Of all the shams that pass current, with those who write or with those who read, that is the flimsiest which hopes to outrage or cheat the human conscience. While, then, on the one hand we contend for a somewhat liberal construction of the ethical and religious code as applied to the production and use of literáry works, we insist that certain. rules on this subject can be easily ascertained, and should be uncompromisingly enforced. But we as earnestly affirm that neither ethical truth, nor even religious earnestness, does of itself qualify a writer to produce, or require the reader to read a work which has no other ground on which to enforce its claims to attention and respect. It is not enough to say of a book, that it is good or goodish, that it is Christian or safe, in order to justify its having been written or printed. There prevails not a little cant and hollowness, if not gross imposition and downright dishonesty, in the use of the phrases "Christian literature," and "safe or wholesome reading," as we may have occasion to illustrate at some length.

We wish it to be understood that we do not write for scholars or littérateurs, but for readers of English; not for bibliographers or bibliomaniacs, to whom literature and reading are a profession, a trade, or a passion; but for those earnest readers to whom books and reading are instruction and amusement, rest and refreshment, inspiration and relaxation. Our papers will be familiar and free, not affected or constrained. Usefulness is their aim and object, and this aim will control the selection and illustration of the topics which may suggest themselves as we proceed.

But enough of this premising. We promise nothing, and yet we would attempt something. What we propose, if accomplished, will make these papers useful rather than exciting. They will be the minister of pleasure in their remote results, rather than by immediate excitement.

While then, as all well-mannered writers do, we ask the attention of the reader, we trust it will be given with a clear understanding of the character of what we propose to offer him, and with no extravagant expectations concerning its interest or its worth.

2

CHAPTER II.

WHAT IS A BOOK? AND WHAT IS IT TO READ?

IT may appear very much like trifling to ask these questions. Nothing is more familiar and nothing seems better understood. We may, however, find it useful to define, somewhat formally, what a book is, and what it is to read a book. Children, as we know, are very generally taught that whatever is printed is to be regarded with deference. The fiction is useful if not necessary, first, to prevent them from tearing books, and next, to train them to listen to the wisdom of books with a teachable spirit. In consequence, they learn very easily to esteem all books as alike oracles of wisdom and truth.

I

Mr. H. Crabb Robinson tells us that when a child he was corrected for mis-spelling a word on the authority of his spelling-book. On being told that the word was wrongly printed he says "I was quite confounded. believed as firmly in the infallibility of print as any good Catholic can in the infallibility of his Church. I knew that naughty boys would tell stories, but how a book could contain a falsehood was quite incomprehensible." —Diary, Chap. ii.

Not a few men live and die with a similar impression, and never cease to esteem a book as in some way endowed with a mysterious authority by the very fact that it is a book. This opinion is well expressed in the lines

""Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't."

Following this tradition there are very intelligent men who

would never think of spending fifteen minutes in listening to stupidity or commonplace from a man's lips, who make it their duty and imagine it useful, solemnly to read, to weigh, and consider, any amount of dullness which an accredited author chooses to print, especially if it is done on expensive white paper and with a fair and wide margin. Men who will detect and spurn a lie, if it is spoken, will read lies by the hundred, if they are only printed; and when they read two books which contradict each other flatly in respect to statements of fact, will wonder how it can be possible that both should be worthy of credit, and yet as they are books they must of course be true, though they cannot see how. Very grave and Christian citizens -the stiff asserters of law and order-will read arguments that tend to the destruction of the family, with its sacred confidence and endearments—which would overturn every tribunal, unlock every prison, and make murder and arson as common as a change of the wind, and admire the profoundness of their wisdom. Nay-let it not be spoken above a whisper-modest and virtuous ladies, who would blush at an innocent remark, if it happens to be unfortunate or equivocal in its language, will read sentences, nay, pages, that are equivocal neither in language nor in sentiment, and pronounce them enchanting and delightful.

Let it be observed and remembered, that a book is always written by a man, and that it is never by any magic. or mystery any better than its author makes it to be. This author may be a wise man or a fool. He may be an honest man or a knave. He may be a man of the best intentions, but slightly, or more than slightly, elevated with a little "too gude a conceit o' himsel'." He may have something to say which it is worth the while should be said, and yet not know how to say it. But whatever he is, or knows, and has the power to communicate, that will he write down in his book, whether he thereby writes

himself down a sage, or writes himself down after the earnest desire of Justice Dogberry.

When we set ourselves to read a book, what do we do? We place ourselves in communication with a living man. We go back with him to the time when he penned the volume. We think over the thoughts which he then thought, we sympathize with the feelings which he experienced, we behold the wondrous creations which his eye, "in fine frenzy rolling," saw enter his door and live and move about him—the men and women, or the spirits of heaven and hell, to which he gave being in his mind then, and which he re-creates in our minds now.

The theme may be God and man's concerns with God: and we sympathize, it may be, with the inspired Psalmist, as he utters the language of bitter repentance, of exulting hope, of unshaken fortitude, or earnest supplication; we follow the thoughts of the eloquent apostle, who discourses so sublimely of the loftiest themes; or we listen, in the attitude of love or of worship, to the words of Him who spake as never man spake. Or perhaps Barrow pours out before us a redundantly flowing stream of thoughts, weighty for sense and copious in diction; or Baxter speaks to our hearts in fiery directness; or Taylor amazes us by his mellifluent speech and his never-ending imagery; or South astonishes us by his wit, while he instructs us with his wisdom. Or, we confer with Bacon, who drops like pearls those pregnant observations that come home to "men's business and bosoms," or, after taking us by a rapid survey over what had already been accomplished in the field of science, leads us to a height from which his prophetic eye can discern fields yet undiscovered. Spenser conducts us by devious but beguiling wanderings through the long pilgrimage of "Una and the milk-white lamb," till the Fairy Queen and fairy land become real to our thoughts and familiar to our memory. Shakspeare lets