SLIGHT HINTS ON GENERAL READING (1859.)

(These trifling suggestions were written at the request of a friend, for the use of two young men who had just left College.)

I AM by no means able to suggest a general course of reading with anything like completeness: having never had the time or the faculties to overtake more than a portion of the standard books which I should wish to know, or to properly master and recollect those which I have read. In fact I shall mention some books which, I can answer for it, ought to be read, but which I have myself hardly read, if at all.

The great impediment to reading good old books, besides the avocations of life, is the mass of new books: by which I mean books published within the last (about) fifty years.

No doubt within that time there have appeared a very large number of books, of which we are quite certain that they are good, will last, and ought to be read. More than that, it may truly be said that any one might be a very hard reader, read many hours every day, and read no book whatever except those published within the current year. And in that way he would get a great deal of excellent reading and information. But this is of course not what any one would deliberately recommend and in this paper I am not about to say any

thing, except incidentally, about books published within the time I have mentioned. I confine myself to English and French. Of French books of that period, with a few exceptions, I know very little; they would alone be the study of a lifetime. And with regard to English recent books, there is little fear that any one, who is at all fond of any reading, will not read a sufficient portion of them: the danger is that he should read too much of them.

Among other advantages, the older books have this one, that the verdict of good judges is pretty well settled by this time about them. We can say pretty well which of them are worth reading and which not: whereas that is still doubtful, and will remain so for long, concerning new books, of which the immediate popularity or the reverse is no adequate test.

Before adverting to general reading, which is my proper subject, I will say a few words on two or three more special subjects.

Advice for theological reading such as a layman ought to pursue, is best obtained from some learned divine. On this point I will only venture to say that I cannot but think, contrary to what is often held, that there are several religious works, Sermons in particular, in the theology of the English Church of the last thirty years, which, with a few exceptions, are at least as well worth reading as any of the older, in the circumstances of these days.

I do not know whether those for whom I am writing are likely to keep up their classical reading. I should not advise any one to do so who cannot read Greek and Latin with tolerable facility and enjoyment. But for

whoever can do so, I am very sure that nothing he can do has a greater effect in keeping the mind cheerful and genial one great purpose of reading habits.

The rule in this matter is plain enough, for one who cannot make a study of the classics, and does not read them for any limited object: it is simply to read none but the best. It is quite certain that no general reader will ever have time for more.

In Greek, Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Pindar, the Tragedians, Theocritus: in Latin, Virgil, Horace, Terence, Cicero, Cæsar, Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, Lucretius, Ovid, Catullus, Juvenal, will far more than fill up all the time he will be able to give to them.

The objects of what is called general reading may probably be classified in a twofold manner. First, subjectively, we wish to keep our minds in a state both (as above noted) cheerful and genial, and also well disciplined and ready for work; and next, in the objective view, we should endeavour to have that amount of information which is fairly needed for the intercourse of cultivated society, and which is necessary for the duties of private life or of public life (so as not to be unable to enter on it, if we seem to have a call to do so, from want of proper knowledge and information); or of that sort of mixture of public and private life which English gentlemen, living in the country, are often naturally led to engage in.

This seems to be the general principle; which I can illustrate but very imperfectly in detail.

First, having excluded recent books on the grounds stated, I must also exclude the very old ones on different

ones. I do not know the languages, either in English or French, enough to read them with any satisfaction. I cannot read Chaucer, and I cannot read Froissart. But it needs not to be said that if any one will enable himself to read those and other early writers, he will be amply repaid.

To dispose first of French literature-as I can say less about it, and what I say need not be classified according to subjects-the earliest French that I can read with tolerable facility is that of Montaigne: a French classic undoubtedly, and a most remarkable man, but whose works do not seem to me very profitable to read, nor do I think that they ought to be read in youth.

Sully, who wrote not very long after, is much easier, and undoubtedly should be read, though he is rather prolix. Comines (very much earlier), besides being in obsolete French, seemed to me much less interesting than we should expect.

These two, however, indicate, as I conceive, the most distinguishing excellence of French literature. In regular History (though I do not profess much acquaintance with it) I do not believe they have many works (till recently, when I imagine Guizot, Thierry, Sismondi, and others, can hardly be too much read) of great repute in England. To a less extent I imagine the same may be said of regular Biography. But in Memoirs they are entirely unrivalled. The Memoirs relating to the great Revolution alone would take a good part of many years to read, and, as far as I have seen, are almost all of them good to read, from the extraordinary interest of the subject. Nearly the same might be said of the Memoirs in the time of Louis XIV. St. Simon (omitting huge

lumps of the genealogic, heraldic, and ceremonial rubbish which he had so strange a delight in, and also much which is only fit for the Scandalous Chronicle) is probably the model of all Memoir-writers.

But we should be careful to give only a moderate proportion of time to these writings, for they are of a very light kind, and would dissipate the mind.

The same should be said of Letters, in which the French have not, perhaps, so marked a superiority over us generally, but in which they have one collection to which no other even approaches. I have never felt fascination from any book to compare with that produced by the Letters of Madame de Sévigné.

Madame de Maintenon's letters are also eminently well worth reading. (Of course these are only mentioned as specimens.)

It may, perhaps, be said that the French are weaker in their philosophical literature (apart from religious, and also from physical philosophy) than in any other. Even Montesquieu is probably read rather on account of the immense influence and reputation which he had in last century, than from any very great present value in his work; and I should doubt whether, even excluding all that is positively objectionable, there is a page in the voluminous writings of Voltaire that it can be of much advantage to an Englishman to read.

But this is true only of moral writings, as conventionally distinguished from religious. The great divines of Louis XIV.'s time-Pascal, Nicole, Bossuet, Fénélon, Bourdaloue, Massillon-are to be read by us not so much (mostly) as theological authorities (though I conceive it is not often that distinctively Romish doctrines are dwelt