He gives the catalogue and the price of each, among which the Histoire de Troyes sold for 10607., a Latin Bible for 1500l., Strutt's Dictionary for 2000l., and the Decameron for 22601., all esteemed at this value simply from the scarcity of the edition, to such lengths do worshippers of the uncommon proceed in matters of this kind; but Charles Lamb, who represents the taste and feeling of the Lover's Seat on most subjects, does not set much value on such treasures. He laughs at 66 rare editions,' ," "fine copies," "tall copies," and prefers to any uncommon beauty, even of binding, the sullied leaves and worn-out appearance of the commonest books in a circulating library. "How they speak," he says, "of the thousand thumbs that have turned over their pages with delight! Of the lone sempstress, whom they have cheered after her long day's needle toil, running far into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill spared from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in spelling out their enchanting contents. Who would have them a whit less soiled? Of all my favourites, I like those editions best which have been oftenest tumbled about and handled." "Some men," But to return to what is contained in books. says an amusing writer, "can see further into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly unreadable, they can read him for ever; they despise those qualities in a work which are cheap and obvious; they are shocked at the prostitution of intellect implied in popular productions. Nothing goes down with them but what is caviare to the multitude." Ben Jonson complained of some who sought Chaucerisms in language, which, he says, were better expunged. Many, in fact, desire whatever is uncommon, some going so far as to adopt a mode of spelling of their own. They must have extraordinary views, new interpretations, or else a return to obsolete, exploded, or forgotten things. So Lord Wealthy says, in the old play, "I could salute you in Latin, but the phrase is common. Το whom Haddit replies, "True, my Lord, and what's common ought not much to be dealt withal." Of these writers, the desire is that 66 invention should beget Conceits as curious as the thoughts of change Can aim at." No doubt, if nothing were to pass the press, as Glanvill says, May suck the honey of good doctrine thence, Still, it remains certain that nothing will endure long but what may be called common and generally wholesome, as distinguished from the eccentric, and often dangerous, productions of ambitious minds, seeking distinction by what is extraordinary, and utterly heedless of its consequences. "Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature," says a great author, "looks like word-catching. The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written, yet are they so cheap, and so things of course, that, in the infinite riches of the soul, it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground, or bottling a little air in a phial, when the whole earth and the whole atmosphere are ours. Nothing can pass there, or make you one of the circle, but the casting aside your trappings, and dealing man to man in naked truth, plain confession, and omniscient affirmation." "There is in literature," says Dupanloup, "something greater, more powerful than all this splendour which some fine writers cast around them-brighter than all this beauty with which they dazzle the world;-it is the good common sense of words; for he who knows how to comprehend the depth and mysterious connexion of ideas and things with words, discerns that all the order and security of human life have their principle there. In short, I maintain that the alphabet of the human race, the grammar of a child, the dictionary of a nation, far more than a fine literature, penetrate me with an indefinable sentiment of respect and gratitude to Him who has given us this literature, these words, and these thoughts." "Plato and Bossuet, in my opinion," says Cousin, "are the two greatest masters of human language, both speaking, in general, like the common people, with the last degree of simplicity, while, at times, mounting, without effort, to a poesy as magnificent as that of Homer, ingenious and polished to the utmost delicacy, and by instinct majestic and sublime.” As with regard to the style, we must insist also on the fact that, in general, the matter of literature is best and most relished when it is commonest. There is surely much truth, for instance, in what Macaulay says, that "the fault of tediousness pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen, that we become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women." "The end and purpose of a romance or novel hero or heroine's life," says a contemporary, with whose views, my puss, I am convinced that you, at least, will fall in, "is generally extremely common. It is to get married—a higher object is rarely revealed; and as this is the main object of common life, it constitutes the very best object of novel and romantic stories in general. A higher purpose narrows the sphere of interest. Suppose the hero or heroine has a general and benevolent object in view, instead of a passional object, then little interest is awakened. Some dispute the utility of the object; some oppose it religiously, others politically, others morally, others think it Utopian, fanciful, or inexpedient; but nobody opposes marriage as an ultimate object. It is, therefore, the favourite and popular terminus for imaginary lives in general. Launch the young couple in the sea of matrimony, and there leave them. Make all sorts of providential occurrences to bring them there; make heaven itself even regulate the weather-shake the earth-deluge the fields-make darkness visible and palpable, and the grave give up its dead to reveal a secret, and change a resolution, and discover a lost will, all for the purpose of bringing about this said marriage, and it is well. It is the all-important subject and object of a popular novel; and men, women, and children are all agreed upon the fact of its importance. But make the elements do one or other of these things to assist a statesman, a general, a philanthropist, a poet, or an artist, in accomplishing the end of his ambition, and it seems absurd; the publisher even refuses to accept it, or if he does accept, the reader says it is written for a particular purpose. It is the wrong coach. It does not go to the place where hearts are travelling to. It is the lowest and most physical aspect of a man's mission that is the most generally interesting, that which is common to him with all other men, and not what is uncommon." But, passing from a consideration of the acquirements, let us briefly glance at the character which often belongs to the men who seek to be extraordinary and distinguished by means of study. Here, according to the old proverb, "we must put on our shoes, for one had best not go barefoot among thorns." Proceeding, then, to notice persons of this description, one cannot in general but be struck at their great self-assurance. They are confident; they chaunt their own encomiums; they ring out a panegyric to themselves, and write a learned commentary of their own actions. A man puffed up with his learning fancies that he is something superior to the human race, and pretends to pity common persons, above all such as are here seated, one of whom, at least, will be set down by him as only a troublesome creature, if even that word will content him. 66 Really," says the Abbé de Bellegarde, "such pedants are fitter to converse with the dead than with the living. They would think it letting themselves down, if they were to be humanized with ordinary men and to speak on common subjects; but the gay and agreeable ignorance of women is a thousand times a better thing than such sombre and wearisome erudition *." The truth, however, suggests something worse than this; for many of these distinguished and extraordinary men have been more eminent for positive mischief than for any mere negative evil. "It is a fact well known in the history of science and philosophy, that men gifted by nature with singular intelligence, have broached the grossest errors, and even sought to undermine the grand primitive truths on which human virtue, dignity, and hope depend +." It is such men who pervert the best things, like Him who is "a cunning book-thief, and hath robbed The honest schools of their best rhetoric A writer of this kind might be suspected of saying secretly, on the publication of each of his books, like Antony after his oration, "Now let it work; mischief thou art afoot, *Lettres curieuses de Littérature et de Morale. † Channing. "The atheism," says Charron, "the errors, sects, and troubles of the world, have sprung from the order of the learned." "He is parcel lawyer," says some one in an old play, “and, in my conscience, much of their religion." Another of the learned professions receives a similar compliment, where the viceroy says, in "A very Woman," 66 I have heard, how true I know not, most physicians, as they grow That they have little faith in that they cannot Ben Jonson, in his Magnetic Lady, gives an instance, saying, "Rat is a young physician to the family, With all their extraordinary attainments, persons of distinguished learning are often men of flint, pictures of marble, and as void of pity as chased bears. In an official station, one of them is represented exclaiming, "And am I ready, and mine anger too, In this place something must be done; this chair, I tell ye, The truth is, that many of those eminent persons, by dint of worshipping the uncommon and unmaking themselves, if there was in them originally any thing to spoil, have no benevolence or real love left for men. They know not even what it is to love a friend. "Literary men," says Hazlitt, "are not attached to the persons of their friends, but to their minds. They look upon them in the same light as on the books in their library." So, a poor fellow, who does not set up for any thing above the common, says, with humble reliance on his own feeling, that it |