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us-to find joyous, or at least cheerful companionship, as well as serious, in books.

Assuming that this catholicity of taste, the value of which I have endeavoured to present, is acquired, it then becomes a matter of much moment to have some principles to guide one through the large spaces of which the mind has vision. The capacity for extended and various reading may lose much of its value, if undisciplined and desultory. Indeed, if a large and varied power of reading be indulged in a desultory and chance way, it is likely to be lost there is no genuine and permanent catholicity of taste for books but what is guarded by principles, and has a discipline of its own. That discipline is twofold: it is guidance we get from other minds, and that which we get from our own; and as these are well and wisely combined, we may secure ample independence for our own thinking, and ample respect for the wisdom of others.

It is not unfrequently thought that the true guidance for habits of reading is to be looked for in prescribed courses of reading, pointing out the books to be read, and the order of proceeding with them. Now, while this external guidance may to a certain extent be useful, I do believe that an elaborately prescribed course of reading would be found neither desirable nor practicable. It does not leave freedom enough to the movements of the reader's own mind; it does not give free enough scope to choice. Our communion with books, to be intelligent, must be more or less spontaneous. It is not possible to anticipate how or when an interest may be awakened in some particular subject or author, and it would be far better to break away from the prescribed list of books, in order to follow out that interest while it is a thoughtful impulse. It would

be a sorry tameness of intellect that would not, sooner or later, work its way out of the track of the best of any such prescribed courses. This is the reason, no doubt, why they are so seldom attempted, and why, when attempted, they are apt to fail.

It may be asked, however, whether every thing is to be left to chance or caprice, whether one is to read what accident puts in the way-what happens to be reviewed or talked about. No! far from it: there would in this be no more exercise of rational will than in the other process; in truth, the slavery to chance is a worse evil than slavery to authority. So far as the origin of a taste for reading can be traced in the growth of the mind, it will be found, I think, mostly in the mind's own prompting; and the power thus engendered is, like all other powers in our being, to be looked to as something to be cultivated and chastened, and then its disciplined freedom will prove more and more its own safest guide. It will provide itself with more of philosophy than it is aware of in its choice of books, and will the better understand their relative virtues. On the other hand, I apprehend that often a taste for reading is quenched by rigid and injudicious prescription of books in which the mind takes no interest, can assimilate nothing to itself, and recognises no progress but what the eye takes count of in the reckoning of pages it has travelled over. It lies on the mind, unpalateable, heavy, undigested food. But reverse the process: observe or engender the interest as best you may, in the young mind, and then work with that-expanding, cultivating, chastening it.

It matters little from what point, or with what book a young reader begins his career, provided he brings along

that thoughtful spirit of inquiry in which activity and docility are justly balanced. No good book is an insulated thing; you can always, if you will but look for them, discover leadings on to something else other books on the same or kindred subjects or other books by the same author. You acquire an affection for an author, and that may be made to embrace the books of his affection. I know of no more practical or safer principle in the guidance of one's reading, than thus to follow an author in whom you feel that your confidence is well placed. There are what may, in this respect, be called guiding authors, whose genial love of letters was not only a light to their own lives, but still shines, a lamp to show the path to others. You feel that what they loved may fitly be loved by you; that what stirred their spirits may have a power over yours. And so shall we find perpetual guidance, following it with freedom and loyalty, and extending our acquaintance with books just in the way in which we do with our acquaintance with living men and women. use books for instruction or amusement, but hardly enough for guidance. Let me rapidly exemplify this principle, the value of which is, perhaps, in danger of being overlooked only from its simplicity. Take such a book as Southey's Life of Cowper, and you shall perceive the mind of Cowper and of his biographer so touching in various ways upon other authors, as to attract you to a large and admirable variety of the best literature in the language. Taking that remarkable work "The Doctor," in which Southey poured forth the vast abundance of his fine scholarship, or the Elia Essays, you will find guidance into many of the beautiful and secluded spots in English literature Or again, what countless suggestions for life

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long reading, and what wise guidance to profitable studies may not be found in the several works of Coleridge! I mention these as eminently "guiding authors," and it would be easy to add to the list others of the same class in their degree. This is a use of books which combines healthful independence of judgment with healthful reverence for authority, giving safety from the two extremes-carelessness and servility of opinion.

It affords a communion of thought which is, in some respects, better than mere formal criticism. It is free from some of the temptations of such criticism, which we must be careful not to use too much of, in these times of many reviews and magazines, and when we turn to them for guidance, we must shun as a pestilence, all heartless criticism, all uncongenial criticism, such especially as unimaginative handling of subjects of imagination, and all malignant criticism. The criticism, which may well be followed and commenced with is that of which it has been said, "It may almost be called a religious criticism, for it holds out its warnings when multitudes are mad; and there is a criticism founded upon patient research and studious deliberation, which, even if it be given somewhat rudely and harshly, cannot but be useful. And there is the loving criticism, which explains, elicits, illumines; showing the force and beauty of some great word or deed, which, but for the kind care of the critic, might remain a dead letter or an inert fact; teaching the people to understand and to admire what is admirable."

In following out the general principle presented in the last lecture, that literature-that which is essentially literature in the highest sense of the term-is meant to give

power rather than information, and in cherishing a catholicity of taste for books, it is a good practical rule to keep one's reading well proportioned in the two great divisions, prose and poetry. This is very apt to be neglected, and the consequence is a great loss of power, moral and intellectual, and a loss of some of the highest enjoyments of literature. It sometimes happens that some readers devote themselves too much to poetry: this is a great mistake, and betrays an ignorance of the true uses of poetical studies. When this happens, it is generally with those whose reading lies chiefly in the lower and merely sentimental region of poetry, for it is hardly possible for the imagination to enter truly into the spirit of the great poets, without having the various faculties of the mind so awakened and invigorated, as to make a knowledge of the great prose writers also a necessity of

one's nature.

The disproportion usually lies in the other directionprose reading to the exclusion of poetry. This is owing chiefly to the want of proper culture, for although there is certainly a great disparity of imaginative endowment, still the imagination is part of the universal mind of man, and it is a work of education to bring it into action in minds even the least imaginative. It is chiefly to the wilfully unimaginative mind that poetry, with all its wisdom and all its glory, is a sealed book. It sometimes happens, however, that a mind, well gifted with imaginative power, loses the capacity to relish poetry simply by the neglect of reading metrical literature. This is a sad mistake, inasmuch as the mere reader of prose cuts himself off from the very highest literary enjoyments; for if the giving of power to the mind be a characteristic, the most

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