CHAPTER CLX.

MENTION OF ONE FOR WHOM THE GERMANS WOULD COIN A DESIGNATION WHICH MIGHT BE TRANSLATED A ONCE-READER. MANY MINDS IN THE SAME MAN. A POET'S UNREASONABLE REQUEST. THE AUTHOR OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO HIS READERS, AND ENFORCES IT BY AN EPISCOPAL OPINION.

Judge not before
    Thou know mine intent;
But read me throughout,
    And then say thy fill;
As thou in opinion
    Art minded and bent,
Whether it be
    Either good or ill.
                                  E. P.

I have heard of a man who made it a law for himself never to read any book again which had greatly pleased him on a first perusal; lest a second reading should in some degree disturb the pleasurable impression which he wished to retain of it. This person must have read only for his amusement, otherwise he would have known that a book is worth little if it deserves to be perused but once: and moreover that as the same landscape appears differently at different seasons of the year, at morning and at evening, in bright weather and in cloudy, by moonlight, and at noon-day, so does the same book produce a very different effect upon the same reader at different times and under different circumstances.

I have elsewhere said that the man of one book is proverbially formidable; but the man of one reading, though he should read through an ample library would never become so.

The studious man who at forty re-peruses books which he has read in his youth or early manhood, vivid as his recollections of them may be, finds them new, because he brings another mind to the perusal. Worthless ones with which he may formerly have been delighted appear flat and unprofitable to his maturer judgement; and on the other hand sterling merit which he was before unable to appreciate, he can now understand and value, having in his acquired knowledge, and habits of reflection the means of assaying it.

Sometimes a Poet, when he publishes what in America would be called a lengthy poem, with lengthy annotations, advises the reader in his preface, not to read the notes in their places, as they occur, lest they should interrupt his clear perception and enjoyment of the piece, but to read the poem by itself at first; and then, for his more full contentment, to begin again, and peruse the notes in their order, whereby he will be introduced to the more minute and recondite merits of the work.

If the poets who calculate upon many such readers are not wise in their generation, they are happy in it.

What I request of my dear readers is far more reasonable, and yet perhaps not much more likely to be granted; I request them, that in justice to themselves,—for that they may not lose any part of the pleasure which I have designed for them; and in justice to me,—that I may not be defrauded of any portion of that grateful applause, which after a due perusal they will undoubtedly bestow upon the benevolent unknown;—and in justice to the ever-honored subject of these volumes,—lest a hasty and erroneous judgement of his character should be formed, when it is only partially considered;—I request that they would not dip into these volumes before they read them, nor while they are reading them, but that they would be pleased to go through the book regularly, in the order of the chapters, and that when they recommend the book to their friends, (as they will do with the friendly intention of contributing to their entertainment and instruction,) they would particularly advise them to begin at the beginning, or more accurately speaking at the seventh chapter before the beginning, and so peruse it consecutively.

So doing, reader, thou wilt perceive the method and the order of the work, developing before thee as thou readest; thou wilt then comprehend and admire the connection of the parts, and their dependence upon each other, and the coherence and beauty of the whole. Whereas were you only to dip into it here and there, you would from such a cursory and insufficient inspection come perhaps to the same conclusion, “wherein nothing was concluded” as the man did concerning Bailey's Dictionary, who upon returning the book to a neighbour from whom he had borrowed it, said that he was much obliged to him for the loan, and that he had read it through, from beginning to end, and had often been much entertained by it, and was sure that the Author must have been a very knowing person;—but—added he to confess the truth, I have never been able clearly to make out what the book is about.

Now as opposite causes will sometimes produce a like effect, thou mightest, by reading this book partially, come to the same inconclusive conclusion concerning it, that our friend did by reading straight forward through Bailey's Dictionary; though considering what there is in that Dictionary, his time might have been worse employed—I very well remember when I was some ten years old, learning from an abridgement of it as much about Abracadabra as I know now. I exhort thee therefore to begin ab ovo, with the ante-initial chapters, and to read the whole regularly; and this advice I give, bearing in mind what Bishop Hacket says in his life of the Lord Keeper, Archbishop Williams, when he inserts a speech of that Chancellor-Prelate's, at full length:

“This he delivered, thus much: and I took counsel with myself not to abbreviate it. For it is so compact and pithy that he that likes a little, must like it all. Plutarch gives a rule for sanity to him that eats a tortoise, ᾿η ὅλην, ἠ μη ὃλως, eat it up all, or not a whit.” The reason assigned for this rule would look better in Plutarch's Greek than in the Episcopal English; being paraphrased it imports that a small portion of such food is apt to produce intestinal pains; but that a hearty meal has the wholesome effect of those pills which by a delicate and beautiful euphuism of Dr. Kitchener's are called Peristaltic Persuaders. “So,” proceeds the Bishop, “the speech of a great orator is instructive when it is entire: pinch it into an epitome, you mangle the meaning and avile the eloquence.”