materials, but their folios, for the most part, remain unread alto-employed without judgment, taste, or method. gether. Their books in consequence soon give way to another fleeting generation, manufactured in the same way, and with as little hope of permanent popularity.

Nor is there any country, though all are

It is the severe beauty, the condensed meaning of the master-pieces of classical antiquity, which, probably as much as anything else, has given them their victory over time; constituting them not merely models of taste, but rendering them moder-chargeable with the fault, to which Menzel's ate in bulk-the majority of them portable. The light skiff will shoot the cataracts of time when a heavier vessel will infallibly go down.

scornful remarks on "books made out of books," so strongly apply. "Germany," says he, "is thronged with multitudes who, in want of any While it is too sadly certain that by far the fixed employment, immediately begin to write greater part of those who toil for remembrance books; thus reaping, as soon as possible, the fruits among men must be defrauded of their hopes, it is of what they have learned at the universities, and well for genius to recollect that the doom may inundating the world with an immense number of be indefinitely delayed by due care on its own crude and boyish works." It is necessary only part; just as, though nothing can avert death, a to inspect many German volumes to see that they wise and prudent regard to health may secure a are just the produce of a-note book; that the late termination and a green old age. Or its case task has begun and ended in the carting of so may be compared to that of men who labor under much rubbish, and shooting it out into a bookselsome uncurable chronic malady; it must be fatal ler's shop-where, at the best, it may serve as a at last-but by a due regimen and self-control the collection of materials for an edifice which somepatient may outlive many of more robust health, body else is to build. Profuse reading is often who are madly negligent of the boon. It is aston- their only characteristic; and not always is there ishing what signal genius will sometimes effect to any sure sign of this; for the prodigal references give permanent popularity to books, even in those with which page after page in many such works departments in which the progress of knowledge is half filled, are often slavishly copied from other soon renders them very imperfect. They main-writers, and the parade of learning is as empty as tain their supremacy notwithstanding; and their it is superfluous. Niebuhr bitterly complains of successors prolong their influence by means of note this practice; and justly stigmatizes it as one of and supplement. Such will probably be the case with Paley's works on Natural Theology and the Evidences of Christianity. "Hume's History of England" promises to be a still stronger instance, in spite not only of its many deficiencies, but of its enormous errors.

It is, indeed, a great triumph of genius when it is capable of so impressing itself upon its productions, so moulding and shaping them to beauty, as to make men unwilling to return the gold into the melting-pot, and work it up afresh; when it is

the dishonest tricks of literature. He himself tells us, and we doubt not with perfect truth, that he was in the habit of distinctly specifying all those citations which, though employed by him, had not occurred in the course of his own independent study of his authorities; and contends, that wherever a reference has been suggested by another, the secondary as well as the primary authority should be given, accompanied by the statement of obligation. We fear, with Dr. Arnold, that this remedy would not cure the

evil; or rather that it would increase it. pages of these merciless writers would be twice as dull from this double "bestowment of their tediousness;" they would delight in troubling the reader with the whole history of each long literary chase; and consider a double, or, still better, a quadruple, array of references, (though only a series of transcriptions,) as a prouder proof of their erudition. What is really required is, that the writer should honestly endeavor to make his citations as few, not as many, as possible; and confine himself to the most decisive, brief, and accessible. As it is, the references are often such that scarcely three readers in ten could consult them, if they would-and scarcely one out of the three would if he could; while perhaps, nearly as often, the very point thus formidably who might just as profitably be engaged, with supported, is a fact for which no references are wanted at all; in which the authorities are the only things that require to be confirmed, and the proofs the only things that need verification. Doubtless, this parade of references is often employed for what Whately calls the "fallacy of references;❞—that is, in support of some questionable point, and in the hope "that not one reader out of twenty will be at the pains" to verify their relevancy, or rather to detect their impertinence. But quite as often, they are used for mere ostentation.

The enduring-aud be ephemeral notwithstanding; and what we cannot conceal from ourselves is, that he may even treat his subject well, and yet be forgotten. But we suspect that this caution is of little importance. Such is the vigor of great genius-and without it nothing will be remembered-that where there is that, it will triumph over all the disadvantages of a topic of evanescent interest. Pascal's "Provincial Letters" are still read, we apprehend, quite as frequently as Bossuet's "Discourse on Universal History," and even "Hudibras" a good deal more than Johnson's own "Irene ;" while the obscurities of some celebrated satire-the very name of a Bufo or a Bavius-shall for ages continue to provoke and baffle the ingenuity of the stolid commentator,

Addison's virtuoso, in the chase of butterflies or the collection of cockle-shells.

If genius would attain its uttermost longevity, another condition it must submit to is, that of despising an ad captandum compliance with transient tastes, and the affectation of peculiarities for the purpose and in the hope of forming, as it were, a school. It is not to be denied that literary fashions, like others, may be extensive and prevalent for a time-but they expire with the age. Great genius for a while will consecrate almost any eccentricities, and even acquire for them great temporary popularity. But it may well be questioned whether, where there is great genius and where it has succeeded by such artifices, it might not, even among its contemporaries, have gained equal applause at a less cost than that of simplicity and nature. But, at all events, let the writer who attempts to attain fame by any such fantastic methods, recollect how ridiculous a reigning fashion looks a century afterwards; for not less ridiculous will then appear everything that bears the mark of affectation and mannerism, however successful for a time. The Euphuism of Elizabeth's day is now viewed only with contemptuous wonder; and even Dr. Johnson, though he still retains a large measure of popularity, would have retained far more had it not been for his antitheses and his Latinisms. Addison, though nearly a century earlier, is still more admired, and without any deductions.

Those authors, whose subjects require them to be voluminous, will do well, if they would be remembered as long as possible, not to omit a duty, which authors in general, but especially modern authors, are too apt to neglect-that of appending to their works a good index. For their deplorable deficiencies in this respect, Professor de Morgan, speaking of historians, assigns the curious reason, "that they think to oblige their readers to go through them from beginning to end, by making this the only way of coming at the contents of their volumes. They are much mistaken; and they might learn from their own mode of dealing with the writings of others, how their own will be used in turn."* We think that the unwise indolence of authors has probably had much more to do with the matter, than the reasons thus humorously assigned; but the fact which he proceeds to mention is incontestibly true. "No writer," [of this class,] says he, "is so much read as the one who makes a good index-majority of cases the hope of immortality is a or so much cited."

It may be said, perhaps, that if in so vast a

dream, it does not much matter how men write. Johnson, in commenting on the fate of books Success, though ephemeral, is the great point.— in one of the papers of the Idler, speaks of the To this we have, of course, nothing to say, exnecessity of an author's choosing a theme of en- cept that we trust, many would rather not gain during interest, if he would be remembered; and reputation at all, durable or brief, by a departure contrasts the once enormous popularity of “ Hudi- from simplicity and nature; and that, though imbras" with its present comparative neglect. Alas! mortality be out of the case, a gentle decay and we fear that this is but an insufficient antiseptic. serene old age have always been thought desirThough it is generally necessary, if an author able things, rather than a sudden and violent diswould have even a chance of living, that he should solution. Immortality is not to be thought of take no temporary topic, he may choose the most—but euthanasia is not to be despised.

* References for the History of the Mathematical Sciences in the Companion to the British Almanac, 1843, p. 42.

In turning over the pages of such a book as the London Catalogue, one is struck, amidst the apparent imitations in literature, with the seem

We see

ingly fixed and unchanging influence of two por- | out the continued history of literature. tions of it-the Greek and Roman Classics and nothing like it; and it may well perplex the inthe BIBLE. Much of the literature produced by fidel to account for it. Nor need his sagacity both partakes, no doubt, of the fate which attends disdain to enter a little more deeply into its posother kinds; the books they severally elicit, |sible causes, than he is usually inclined to do. It whether critical or theological, pass away; but has not been given to any other book of religion, they themselves retain their hold on the human thus to triumph over national prejudices, and mind, become engrafted into the literature of lodge itself securely in the heart of great comevery civilized nation, and continue to evoke a munities-varying by every conceivable diversity never-ending series of volumes in their defence, of language, race, manners, customs, and indeed illustration, or explication. On a very moderate agreeing in nothing but a veneration for itself. computation we think it may be affirmed, from an It adapts itself with facility to the revolutions of inspection of this catalogue, that at least one third thought and feeling which shake to pieces all of the works it contains are the consequence, more things else; and flexibly accommodates itself to or less direct, of the two portions of literature to the progress of society and the changes of civilizawhich we here refer; in the shape of new edition. Even conquests—the disorganization of old tions, translations, commentaries, grammars, dic-nations-the formation of new-do not affect the tionaries, or historical, chronological, and geo- continuity of its empire. It lays hold of the new graphical illustration.

66

The old Greek and Roman classics have indeed a paradoxical destiny. They cannot, it seems, grow old; and time, which " antiquates antiquity itself," to use an expression of Sir Thomas Browne, still leaves them untouched.. The ancients alone possessed in perfection the art of embalming thought. The severe taste which surrounds them, has operated like the pure air of Egypt in preserving the sculptures and paintings of that country; where travellers tell us that the traces of the chisel are often as sharp, and the colors of the paintings as bright, as if the artists had quitted their work but yesterday.

as of the old, and transmigrates with the spirit of humanity; attracting to itself, by its own moral power, in all the communities it enters, a ceaseless intensity of effort for its propagation, illustration, and defence. Other systems of religion are usually delicate exotics, and will not bear transplanting. The gods of the nations are local deities, and reluctantly quit their native soil; at all events they patronize only their favorite races, and perish at once when the tribe or nation of their worshippers becomes extinct—often long before. Nothing, indeed, is more difficult than to make foreigners feel anything but the utmost indifference (except as an object of philosophic curiosity) about the religion of other nations; and no portion of their national literature is regarded as more tedious or unattractive than that which treats of their theology. The elegant

There is one aspect in which even the most utilitarian despiser of the classics can hardly sneer at them. From being selected by the unanimous suffrage of all civilized nations, (the moment they become worthy of the name,) as an integral ele-mythologies of Greece and Rome made no prosment in all liberal education, as the masters of elytes among other nations, and fell hopelessly the language and models of taste, these venerable moment they fell. The Koran of Mahomet has, authors play, as this catalogue shows, a very im- it is true, been propagated by the sword; but it portant part even in the commercial transactions has been propagated by nothing else; and its doof mankind. It is curious to think of these an- minion has been limited to those nations who cient spirits furnishing no inconsiderable portion could not reply to that logic. If the Bible be of the modern world with their daily bread; and false, the facility with which it overleaps the in the employment they give to so many thousands otherwise impassable boundaries of race and of schoolmasters, editors, commentators, authors, clime, and domiciliates itself among so many difprinters, and publishers, constituting a very posi- ferent nations, is assuredly a far more striking tive item in the industrial activity of nations. A and wonderful proof of human ignorance, perversepolitical economist, thinking only of his own ness and stupidity, than is afforded in the limited science, should look with respect on the strains of prevalence of even the most abject superstitions; Homer and Virgil; when he considers that, di- or, if it really has merits which, though a fable, rectly or indirectly, they have probably produced have enabled it to impose so comprehensively and more material wealth than half the mines which variously on mankind, wonderful, indeed, must human cupidity has opened, or half the inven- have been the skill in its composition; so wontions of the most mechanical age-if we except derful that even the infidel himself ought never to the loom, the steam engine, and a few score regard it but with the profoundest reverence, as more. It is very foolish of mankind, some may far too successful and sublime a fabrication to adsay, to allow them this varied and permanent in-mit a thought of scoff or ridicule. In his last fluence. illness, a few days before his death, Sir W. ter. Scott asked Mr. Lockhart to read to him. Mr. Lockhart inquired what book he would like. "Can you ask?" said Sir Walter-" there is but ONE;" and requested him to read a chapter of the gospel of John. When will an equal genius, to

But into that question we need not enWe are speaking as to the fact only; and shall leave mankind to defend themselves.

The Bible, supposing it other than it pretends to be, presents us with a still more singular phenomenon in the space which it occupies through