It can hardly be conceived how life, short as it is, can be passed without many intervals of tedium, by those who have not their bread to earn, if they could not call in the assistance of our worthy mute friends, the Books. Horses, hounds, the theatres, cards, and the bottle, are all of use occasionally, no doubt; but the weather may forbid the two first; a kind of nonsense may drive us from the third; the association of others is necessary for the fourth, and also for the fifth, unless to those who are already sunk into the lowest state of wretchedness and degradation: but the entertainment which BOOKS afford, can be enjoyed in the worst weather, can be varied as we please, obtained in solitude, and instead of blunting, it sharpens the understanding; but the most valuable effect of a taste for reading is, that it often preserves us from bad company. For those are not apt to go or remain with disagreeable people abroad, who are always certain of a pleasant party at home.-Zeluco; Various Views of Human Nature,

&c.

WILLIAM COWPER.

1731-1800.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

'Tis pleasant through the loop-holes of retreat
To peep at such a world. To see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls in soft murmur on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting and surveying them at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all.

Oh Winter! ruler of the inverted year,

Thy scatter'd hair with sleet-like ashes fill'd,
Thy breath congeal'd upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne

A sliding car indebted to no wheels,

But urged by storms along its slippery way;

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st
And dreaded as thou art.

I crown thee King of intimate delight,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening know.

Come, evening, once again, season of peace,
Return, sweet evening, and continue long!

Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm
Or make me so. Composure is thy gift.

And whether I devote thy gentle hours
To books, to music, or the poet's toil,

I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.

How calm is my recess ! and how the frost
Raging abroad, and the rough wind endear
The silence and the warmth enjoy'd within.

The Task, Book iv., The Winter Evening.

Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
The Task, Book vi., The Winter Walk at Noon.

EDWARD GIBBON.

1737-1794.

A taste for books is the pleasure and glory of my life. ... I would not exchange it for the wealth of the Indies. The miseries of a vacant life are never known to a man whose hours are insufficient for the inexhaustible pleasures of study. . . . The love of study, a passion which derives great vigour from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual round. of independent and rational pleasure. -Autobiography.

Let us read with method, and propose to ourselves an end to what our studies may point. The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

1746-1794.

I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that they contain more

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sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have been written.

DANIEL WYTTENBACH.

1746-1820.

There is no business, no avocation whatever, which will not permit a man, who has the inclination, to give a little time, every day, to study.

COUNTESS DE GENLIS.

1746—1830.

Books are à guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds; and these invaluable communications are within the reach of all.-Memoires, &c.

At the head of all the pleasures which offer themselves to the man of liberal education, may confidently be placed that derived from books. In variety, durability, and facility of attainment, no other can stand in competition with it; and even in intensity it is inferior to few. Imagine that we had it in our

power to call up the shades of the greatest and wisest men that ever existed, and oblige them to converse with us on the most interesting topics-what an inestimable privilege should we think it!-how superior to all common enjoyments! But in a wellfurnished library we, in fact, possess this power. We can question Xenophon and Cæsar on their campaigns, make Demosthenes and Cicero plead before us, join' in the audiences of Socrates and Plato, and receive demonstrations from Euclid and Newton. In books we . have the choicest thoughts of the ablest men in their best dress. We can at pleasure exclude dulness and impertinence, and open our doors to wit and good sense alone. It is needless to repeat the high commendations that have been bestowed on the study of letters by persons, who had free access to every other source of gratification. Instead of quoting Cicero to you, I shall in plain terms give you the result of my own experience on this subject. If domestic enjoyments have contributed in the first degree to the happiness of my life (and I should be ungrateful not to acknowledge that they have), the pleasures of reading have beyond all question held the second place. Without books I have never been able to pass a single day to my entire satisfaction: with them, no day has been so dark as not to have its pleasure. Even pain and sickness have for a time been charmed away by them. By the easy provision of a book in my pocket, I have frequently worn through long nights and days in the most disagreeable parts of my profession, with all the difference in my feelings between calm content and fretful impatience. Such occurrences have afforded