Μέγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακόν. 11 scattered though they be, repeated to satiety, and so choked and overgrown withal by innumerable fallacies, that it were a matter of nice calculation whether mankind would not rather benefit by the destruction of the whole collection! Verily, if anywhere, most of all in a great library like this, do the words of the preacher come home unto me, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"" 66 The volumes seem to speak to me from the walls," continued the other, "inviting me to converse with them. Besides those glorious masterpieces of antiquity, of which I already know somewhat, how much is there in my own tongue awaiting me! The historians-how different and yet each with his peculiar charm! here, stately and measured narration; there, charming and inimitable diction; yonder, patient investigation and philosophic disquisition; beyond, eloquent and soul-stirring description; this one, like the miner in his dark recesses, lighting up and discovering obscure annals and forgotten epochs; the other, adorning and illustrating the noblest and greatest passages in the world's history. But all with the same aim, to instruct and elevate me, to take me beyond the little sphere in which I live, and make me wise with all the lessons of the past. There, too, are the poets and romancers-with what enthusiasm shall I read them, finding there sympathy with all my emotions, food for the highest susceptibilities of my nature! How shall I delight to re-peruse and criticise them, comparing their excellencies, illustrating their fancies, and making, what I most admire, part, as it were, of my own intellectual being! See too, where Science invites me, with her marvellous discoveries and ever growing lore! How eagerly shall I investigate the laws of light and heat, of motion and of matter, of the great system in which I am but as a speck of dust or a grain of sand, go up to the first fountain of my being, the eternal and the everlasting, and learn at last, in contemplation of the Infinite, 'to look through Nature up to Nature's God!' Once more, there are the divines and theologians, and, among them the keenest of intellects and the holiest of men. How will it be at once my duty and my delight to examine the credentials of my belief, to study its history, and to apprehend the philosophy of its ethics and its design! "Looking at each department of knowledge here represented," soliloquised the other, "how at variance are the authorities! until like the quantities of a long equation, they neutralise each other, and the equivalent obtained in un deniable truth, may be written down as nothing! See those shelves laden with historians, Quot libri, tot sententiæ,' this one reading events and their results in one light, that one in another, until scarcely the facts seem common. See the legends and fables there, the disregard for the most notorious circumstantial evidence here! Old historians foolishly credulous, new historians foolishly sceptical! Until one begins to doubt whether the professed writers of history have not rather obscured and rendered ambiguous what mere tradition had better preserved. The poets, too! what mere tinsel now appears what formerly I most admired! words which once flushed my cheek and made my heart beat quicker, how their light has died away! Where once I saw nothing but what was just, graceful, and sublime, how much of false imagery and meretricious ornament I now discern, how little that my judgment and fancy alike approve! Nor when I turn to where stand ranged the treatises of science, can I pretend to much more real satisfaction at the sight. Granted that I see much of unimpeachable, well established truth, how trivial is the amount when compared with the unexplored and the unknown! The sum of human effort seems, here, but to have lit, in a dark illimitable cavern, one tiny lamp, whose rays just suffice to show mysteries which the human mind shall never penetrate, labyrinths which my limited faculties shall never explore. Lastly, there are the stores of theology-what portentous volumes have mounted those shelves since first I saw them! debating not merely an isolated doctrine, but unteaching me half that I learned at my mother's knee, or confessed at the altar of my church." "But if there be one thought," continued the youth, "which more than any other thrills me with enthusiasm, it is to think what a glorious prospect here opens on my age. With such a foundation, what a superstructure may we look to raise! So much error detected, so much truth established, with what increased freedom shall the human mind now travel on its onward path, sounding depths of natural science and rising to heights of philosophic thought undreamed of by the past generations! And it will be my grand privilege to help in this noble work-perchance to leave behind a name which posterity shall cherish and venerate!" The bell, that marked the hour for closing the library, now sounded; the reverie of each was broken, nor did the crowded thoroughfare prove very favourable to the continuance of such meditations. Which of these thinkers was Μέγα βίβλιον, μέγα κακόν. 13 nearer truth? or did the " golden mean" lie somewhere half way between the two? To be candid, we are bound personally to confess to a sensation of something like mental nausea, when surveying a huge library. That the feeling is more justifiable or natural than would be the loss of appetite at the sight of a magnificent banquet, from which we must rise, leaving untasted many a tempting dish, we are not prepared to shew; but the fact remains, and we do undoubtedly contemplate with more complacency a certain niche in our own study, where we are not scandalised by names of authors, before unheard of, each stretching away on the backs of some dozen goodly octavo volumes. The sight of such vast collections humiliates us. With the utmost industry and energy how small the fraction we can hope to make our own! Were it not better to give. over the toil and trouble we are wont to expend on this fraction, and to take our ease in content and ignorance? "To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?" The words of Sir Thomas Brown, in his Religio Medici, come back to us:- "There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books, which tells me it is vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge; it is but waiting a little longer and we shall enjoy that by instinct and infusion, which we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition. It is better to sit down in a modest ignorance and rest contented with the natural blessings of our own reasons, than buy the uncertain knowledge of this life with sweat and vexation, which death gives to every fool gratis, and is an accessory of 'our' glorification." We think, too, of that exquisitely beautiful plaint of one of our greatest modern writers, that on such occasions his feelings were like those which drew tears from Xerxes, on viewing his vast army, and reflecting that in one hundred years not one soul would remain alive. For to himself, with respect to the books, the same effect would be brought about by his own death. There is yet another view, more healthy as it seems to us than this, more rational than the ambition which would grasp at all. It points to the subdivision of labour—a law in the intellectual as well as the physical progress of mankind. The age of admirable Crichtons has gone by. The man who, in the present day, should profess to speak with authority in all the many present subdivisions of human knowledge, would be laughed at as a mere pretender. The age is getting intolerant even of such sciolism as that of Frederic Schlegel, who aimed at universality in literature simply; but whoever, being possessed of fair abilities, will devote himself mainly to one section of Literature or Science and assume to know but that, will always command a hearing. An amusing article appeared a short time ago, in one of our most popular contemporaries, entitled "Why should we write more Books?" wherein it was argued with much humour, that it were well we should discontinue writing and take simply to reading. There were already more books in our libraries than we could read, supposing we were to allot, say half a century, as a breathing space wherein to make ourselves better acquainted with what we possess, and to accumulate some really new material for theory and practice to work upon. The laws of Nature rule, however, even in the domain of letters. As well might we expect that the years should pass, bringing no spring time, and yet "—with Autumn's yellow lustre gild the world," as that the human mind should move onward, assimilating past thought, but producing nothing new. We remember once hearing it debated, and arguments of some ingenuity were adduced on both sides, whether the burning of the Alexandrine Library were not, after all, a benefit to the world. Without discussing the question, we would venture to suggest broadly, that no true philosopher would wish to see any past product of the human mind utterly lost to us. Though noticeable only for its folly and absurdity, it may yet be useful as a danger signal for the future. Many an incipient theory has doubtless been crushed in the shell by the discovery, on the part of its originator, that his craze, untenable and absurd though it may have been, had been anticipated by some centuries. An exploded book will sometimes serve, like the Irishman's sign post, to shew the way the road does not go. It may save the future traveller some fruitless steps. Failures and follies, to the wise, are but stepping stones to truth. Δ. THE DON. I WAS reading Mathematics I. Our fellows' grounds are fresh and fair, The banks are green, they say; I'd rather be an idler there, Than reading for the May. And as I passed through fair St. John's Beneath the turrets high, A Freshman envying the Dons, Was sighing dolefully: "Our fellows' grounds are fresh and fair, And college rooms are dreary; I'd rather roam an idler there, II. "If Freshman, thou of those wouldst be Who drink our college wine; Thou first must guess what life lead we, Who at high table dine; And when you've told the riddle o'er, As tell full well you may, Then tell me if you still deplore That this is your first May." "Yet, sighed he, college grounds are fair, And college rooms are dreary, I'd rather roam an idler there, Than study Lunar Theory. |