THE

Book-Lover's Enchiridion.

SOLOMON. B.C. 1033-975.

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.Proverbs xiii. 20.

A word spoken in due season, how good is it !— Proverbs xv. 23.

Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.-Proverbs xxiii. 12.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings; so you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for. Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.

PLATO.

B.C. 427-347.

Books are the immortal sons deifying their sires.

B

INSCRIPTION ON THE LIBRARY AT ALEXANDRIA. FOUNDED ABOUT 300 B. C.

THE NOURISHment of the SOUL; or, according to Diodorus, THE MEDICINE OF THE MIND.

CICERO. B.C. 106-41.

Nam ceteræ neque temporum sunt, neque ætatum omnium, neque locorum; at hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.-Pro Archia Poeta, cap. 7.

Trans. For other occupations are not for all times, or all ages, or all places. But these studies are the aliment of youth, the comfort of old age; an adornment of prosperity, a refuge and a solace in adversity; a delight in our home, and no incumbrance abroad; companions in our long nights, in our travels, in our country retirement. [Translated by R. R. D.]

Remember not to give up your books to anybody; but keep them, as you say, for me. I entertain the strongest affection for them, as I do now disgust for everything else.

Keep your books and do not despair of my being able to make them mine; which, if I accomplish, I shall exceed Croesus in riches, and look down with contempt upon the houses and lands of all the world.Epistles to Atticus, vii. ix. [Heberden's Translation.]

I have at all times free access to my books; they are never occupied.—De Rep., i.

HORACE. B.C. 65-8.

Lectio, quæ placuit, decies repetita placebit.-De Arte Poet., line 365.

Trans. The reading which has pleased, will please when repeated ten times.

O rus, quando ego te aspiciam ? quandoque licebit, Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis, Ducere solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ ?

Sat. II.

Trans. O country, when shall I behold thee? When shall I be permitted to enjoy a sweet oblivion of the anxieties of life, sometimes occupied with the writings of the men of old, sometimes in slumbrous ease, or tranquil abstraction? [Translated by R. R. D.]

SENECA. B.C. 58—A.D. 32.

The reading of many authors, and of all kinds of works, has in it something vague and unstable.— Epist. 2.

The multitude of books distracts.-Id. 2.

It does not matter how many, but how good, books you have.-Id. 15.

Definite reading is profitable; miscellaneous reading is pleasant.-Id. 45.

Leisure without study is death, and the grave of a living man.-Id. 82.

If you devote your time to study, you will avoid all the irksomeness of this life; nor will you long for the

approach of night, being tired of the day; nor will you be a burden to yourself, nor your society insupportable to others.-Id. 82.

Reading nourishes the mind, and, when it is wearied with study, refreshes it, but not without study.— Id. 84.

We ought to imitate the bees, and to separate all the materials which we have gathered from multifarious reading, for they keep best separate; and then, by applying the study and ability of our own minds, to concoct all those various contributions into one flavour. -Id. 84.

He that is well employed in his study, though he may seem to do nothing, yet does the greatest things of all others.-Id. 84.

What is the use of countless books and libraries whose owner hardly reads through their titles in his whole life?-De Tranq. An. 9.

The crowd of teachers is burdensome and not instructive; and it is much better to trust yourself to a few good authors than to wander through several.— Id. 9.

Procure a sufficient number of books, but not for show.-Id. 9.

As long as the aliments of which we have partaken retain their own nature and float as solids in our stomach, they are burdensome; but when they have changed from their former state, then, and not till then, they enter into our strength and blood. Let us do the same with the foods which nourish our minds, so that we do not suffer the things we have taken in

to remain whole and foreign. Let us digest them! otherwise they enter our memory, but not our mind.— Id. 84. [Translated by J. N.]

We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.

AULUS GELlius.

cir. 117-180 A.D.

The things which are well said do not improve the disposition of the young so much as those which are wickedly said corrupt them. -Noct. Att. 12, 2.

GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW.

A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things.

By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.-St. Matthew xii. 35 and 37.

QUINTILIAN. A.D. 42-115.

Reading is free, and does not exhaust itself with the act, but may be repeated, in case you are in doubt, or wish to impress it deeply on the memory. Let us repeat it; and-just as we swallow our food masticated and nearly fluid, in order that it may be more easily digested-so our reading should not be delivered to the memory in its crude state, but sweetened and worked up by frequent repetition.—Inst. Orat. 10, I.