Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 10

Thus also Winkelmann, in his "History of Art," an extensive work, was long lost in settling on a plan; like artists, who make random sketches of their first conceptions, he threw on paper ideas, hints, and observations which occurred in his readings--many of them, indeed, were not connected with his history, but were afterwards inserted in some of his other works.

Even Gibbon tells us of his Roman History, "at the outset all was dark and doubtful; even the t.i.tle of the work, the true aera of the decline and fall of the empire, the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of the narration; and I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years." Akenside has exquisitely described the progress and the pains of genius in its delightful reveries: Pleasures of Imagination, b. iii. v. 373. The pleasures of composition in an ardent genius were never so finely described as by Buffon.

Speaking of the hours of composition he said, "These are the most luxurious and delightful moments of life: moments which have often enticed me to pa.s.s fourteen hours at my desk in a state of transport; this _gratification_ more than _glory_ is my reward."

The publication of Gibbon's Memoirs conveyed to the world a faithful picture of the most fervid industry; it is in _youth_ the foundations of such a sublime edifice as his history must be laid. The world can now trace how this Colossus of erudition, day by day, and year by year, prepared himself for some vast work.

Gibbon has furnished a new idea in the art of reading! We ought, says he, not to attend to the _order of our books, so much as of our thoughts_. "The perusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps to ideas unconnected with the subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and quit my proposed plan of reading." Thus in the midst of Homer he read Longinus; a chapter of Longinus led to an epistle of Pliny; and having finished Longinus, he followed the train of his ideas of the sublime and beautiful in the Inquiry of Burke, and concluded with comparing the ancient with the modern Longinus. Of all our popular writers the most experienced reader was Gibbon, and he offers an important advice to an author engaged on a particular subject: "I suspended my perusal of any new book on the subject till I had reviewed all that I knew, or believed, or had thought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how much the authors added to my original stock."

These are valuable hints to students, and such have been practised by others.[24] Ancillon was a very ingenious student; he seldom read a book throughout without reading in his progress many others; his library-table was always covered with a number of books for the most part open: this variety of authors bred no confusion; they all a.s.sisted to throw light on the same topic; he was not disgusted by frequently seeing the same thing in different writers; their opinions were so many new strokes, which completed the ideas which he had conceived. The celebrated Father Paul studied in the same manner. He never pa.s.sed over an interesting subject till he had confronted a variety of authors. In historical researches he never would advance, till he had fixed, once for all, the places, time, and opinions--a mode of study which appears very dilatory, but in the end will make a great saving of time, and labour of mind: those who have not pursued this method are all their lives at a loss to settle their opinions and their belief, from the want of having once brought them to such a test.

I shall now offer a plan of Historical Study, and a calculation of the necessary time it will occupy, without specifying the authors; as I only propose to animate a young student, who feels he has not to number the days of a patriarch, that he should not be alarmed at the vast labyrinth historical researches present to his eye. If we look into public libraries, more than thirty thousand volumes of history may be found.

Lenglet du Fresnoy, one of the greatest readers, calculated that he could not read, with satisfaction, more than ten hours a day, and ten pages in folio an hour; which makes one hundred pages every day.

Supposing each volume to contain one thousand pages, every month would amount to three volumes, which make thirty-six volumes in folio in the year. In fifty years a student could only read eighteen hundred volumes in folio. All this, too, supposing uninterrupted health, and an intelligence as rapid as the eyes of the laborious researcher. A man can hardly study to advantage till past twenty, and at fifty his eyes will be dimmed, and his head stuffed with much reading that should never be read. His fifty years for eighteen hundred volumes are reduced to thirty years, and one thousand volumes! And, after all, the universal historian must resolutely face thirty thousand volumes!

But to cheer the historiographer, he shows, that a public library is only necessary to be consulted; it is in our private closet where should be found those few writers who direct us to their rivals, without jealousy, and mark, in the vast career of time, those who are worthy to instruct posterity. His calculation proceeds on this plan, that _six hours_ a day, and the term of _ten years_, are sufficient to pa.s.s over, with utility, the immense field of history.

He calculates an alarming extent of historical ground.

For a knowledge of Sacred History he gives 3 months.

Ancient Egypt, Babylon, and a.s.syria, modern a.s.syria} or Persia } 1 do.

Greek History 6 do.

Roman History by the moderns 7 do.

Roman History by the original writers 6 do.

Ecclesiastical History, general and particular 30 do.

Modern History 24 do.

To this may be added for recurrences and re-perusals 48 do.

____ The total will amount to 10 years.

Thus, in _ten years and a half_, a student in history has obtained an universal knowledge, and this on a plan which permits as much leisure as every student would choose to indulge.

As a specimen of Du Fresnoy's calculations, take that of Sacred History.

For reading Pere Calmet's learned dissertations in the} order he points out } 12 days For Pere Calmet's History, in 2 vols. 4to (now in 4) 12 For Prideaux's History 10 For Josephus 12 For Basnage's History of the Jews 20 ---- In all 66 days.

He allows, however, ninety days for obtaining a sufficient knowledge of Sacred History.

In reading this sketch, we are scarcely surprised at the erudition of a Gibbon; but having admired that erudition, we perceive the necessity of such a plan, if we would not learn what we have afterwards to unlearn.

A plan like the present, even in a mind which should feel itself incapable of the exertion, will not be regarded without that reverence we feel for genius animating such industry. This scheme of study, though it may never be rigidly pursued, will be found excellent. Ten years'

labour of happy diligence may render a student capable of consigning to posterity a history as universal in its topics, as that of the historian who led to this investigation.

POETICAL IMITATIONS AND SIMILARITIES.

Tantus amor florum, et generandi gloria mellis.

_Georg._ Lib. iv. v. 204.

Such rage of honey in our bosom beats, And such a zeal we have for flowery sweets!

DRYDEN.

This article was commenced by me many years ago in the early volumes of the Monthly Magazine, and continued by various correspondents, with various success. I have collected only those of my own contribution, because I do not feel authorised to make use of those of other persons, however some may be desirable. One of the most elegant of literary recreations is that of tracing poetical or prose imitations and similarities; for a.s.suredly, similarity is not always imitation. Bishop Hurd's pleasing essay on "The Marks of Imitation" will a.s.sist the critic in deciding on what may only be an accidental similarity, rather than a studied imitation. Those critics have indulged an intemperate abuse in these entertaining researches, who from a _single word_ derive the imitation of an _entire pa.s.sage_. Wakefield, in his edition of Gray, is very liable to this censure.

This kind of literary amus.e.m.e.nt is not despicable: there are few men of letters who have not been in the habit of marking parallel pa.s.sages, or tracing imitation, in the thousand shapes it a.s.sumes; it forms, it cultivates, it delights taste to observe by what dexterity and variation genius conceals, or modifies, an original thought or image, and to view the same sentiment, or expression, borrowed with art, or heightened by embellishment. The ingenious writer of "A Criticism on Gray's Elegy, in continuation of Dr. Johnson's," has given some observations on this subject, which will please. "It is often entertaining to trace imitation. To detect the adopted image; the copied design; the transferred sentiment; the appropriated phrase; and even the acquired manner and frame, under all the disguises that imitation, combination, and accommodation may have thrown around them, must require both parts and diligence; but it will bring with it no ordinary gratification. A book professedly on the 'History and Progress of Imitation in Poetry,'

written by a man of perspicuity, an adept in the art of discerning likenesses, even when minute, with examples properly selected, and gradations duly marked, would make an impartial accession to the store of human literature, and furnish rational curiosity with a high regale."

Let me premise that these notices (the wrecks of a large collection of pa.s.sages I had once formed merely as exercises to form my taste) are not given with the petty malignant delight of detecting the unacknowledged imitations of our best writers, but merely to habituate the young student to an instructive amus.e.m.e.nt, and to exhibit that beautiful variety which the same image is capable of exhibiting when retouched with all the art of genius.

Gray, in his "Ode to Spring," has

The Attic warbler POURS HER THROAT.

Wakefield in his "Commentary" has a copious pa.s.sage on this poetical diction. He conceives it to be "an admirable improvement of the Greek and Roman cla.s.sics:"

--??e? a?d??: HES. Scut. Her. 396.

--Suaves ex ore _loquelas_ _Funde_. LUCRET. i. 40.

This learned editor was little conversant with modern literature, as he proved by his memorable editions of Gray and Pope. The expression is evidently borrowed not from Hesiod, nor from Lucretius, but from a brother at home.

Is it for thee, the Linnet POURS HER THROAT?

_Essay on Man_, Ep. iii, v. 33.

Gray, in the "Ode to Adversity," addresses the power thus,

Thou tamer of the human breast, Whose IRON SCOURGE and TORTURING HOUR The bad affright, afflict the best.

Wakefield censures the expression "_torturing hour_," by discovering an impropriety and incongruity. He says, "consistency of figure rather required some _material_ image, like _iron scourge_ and _adamantine chain_." It is curious to observe a verbal critic lecture such a poet as Gray! The poet probably would never have replied, or, in a moment of excessive urbanity, he might have condescended to point out to this minutest of critics the following pa.s.sage in Milton:--

----When the SCOURGE Inexorably, and the TORTURING HOUR Calls us to penance.

_Par. Lost_, B. ii. v. 90.

Gray, in his "Ode to Adversity," has

Light THEY DISPERSE, and with them go The SUMMER FRIEND.

Fond of this image, he has it again in his "Bard,"

They SWARM, that in thy NOONTIDE BEAM are born, Gone!

Perhaps the germ of this beautiful image may be found in Shakspeare:--

---- for men, like b.u.t.tERFLIES, Show not their mealy wings but to THE SUMMER.

_Troilus and Cressida_, Act iii. s. 7.

And two similar pa.s.sages in _Timon of Athens_:--