Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford Part 4

Most of the modern writers on dietetics, as well as those who have preceded them, recommend a very considerable abridgment of the quant.i.ty of food, usually consumed at the table of the affluent.

And while I strongly advise you to be rather abstemious as to _quant.i.ty_ of food, so I wish you not to be in the slightest degree fastidious as to its _quality_, provided it is wholesome, and free from qualities absolutely revolting. You may naturally like one thing better than another, and partake of what you prefer, when it comes in your way; but it is painful to see a young man of any intellect indulging in the niceties of an epicure, and really appearing to care much about what he eats, and what he drinks. When I commenced the life of a country clergyman, I was often received, with almost parental kindness, in a house, in which good taste of all kinds,--moral, intellectual, social, and _culinary_,--presided in an eminent degree. Every now and then, some particular dish made its appearance, under the impression that I was particularly fond of it. Probably I had eaten of it some days before, because it chanced to be near me, or from some similar accident. I was grateful for the kindness and attention, but felt mortified, almost degraded, at its being supposed that I cared about one thing more than another, where all were good and wholesome.

Do not get into the habit of spending your money in ices, and other delicacies, at the pastry-cook's and confectioner's. You say that you are hungry;--

"--------Panis Latrantem stomachum bene leniet."

If your hunger would disdain a piece of dry bread, it certainly has no claim to be attended to at all. You say that you can _afford_ to indulge yourself in the delicacies to which I have alluded. I do not think that you can; at all events, your money may be more worthily spent--

"Non est melius quo insumere possis?

Cur eget indignus quisquam, te divite? Quare Templa ruunt antiqua Deum?"

In other words, if you have the money to spare, give it to the deserving poor, or to the Church-building Society. Few expenses are more unsatisfactory in retrospect,--I had almost said, more _disgraceful_,--than those which have been incurred by sensual self-indulgence; incurred to gratify a vitiated palate and a pampered appet.i.te.

Self-denial is recommended by the cla.s.sical writers of antiquity, as well as by the most sensible of modern authors; and, what is of infinitely more importance, is strongly inculcated by the Christian religion. But how shall self-denial be practised _at all_, if it cannot be practised in the low matter of eating and drinking?

Read again and again the paper of Addison, and the Satire of Horace, (the second of the second Book), from which I have made my quotations.

Read also the following pa.s.sages from that accurate observer of the habits and manners of social life, the son of Sirach:

_If thou sit at a bountiful table, be not greedy upon it, and say not, There is much meat on it.--Eat, as it becometh a man, those things that are set before thee; and devour not, lest thou be hated. Leave off first for manners' sake; and be not insatiable, lest thou offend._

_A very little is sufficient for a man well nurtured, and he fetcheth not his wind short upon his bed._

_Sound sleep cometh of moderate eating; he riseth early, and his wits are with him: but the pain of watching, and choler, and pangs of the belly, are with an insatiable man._

I remain, My dear Nephew, Your affectionate Uncle.

FOOTNOTES:

[128:1] No. 195.

LETTER X.

ENGLISH READING.

MY DEAR NEPHEW,

When at Oxford, you will not have much time for any reading, excepting that which has some reference to your examination. During the vacations, however, which occupy about half the year, you are more at liberty, and will do well, as I have already suggested to you, to give a good deal of your leisure to increasing your acquaintance with the cla.s.sical writers of your own language.

Both at Oxford and home, endeavour, on most days, to catch some little portion of time,--a quarter of an hour may be sufficient,--for religious reading. Melmoth's "Great Importance of a Religious Life," and the abridgment of Law's "Serious Call," adopted by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, are two of the best books that occur to me, for the purpose of impressing you with the absolute necessity, of giving religion the first place in your thoughts and your heart. You may read either of them through in an hour. Of the former, 42,000 copies were sold in the eighteen years preceding 1784. I mention this as an evidence of its popularity.

Some thirty years ago I was requested by a friend, to recommend some practical book to put into the hands of a young person. I named Nelson's "Practice of True Devotion," and have since seen no reason to alter my opinion. Let that be one of the first books that you make use of. If you read _one_ chapter each day (and do not read more), it will last you about three weeks. After an interval of a year or so, go through it again.

Take next for this purpose Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying,"

first reading (if you can borrow the book) what is said of this work by his highly-gifted and most amiable editor, Bishop Heber. One pa.s.sage from Heber's remarks I must allow myself to quote: "But I will not select, where all may be read with advantage, and can hardly be read without admiration. To clothe virtue in its most picturesque and attractive colouring; to enforce with all the terrors of the divine law, its essential obligations; and to distinguish, in almost every instance most successfully, between what is prudent and what is necessary; what may fitly be done, and what cannot safely be left undone;--this is the triumph of a Christian moralist; and this Jeremy Taylor has, in a great degree, achieved in his Discourse on Holy Living." You will recollect that this book was written nearly two hundred years ago, and must not be surprised if you find a few expressions, and one or two sentiments, rather obsolete. One of the five rules which Taylor gives in his Dedication, "for the application of the counsels which follow," applies to all books of a similar character. "They that will, with profit, make use of the proper instruments of virtue, must so live as if they were always under the physician's hand. For the counsels of religion are not to be applied to the distempers of the soul, as men used to take h.e.l.lebore; _but they must dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be twisted about his understanding for ever: they must be used like nourishment, that is, by a daily care and meditation_--not like a single medicine, and upon the actual pressure of a present necessity."

The genuine spirit of Jeremy Taylor, with more correctness of taste, is found in that delightful book, "The Christian Year." Read it repeatedly.

It is every where full of poetry, and of the purest devotional feeling.

The more you are imbued with the spirit which pervades that beautiful volume, the more fit you will be to have your part in "the communion of saints," among _the spirits of just men made perfect_.

Archbishop Seeker's Lectures on the Catechism, contain a body of divinity, doctrinal and practical, singularly judicious and useful. They are full of good sense and accurate information. The style, perhaps, is rather involved, and not very engaging; but you see a mind in full possession of its subject, anxious to put you in full possession of it also, without omitting any thing of importance.

Gilpin's Lectures on the Catechism are of a different character. This also is a very good and a very pleasing book, written with a particular view to young persons engaged in reading the Greek and Latin Cla.s.sics.

Ogden's Sermons, on Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, &c. are the offspring of a clear and powerful intellect, expressed in language remarkably perspicuous and elegant.

_After_ these books, take some opportunity of reading the Sermons of Bishop Butler, including the Preface. This is not a book to be read in a room full of brothers and sisters. It demands close attention, and will give some exercise to all your intellectual powers; but it richly merits to have such attention and pains bestowed upon it. It deserves, indeed requires, more than a single reading. After Butler's Sermons read his "a.n.a.logy."

You will do well, at any odd intervals, or _s.n.a.t.c.hes_ of time, to make yourself familiar with Addison and Johnson. False delicacy shall not prevent me from recommending the selection from the writings of Addison which I made a few years ago. My reasons for making such selection are given in the Preface. The same reasons now induce me to recommend it to you.

Johnson requires no pruning. You can hardly read a paper in the Rambler or Idler, and, I will add, the Adventurer, without deriving from it some improvement, either moral or intellectual, or both. The structure and cadence of Johnson's sentences is certainly monotonous; but I seldom read half a page without being struck by the depth of his thought, the accuracy and minuteness of his observation, and the astonis.h.i.+ng extent of his multifarious reading.

In order to enter with more discrimination into the style of our different authors, read often "Blair's Lectures." They are, I believe, sometimes spoken slightingly of by men of learning; I, however, as an unlearned man, think them particularly useful. The Lecture on the Origin of Language, indeed, the absurdity of which has been exposed with so much playfulness by Cowper, might well have been omitted.

I have already advised you, during the two longer vacations, to acquire, or to keep up, some knowledge of modern history. Russell's "Modern Europe" is, upon the whole, a useful book. It is, perhaps, too compendious; and I dislike its being given in the form of letters.

Robertson's "Charles the Fifth" you have probably read already; if not, read it carefully when, in Russell, you arrive at the period at which it commences. Pay particular attention to the First Book. Perhaps Robertson was not sufficiently impressed with the importance and the effects of the Reformation in Germany; and he formed, I think, an unfair estimate of the character and motives of Luther. This matter will, I doubt not, be shortly set right in the Life of Luther about to be given to the public by one of the ablest and most learned men of the present day[147:1].

With respect to the history of our own country, I hardly know what advice to give you. Hume's style is very pleasing, but he cannot be implicitly depended on, especially where religion and the ministers of religion are concerned.

Henry's "History of Great Britain" is a very good and accurate book; but the continuity of the narrative is broken by the multiplicity of divisions in each period, (learning, arts, commerce, manners, &c. &c.), and by the transitions to the history of Scotland.

Lingard I have not read; I am told that his style is good, and his information extensive. It was natural that, as a zealous Romanist, he should seek to extenuate the faults of men of his own persuasion, and to exaggerate the failings, and place in an unfavourable point of view the motives and actions of the a.s.sailants of Popery; but he has, I think, been fully convicted of carrying misrepresentation beyond all reasonable bounds. There was but too much of bigotry and persecution on both sides.

Turner's History is, I believe, strictly honest and impartial, and a work of prodigious labour and research.

But in our attention to prose writers, we must not forget the cla.s.sical poets of our own country. Make yourself familiarly acquainted with Shakspeare, Milton, and Pope. The more you read of Young and Cowper, the better. Young is sometimes turgid, with a good deal of bad taste; but he abounds in real poetry, and in strong truths most forcibly expressed.

Cowper sometimes carries simplicity to the verge of being prosaic; but he is generally graceful, often pathetic, and sometimes approaches to sublimity. Of both, it was the common object to increase the influence of genuine Christianity; of both, the perusal has a direct tendency to make you a better and a more religious man.

Two of our most distinguished living poets--Sir Walter Scott and Southey--have seen their poetry cast into shade by the popularity of their own prose. The poems of both will live, and have justice done them by posterity. "Madoc" was many years ago recommended to me by one of the most able, and most candid, of our living authors. I read it with much interest. "The Curse of Kehama" is full of high and wild poetry; and "Roderick, the last of the Goths" gives a n.o.ble picture of deep penitence and of devoted patriotism. You will hardly read any ten lines of the longer poems of Sir Walter Scott, without meeting with some striking beauty of expression or of sentiment.

I am afraid, however, that the English poets, both those of former times and those of the present day, have been, in great measure, superseded, among you young Oxonians, by Lord Byron. In almost every under-graduate's room that I happen to enter, _he_ seems to have taken possession. Lord Byron, as a poet, has certainly many transcendant merits,--merits which are peculiarly fascinating to young men. The interest which I,--which _every one_,--naturally must feel in the moral and intellectual habits and pursuits of such an important portion of the community, makes me deeply lament the n.o.ble poet's excessive popularity among you. I am perfectly aware, that by the following remarks I shall expose myself to the indignation of some men, and, possibly, to the contempt of others: but I feel that my opinion on this subject is not taken up on slight grounds; and I _must say my say_.

The publication of Lord Byron's life and correspondence has contributed, a good deal, to divest him of that mystery, which hung about him, and in which he himself so much delighted; and has brought him down rather more to the level of ordinary mortals. They show him to us as a man possessed of splendid talents, of extensive and various attainments, and of the _seeds_ of many n.o.ble and generous qualities; but as a man actuated by ungovernable pa.s.sions, and by an overweening opinion of his own superiority to all other mortals. _Self_, whether intellectual or sensual, seems to have been the idol that he wors.h.i.+pped. _His own_ antient family, _his own_ talents, _his own_ attainments, _his own_ whims, _his own_ pa.s.sions, _his own_ excesses, seem all to have furnished food for his vanity, because they were _his own_.

I acknowledge that, in all the circ.u.mstances of his _bringing up_, he was singularly unfortunate. His early dest.i.tution, the character and habits of his mother, the neglect of his n.o.ble relations, the venal praises of his parasites and dependents, all acted upon his character with pernicious influence.

"Untaught in youth his heart to tame, His springs of life were poison'd."

He was sensitively alive to all the beauties and the sublimities of external nature, and had a most penetrating insight into the complicated feelings, and the various workings of the human heart, with all its pa.s.sions and affections; consequently, he abounds in pa.s.sages of great beauty, and of singular strength and power. The gratification derived from the perusal of such pa.s.sages, however, to a man at least who really believes himself to be an immortal and a responsible being, is but a poor compensation for the moral effects of many of his poems, his _later_ poems more especially[155:1]. They too often appear to breathe a spirit of engrossing selfishness; a spirit of captious and gloomy scepticism,--scepticism extending, not only to revelation, but to the primary truths of what is called natural religion, and even the most acknowledged bonds of moral obligation. The tendency of his writings is to make you dissatisfied with almost every thing, and every body in this world, and at the same time to unfit you for the world to come; indeed, to make you doubt, whether the idea of a world to come is not altogether a mere delusion.

Lord Byron particularly excels in describing female loveliness, and the effect which such loveliness produces upon the ardent temperament of youth. In fact, the feeling within themselves so much that responds to these descriptions, is one great cause of the popularity of Lord Byron among young people. The sensations to which I allude, however, are of themselves but too importunate. It is most unwise to excite them,--to give them additional energy,--by the perusal of the high-wrought and glowing descriptions of this poet of the pa.s.sions.

I had heard much of Don Juan, and felt some curiosity to read it; but I was aware of the manner in which bold and flippant ribaldry sometimes takes hold of the mind, even when shocked at it. I knew well, that human nature has in itself but too much of pa.s.sion and sensuality, without needing any additional stimulus. I was unwilling "to soil my mind" when I could avoid it. For my own sake, I was unwilling to see the most destructive vices treated as mere matter of jest, and the most awful truths of religion introduced in connexion with ludicrous images, and spoken of in the language of mockery. However much our judgment may disapprove of these things, yet the ludicrous pa.s.sages and images are too apt to stick by us, even when we most wish to shake them off.