has found that his son or his daughter has been to him a source of great trouble and pain. No doubt, if it were possible, even in one of these homes, to have one single person who was a lover of books, and knew how to spend an evening usefully with a book, and who could occasionally read something from the book to the rest of the family, perhaps to his aged parents, how great would be the blessing to the family, how great a safeguard would be afforded; and then to the men themselves, when they come-as in the case which I have mentioned-to the feebleness of age, and when they can no longer work, and when the sands of life are as it were ebbing out, what can be more advantageous, what more a blessing, than in these years of feebleness-may be sometimes of suffering-it must be often of solitude-if there be the power to derive instruction and amusement and refreshment from books which our great library will offer to every one? To the young especially this is of great importance, for if there be no seed-time, there will certainly be no harvest, and the youth of life is the seed-time of life. I see in this great meeting a number of young men. It is impossible for anybody to confer upon them a greater blessing than to stimulate them to a firm belief that to them now, and to them during all their lives, it may be a priceless gain that they should associate themselves constantly with this library, and draw from it any books they like. The more they read the more in all probability they will like and wish to read. What can be better than that the fair poetic page, the great instructions of history, the gains of science-all these are laid before us, and of these we may freely partake. I spoke of the library in the beginning of my observations as a fountain of refreshment and instruction and wisdom. Of it may be said that he who drinks shall still thirst, and thirsting for knowledge and still drinking, we may hope that he will grow to a greater mental and moral standard, more useful as a citizen, and more noble as a man.-Speech at opening of Birmingham New Free Library, June 1, 1882. LORD SHERBROOKE (ROBERT LOWE). Cultivate above all things a taste for reading. There is no pleasure so cheap, so innocent, and so remunerative as the real, hearty pleasure and taste for reading. It does not come to everyone naturally. Some people take to it naturally, and others do not; but I advise you to cultivate it, and endeavour to promote it in your minds. In order to do that you should read what amuses you and pleases you. You should not begin with difficult works, because, if you do, you will find the pursuit dry and tiresome. I would even say to you read novels, read frivolous books, read anything that will amuse you and give you a taste for reading. On this point all persons could put themselves on an equality. Some persons would say they would rather spend their time in society; but it must be remembered that if they had cultivated a taste for reading beforehand they would be in a position to choose their society, whereas, if they had not, the probabilities were that they would have to mix with people inferior to themselves, and who would pull them down rather than assist them forward. Having got the habit of reading, then is the time to consider how to turn it to the best advantage; and here you have an almost boundless field. Whatever may be said of other languages, I hold that the English language is the richest in the world in all the noblest efforts of the human intellect. Our historians and orators might rank with those of any nation and clime, and there is hardly any subject which you could not find fully and properly treated. Therefore I advise you, in the first instance, to give your minds very much to the study of English, and of the admirable works to be found in that language.Speech to the Students of the Croydon Science and Art Schools, 1869. FRANCIS BENNOCH. b. 1812 [Living]. I love my books as drinkers love their wine; I love my books! they are companions dear, And with the nobly gifted of our own: The Storm and other Poems. GEORGE GILFILLAN. 1813-1878. Let us compare the different ways in which Crabbe and Foster (certainly a prose poet) deal with a library. Crabbe describes minutely and successfully the outer features of the volumes, their colours, clasps, the stubborn ridges of their bindings, the illustrations which adorn them, so well that you feel yourself among them, and they become sensible to touch almost as to sight. But there he stops, and sadly fails, we think, in bringing out the living and moral interest which gathers around a multitude of books, or even around a single volume. This Foster has amply done. The speaking silence of a number of books, where, though it were the wide Bodleian or Vatican, not one whisper could be heard, and yet where, as in an antechamber, so many great spirits are waiting to deliver their messages-their churchyard stillness continuing even when their readers are moving to their pages, in joy or agony, as to the sound of martial instruments-their awaking, as from 'deep slumber, to speak with miraculous organ, like the shell which has only to be lifted, and "pleased it remembers its august abodes, and murmurs as the ocean murmurs there"-their power of drawing tears, kindling blushes, awakening laughter, calming or quickening the motions of the life's-blood, lulling to repose, or rousing to restlessness-the meaning which radiates from their quiet countenances-the tale of shame or glory which their title-pages tell-the memories suggested by the character of their authors, and of the readers who have throughout successive centuries perused them—the thrilling thoughts excited by the sight of names and notes inscribed on their margins or blank pages by hands long since mouldered in the dust, or by those dear to us as our life's-blood, who had been snatched from our sides-the aspects of gaiety or of gloom connected with the bindings and the age of volumes-the effects of sunshine playing as if on a congregation of happy faces, making the duskiest shine, and the gloomiest be glad-or of shadow suffusing a sombre air over all-the joy of the proprietor of a large library, who feels that Nebuchadnezzar watching great Babylon, or Napoleon reviewing his legions, will not stand comparison with himself seated amid the broad maps, and rich prints, and numerous volumes which his wealth has enabled him to collect, and his wisdom entitled him to enjoy— all such hieroglyphics of interest and meaning has Foster included and interpreted in one gloomy but noble meditation, and his introduction to Doddridge is the true "Poem on the Library."— Gallery of Literary Portraits: " George Crabbe." We admire John Foster's very long and very characteristic Preface to Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," particularly its introduction, wherein he muses on a library in a peculiar and most impressive style, spreading the genius and the gloom of his mind over the place, where a silent people have fixed their abode, filling the populous solitude of books with his reveries, and weaving a cobweb of melancholy cogitation over the crowded shelves. Books talk to him, as he sits pensive and alone: they tell him the history of those who read and those who wrote them; names inscribed |