Introductory material (continued 3)
Reading edition
Leigh Hunt! thou stingy man, Leigh Hunt! May Charon swamp thee in his punt, For having, in thy list, forgotten So many poets scarce half rotten, Who did expect of thee at least A few cheese-parings from thy Feast. Hast thou no pity on the men Who suck (as babes their tongues) the pen, Until it leaves no traces where It lighted, and seems dipped in air? At last be generous, Hunt! and prithee Refresh (and gratis too) in Lethe Yonder sick Muse, surcharged with poppies And heavier presentation-copies. She must grow livelier, and the river More potent in effect than ever. W. S. Landor.
OUR MASTER, MELEAGER
Our master, Meleager, he who framed The first Anthology and daintiest, Mated each minstrel with a flower, and named For each the blossom that beseemed him best. 'Twas then as now; garlands were somewhat rare, Candidates many: one in doleful strain Lamented thus, 'This is a sad affair; How shall I face my publisher again? Lacking some emblem suitable for me, My book's undone; I shall not sell a copy.' 'Take courage, son,' quoth Phoebus, 'there must be Somewhere or other certainly a poppy.' R. Garnett.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in't. Lord Byron.
THAT INVENTION OF THE ENEMY—AN ABRIDGEMENT
All my life long I have delighted in voluminous works; in other words, I have delighted in that sort of detail which permits so intimate a familiarity with the subjects of which it treats.... Even in this world of Beauties, and of Extracts, I do not believe myself quite alone in my love of the elaborate and the minute; and yet I doubt if many people contemplate very long very big books with the sense of coming enjoyment which such a prospect gives me; and few shrink, as I do, with aversion and horror from that invention of the enemy—an Abridgement. I never shall forget the shock I experienced in seeing Bruce, that opprobrium of an unbelieving age, that great and graphic traveller, whose eight or nine goodly volumes took such possession of me, that I named a whole colony of Bantams after his Abyssinian princes and princesses, calling a little golden strutter of a cock after that arch-tyrant the Ras Michael; and a speckled hen, the beauty of the poultry-yard, Ozoro Ester, in honour of the Ras's favourite wife—I never felt greater disgust than at seeing this magnificent work cut down to a thick, dumpy volume, seven inches by five; except, perhaps, when I happened to light upon another pet book—Drinkwater's Siege of Gibraltar, where I had first learned to tremble at the grim realities of war, had watched day by day the firing of the red-hot balls, had groped my way through the galleries, and taken refuge in the casemates,—degraded from the fair proportions of a goodly quarto into the thin and meagre pamphlet of a lending library, losing a portion of its lifelike truth with every page that was cut away.—M. R. Mitford. Recollections of a Literary Life.
ORIGINAL EDITIONS
We love, we own, to read the great productions of the human mind as they were written. We have this feeling even about scientific treatises; though we know that the sciences are always in a state of progression, and that the alterations made by a modern editor in an old book on any branch of natural or political philosophy are likely to be improvements. Some errors have been detected by writers of this generation in the speculations of Adam Smith. A short cut has been made to much knowledge at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived through arduous and circuitous paths. Yet we still look with peculiar veneration on the Wealth of Nations and on the Principia, and should regret to see either of those great works garbled even by the ablest hands. But in works which owe much of their interest to the character and situation of the writers the case is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure rifacimenti, harmonies, abridgements, expurgated editions? Who ever reads a stage-copy of a play when he can procure the original? Who ever cut open Mrs. Siddons's Milton? Who ever got through ten pages of Mr. Gilpin's translation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim into modern English? Who would lose, in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which belongs to the narrative of the disciple whom Jesus loved? The feeling of a reader who has become intimate with any great original work is that which Adam expressed towards his bride:
'Should God create another Eve, and I Another rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart.'
No substitute, however exquisitely formed, will fill the void left by the original. The second beauty may be equal or superior to the first; but still it is not she.—Lord Macaulay. Boswell's Life of Johnson.
DEDICATIONS
Above all the rest, the gross and palpable flattery whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning (as Du Bartas saith) Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication of books and writings, as to patrons, to be commended: for that books (such as are worthy the name of books) ought to have no patrons but truth and reason.—F. Bacon, Lord Verulam. Of the Advancement of Learning.
PRESENTATION COPIES
I want to read you some new passages from an interleaved copy of my book. You haven't read the printed part yet. I gave you a copy of it, but nobody reads a book that is given to him. Of course not. Nobody but a fool expects him to. He reads a little in it here and there, perhaps, and he cuts all the leaves if he cares enough about the writer, who will be sure to call on him some day, and if he is left alone in his library for five minutes will have hunted every corner of it until he has found the book he sent,—if it is to be found at all, which doesn't always happen, if there's a penal colony anywhere in a garret or closet for typographical offenders and vagrants.—O. W. Holmes. The Poet at the Breakfast-Table.
POETS AND THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Old poets fostered under friendlier skies, Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say, At dawn, and lavish all the golden day To make them wealthier in his readers' eyes; And you, old popular Horace, you the wise Adviser of the nine-years-pondered lay, And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay, Catullus, whose dead songster never dies; If glancing downward on the kindly sphere That once had rolled you round and round the Sun, You see your Art still shrined in human shelves, You should be jubilant that you flourished here Before the Love of Letters, overdone, Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves. Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
MEN IN THEIR NIGHTGOWNS
Writing of Lives is very profitable, both to the memory of the party, and to posterity. They do better lance into secret humours, and present men in their nightgowns, when they are truly themselves. A general may be more perfectly discovered on his pallet, than when he appears in the head of an army.—John Hall. Horae Vacivae.
BIOGRAPHY
Oh, that mine enemy had written a book!—and that it were my life; unless indeed it provoked my friend to write another.
It has always appeared to me a strong argument for the non-existence of spirits that these friendly microscopic biographers are not haunted by the ghosts of the unfortunate men whom they persist in holding up to public contempt.—Sir A. Helps. Thoughts in the Cloister.
BIOGRAPHY PREFERRED TO HISTORY
Read French authors. Read Rochefoucauld. The French writers are the finest in the world, for they clear our heads of all ridiculous ideas....
Read no history, nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.—B. Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Contarini Fleming.
ON READING TRANSLATIONS
The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn's Library have done for literature what railroads have done for internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have named, and all good books, in translations. What is really best in any book is translatable,—any real insight or broad human sentiment. Nay, I observe that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral tone, it seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of the original into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling at translators,—i traditori traduttori; but I thank them. I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across the Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in my mother-tongue.—R. W. Emerson. Books.
ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien. J. Keats.
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CLASSICS
Others again here livèd in my days That have of us deservèd no less praise For their translations than the daintiest wit That on Parnassus thinks he highest doth sit. And for a chair may 'mongst the Muses call As the most curious maker of them all: As reverent Chapman, who hath brought to us Musaeus, Homer, and Herodotus Out of the Greek, and by his skill hath reared Them to that height and to our tongue endeared That, were those poets at this day alive To see their books thus with us to survive, They would think, having neglected them so long, They had been written in the English tongue. M. Drayton. To Henry Reynolds.
It is good to have translations, because they serve as a comment, so far as the judgement of one man goes.—J. Selden.
TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND MASTER GEORGE CHAPMAN
Whose work could this be, Chapman, to refine Old Hesiod's ore, and give it thus! but thine, Who hadst before wrought in rich Homer's mine. What treasure hast thou brought us! and what store Still, still, dost thou arrive with at our shore, To make thy honour and our wealth the more! If all the vulgar tongues that speak this day Were asked of thy discoveries, they must say, To the Greek coast thine only knew the way. Such passage hast thou found, such returns made, As now of all men, it is called thy trade, And who make thither else, rob or invade. Ben Jonson.
WHEN TRANSLATIONS ARE TO BE PREFERRED
The reason the classics are not read is because there still lingers a tradition, handed down from the eighteenth century, that it is useless to read them unless in the original. A tone of sarcastic contempt is maintained towards the person who shall presume to peruse Xenophon not in the original Greek, or Virgil not in the original Latin.
In the view of these critics it is the Greek, it is the Latin, that is valuable, not the contents of the volume. Shakespeare, however, the greatest genius of England, thought otherwise. It is known that his ideas of Grecian and Roman history were derived from somewhat rude translations, yet it is acknowledged that the spirit of the ancient warriors and of the ancient luxury lives in his Antony and Cleopatra, and nowhere in all the ancient writers is there a poem breathing the idea of Aphrodite like his Venus and Adonis. The example of so great a genius may shield us in an effort to free the modern mind from this eighteenth-century incubus.
The truth is, the classics are much better understood in a good translation than in the original. To obtain a sufficient knowledge of Greek, for instance, to accurately translate is almost the work of a lifetime. Concentration upon this one pursuit gradually contracts the general perceptions, and it has often happened that an excellent scholar has been deficient in common knowledge, as shown by the singular character of his own notes. But his work of translation in itself is another matter.
It is a treasure; from it poets derive their illustrations; dramatists their plots; painters their pictures. A young mind full of intelligence, coming to such a translation, enters at once into the spirit of the ancient writer. A good translation is thus better than the original.—R. Jefferies. The Dewy Morn.
'THAT SILLY VANITY OF IMPERTINENT CITATIONS'
'Twas this vain idolizing of authors which gave birth to that silly vanity of impertinent citations, and inducing authority in things neither requiring nor deserving it. That saying was much more observable, That men have beards and women none, because quoted from Beza; and that other, Pax res bona est, because brought in with a 'said St. Austin'. But these ridiculous fooleries, to your more generous discerners, signify nothing but the pedantry of the affected sciolist. 'Tis an inglorious acquist to have our heads or volumes laden as were Cardinal Campeius his mules, with old and useless baggage.—J. Glanvill. The Vanity of Dogmatizing.
QUOTATION
In quoting of books, quote such authors as are usually read; others you may read for your own satisfaction, but not name them.
Quoting of authors is most for matter of fact; and then I write them as I would produce a witness; sometimes for a free expression, and then I give the author his due, and gain myself praise by reading him.
To quote a modern Dutchman where I may use a classic author, is as if I were to justify my reputation, and I neglect all persons of note and quality that know me, and bring the testimonial of the scullion in the kitchen.—J. Selden. Table Talk.
MERIT IN QUOTATION
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.... We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, and find a new and fervent sense; as a passage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new interest from the rendering. As the journals say, 'the italics are ours.' The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it. The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century; and Milton's prose, and Burke, even, have their best fame within it. Every one, too, remembers his friends by their favourite poetry or other reading.
Observe, also, that a writer appears to more advantage in the pages of another book than in his own. In his own, he waits as a candidate for your approbation; in another's he is a lawgiver.—R. W. Emerson. Quotation and Originality.
WHAT SHAKESPEARE HATH LEFT US
Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage, My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth live, And we have wits to read, and praise to give. That I not mix thee so my brain excuses; I mean, with great but disproportioned Muses. For, if I thought my judgement were of years, I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers. And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence, to honour thee, I will not seek For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread And shake a stage; or when thy sock was on, Leave thee alone, for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth; or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or, like a Mercury, to charm. Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines, Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please; But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of Nature's family. Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the Poet's matter Nature be His art doth give the fashion. And that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat (Such as thine are), and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil, turn the same (And himself with it), that he thinks to frame; Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn! For a good Poet's made as well as born; And such wert thou! Look how the father's face Lives in his issue; even so, the race Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turnèd and true-filèd lines; In each of which he seems to shake a lance As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our water yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames That so did take Eliza, and our James! Ben Jonson.
ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE
This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With Nature, to outdo the life. Oh, could he but have drawn his wit As well in brass, as he has hit His face, the print would then surpass All that was ever writ in brass. But, since he cannot, reader, look Not on his picture, but his book. Ben Jonson.
SHAKESPEARE'S LIVELONG MONUMENT
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument. For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book, Those Delphic lines with deep impression took, Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. J. Milton.
UNDER MR. MILTON'S PICTURE BEFORE HIS 'PARADISE LOST'
Three Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty, in both the last: The force of Nature could no farther go; To make a third she joined the former two. J. Dryden.