AIDS TO THOUGHT JULIUS C. HARE FOR my own part, I have ever gained the most profit, and the most pleasure also, from the books which have made me think the most: and, when the difficulties have once been overcome, these are the books which have struck the deepest root, not only in my memory and understanding, but likewise in my affections. For this point too should be taken into account. We are wont to think slightly of that, which it costs us a slight effort to win. When a maiden is too forward, her admirer deems it time to draw back. Whereas whatever has associated itself with the arousal and activity of our better nature, with the important and memorable epochs in our lives, whether moral or intellectual, is, to cull a sprig from the beautiful passage in which Wordsworth describes the growth of Michael's love for his native hills,— Our living being, even more Than our own blood, and, — could it less? — retains A pleasurable feeling of blind love, The pleasure which there is in life itself. ·Guesses at Truth. SALVETE, LIBRI, SINE DOCTORE THOMAS FULLER SOLOMON saith truly, "Of making many books there is no end;" so insatiable is the thirst of men therein: as also endless is the desire of many in buying and reading them. But we come to our rules. 1. It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a large library. As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well furnished armory. I guess good housekeeping by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them (built merely for uniformity) are without chimneys, and more without fires. Once a dunce, void of learning but full of books, flouted a library-less scholar with these words, Salve, doctor sine libris: but the next day the scholar coming into this jeerer's study crowded with books, - Salvete, libri, saith he, sine doctore. 2. Few books well selected are best. Yet, as a certain fool bought all the pictures that came out, because he might have his choice; such is the vain humour of many men in gathering of books: yet when they have done all, they miss their end, it being in the editions of authors as in the fashions of clothes, when a man thinks he hath gotten the latest and newest, presently another newer comes out. 3. Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of. Namely, first voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, only to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them you look through them; and he that peeps through the casement of the index sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those cannot be excused who perfunctorily pass over authors of consequence, and only trade in their tables of contents. These, like city-cheaters, having gotten the names of all country gentlemen, make silly people believe they have long lived in those places where they never were, and flourish with skill in those authors they never seriously studied. 4. The genius of the author is commonly discovered in the dedicatory epistle. Many place the purest grain in the mouth of the sack for chapmen to handle or buy; and from the dedication one may probably guess at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus, when once a gentleman admired how so pithy, learned, and witty a dedication was matched to a dull, flat, foolish book: “In truth," said another, "they may be well matched together, for I profess they are nothing akin." 5. Proportion an hour's meditation to an hour's reading of a staple author. This makes a man master of his learning, and dispirits the book into the scholar. The King of Sweden never filed his men above six deep in one company, because he would not have them lie in useless clusters in his army, but so that every particular soldier might be drawn out into service. Books that stand thin on the shelves, yet so as the owner of them can bring forth every one of them into use, are better than far bigger libraries. 6. Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printer hath lost. Arias Montanus, in printing the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Bible of the King of Spain), much wasted himself, and was accused in the court of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, pro tantorum laborum præmio vix veniam impetravit. Likewise Christopher Plantin, by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp, through the unreasonable actions of the king's officers, sunk and almost ruined his estate. And our worthy English knight who set forth the golden-mouthed Father in a silver print was a loser by it. 7. Whereas foolish pamphlets prove most beneficial to the printers. When a French printer complained that he was utterly undone by printing a solid, serious book of Rabelais concerning physic, Rabelais, to make him recompence, made that his |