BOO
BOO
hortus pletms fruSfibus, pratum foribus difiinclum, memoria pe- rms, vita recordations ; meatus properat, jujfus fejlinat,, fern- per pmjlo ejl, nunqua?n non morigerus, rogatus confefthn rejpon- det : arcana revelat, obfeura illujlrat, ambigua certiorate per- plexa refolvit, contra adverfam fortunam defenfor, fecunda mo- derator, opes adauget, jacluram propulfat, &c. Perhaps their greateft glory is, the affection borne them by many of the greateft men of all ages : M. Cato *, the elder Pliny % the emperor Julian, and others are on record for an exceffive devotion to books. The laft has perpetuated his paflion by fome Greek epigrams in their praife. Richard Bury, bifhop of Durham, and lord chancellor of England, has a treatife exprefs on the love of books b . — a Fid. Plin. Epift. y. /. 3. b Philobiblion, five de Amove Librorum. Fabric. BibL Lot. Med. Mvi. T. 1. p. $42. feq. Morhoff Polyhijl. I. I. £, 17. p. 19O. Salmuth. ad Pancirol. I. T. tit. 22, p. 67. Barth. de lib. legend, dijf. 1. p. i.feq.
- M. Catonem <vidi in bihhoiheca fedentem mukis ciratmfufum Sloi-
corum libris. Erat enim, ut fcis, in eo inexhaiifta aviditas legendi, nee fattari poterat : quippe qui, ne reprehenfionem vu/gi inanem reformidans, in ipfa curia foleret legere, frepe dum fenatus cogeretur, nihil opera reipublica detrahens. — Vid. Cic. deDzvin. /. 3 . n. 11. The ill effecls objected to Books are, that they employ too much of our time and attention ; engage us in purfuits of no ufe to the common -wealth, and indifpofe us for the functions of civil life ; that they render men lazy, and prevent their ex- erting their own talents, by furnhning them on every occa- sion with things of the growth of others ; and that our na- tural lights become weakened and extinguifhed, by inuring ourfelves to fee only with foreign lights : befides, that ill men are hereby furnifhed with means of poifoning the people and propagating fuperftition, immorality, enthuhafm, or irreli- gion, which will always fpread fafter, and be received more greedily than leffons of truth and virtue. — Many other things are added concerning the emptinefs of books, and the errors, fables and follies they are fraught with ; which, together with the multitude and perplexity of them, is fuch, that it may feem eafier to difcover truth in the nature and reafon of things, than in the uncertainty and confufion of books. — Add, that books have turned the other inftruments of know- ledge out of doors, as experiments, obfervations, furnaces, and the like, without which the natural fciences can never be cultivated to purpofe a ; and that in mathematics, books have fo far fuperfeded the exercife of invention, that the ge- nerality of mathematicians, are now contented to learn the folution of problems from others ; which is to relinquish the chief end of their fcience ; fince what is contained in mathematical Books, is properly the hiftory only of mathe- matics, not the fcience, art or talent of folving queftions ; which is hardly to be had from books ; but only from nature and meditation. — *Fid. Bac. de Augm. Sclent. I. 2. f Forks,
T. 1. p. 61.
For the art of writing or compojing Books, we have much fewer helps and instructions than for the art of fpeaking ; though the former be the more difficult of the two ; as a reader is not fo eafy to be impofed upon, but has better opportunities of detecting faults than a hearer.— A great cardinal, indeed, reduces an author's bufinefs to a few heads ; were they but as eafily practifed as prefcribed : " Let him confider who it " is writes, what, how, why, and to whom : " S^uis fcri- hat, quid fcribatur, quomodo, cur & ad quos. — Fid. Auguft. Valer. de cant, in edend, libr.
To write a good book, an interefting fubject muft be chofen, which is to be long, and clofely meditated on ; and of the fentiments which offer themfelves, thofe which are already commonly known, are to be rejected : few or no digreffi- ons from the main point are to be allowed ; quotations rarely made, and then only to prove fome important truth, or embellifh the fubject with fome beautiful and uncommon obfervation ; never bringing an ancient philofopher on the ftage to fay what the meaner! lacquey could have faid as well; nor making a fermon, unlefs where the bufinefs is to preach. — Fid. Nouv. Rep. Lett. T. 39. p. 427.
The conditions required in a Book, are, according to Salden, cc Solidity, perfpicuity and brevity : the firfl will be beft attained, by keeping the piece long by us, often reviewing and correcting it by the advice of friends: the fecond, by difpofing the fentiments in a due order, and delivering them under proper and ufual expreflions : the third, by throw- ing every thing afide that does not immediately concern the fubject.
Were thefe rules obferved, it would fcarce be poffible for any, except an angel from heaven, to write many books : vix toti- dem quot Thebarwn porta: vel divitis ojlia Nili. — We mould hear no more of thofe volatile authors, who throw off yearly fix or eight Books, for ten or twelve years running*; of thofe voluminous authors, who number their Books by fcores and hundreds + ; nor of thofe childifh authors, who publifti books by that time they are able to fpeak ||.
- Severin. Lintrupius, profefibr at Copenhagen, has given a
catalogue of feventy two books, which he compofed within the compafs of twelve years j containing fix volumes in the- ology, eleven in eccleiiaftical hhlory, three in philofophy, fourteen on mifcellaneous fubjefts., and thirty-eight on lite-
rary fubje&s. — Vid. Lintrup. Reliq. heend. Berg. ap. Kc-v. Lti> Lubec. an, 1704.^. 247.
- f- Fa. Macedo, a Franciican Friar, wrote according to his own
teitimony, 44 volumes, 53 panegyricks, 60 Latin fpeeehep, 105 epitaphs, 500 elegies, no odes, 212 epiltles dedicato- ry, 500 familiar epiftles, poemata epica juxta bis mills fcxecn- ta; (it is to be fuppofad he means 2600 poems ip heroics, or hexameters) and in fine 150000 verfes.— Vid. Noris Milei Macedon, ap. Jour, des Sca-v. 7. 47. p. i-g.
|| The young duke de Maine's works were publiihed at feven years old, under the title of, Oewvres diverfes d'un auteur de jtpt Ans, Paris, 4to. 1685. — Vid. Jour, des 5cai\ T. 13. p' 7. — Dan. Heinlius publiihed his notes on Silius Italicus fo young, that he entitled them, his Rattles, Crepundia Siliana. Lugd. Bat. 1600. 16 . — Caramuel is even faid to have writ- ten a book on the fphere, before he was old enough to go to fchool ; and what is pleafant, he took it chiefly from Sacro Bofco's treatife de Sphma, before he had learnt a word of Latin. — Vid. Baillet E?ifavs Cekbres, n. 81. p. 300. — We may add, that Placcius affures us, he began to make his collecti- ons, while under the tutorage of his nurfe, and when he had nothing to collecl out of, but his nurfe's prayer-&w£r. — Place. de Art. Excerpt. -p. 190.
M. Cornet D. de S. ufed to fay, that to write Books, a man muft either be very foolifli or very wife » : there are doubt- lels many of both forts in the number of authors ; yet the majority feems to confift of thofe, who are neither the one or the other. The cuftom is much altered fince the times of the ancients, who carried their fcrupuloufnefs in what re- lates to the compolition of Books beyond all that has been a- bove expreffed : fo auguft was the idea they formed of a book, that nothing would fuffice lefs than its being a treafure : thefauros oportet cjfe, non libros ; no labour* no affiduity and exactnefs was thought enough to fit a work for the public view : every fentiment and expreflion was to be maturely weighed, and turned on all its fides; and not fuffcred to pafs, unlefs every word were a pearl, and every page befet with gems. So that they put the reader in poffeffion in a fingle hour, of what had coft them perhaps ten years intenfe thought and application.^Such were thofe booh, which were reputed cedro digni, to be fmeared over with cedar-juice, and thus rendered incorruptible, for the inftruction of all future ages v . — With us, the cafe is otherwife : the ambition of being an author poflefTes every body, even thofe who have nothing to fay, or at mod, only one thingj and that perhaps a trifle, and already faid by a hundred others e : to furnifii out a Book, we have recourfe to various arts, and itratagemsj a formal method is firft chalked out, which like a drag-net gathers all before it, old and new, common and uncom- mon, good, bad and indifferent, which we adopt with little choice ; the chief attention being, with Albutius the rhetor, to fay all on the fubject we can, not merely all we ought d . — a Fid. Vign. de Maru. ap. Trev. D. XJniv. T. 3. p. 15C9. voc. Livre. b Salmuth. ad Pancirol. P. I. tit. 42. *. 144. Guiland. de Papyr. membr. 24. Reimm. Idea Syjl. Ant. Li- ter. p.2.96. c Bartoli de ? Huomo di Liter. P. 7.. p. 318. d Bar- thol. lib. cit. dijf. 5. Cum Albutio rbetore de onvii caufa fcribere, non qua deBeant, Jed qua polerant.
A modern author, let his fubject be what it will, generally takes occafion to retail his whole ftock of knowledge, then on hand : if he write, for inftance, on the gout, asM. Aig- nan, he will give you the nature of all difeafes, and their curesj and perhaps a fyftem of phyfics into the bargain, and over and above many important doctrines of theology, and rules of morality 1 : if, on the building of Solomon's temple, as Caramuel, he will not confine himfelf to architecture^ but treat of nurnerous matters relating to theology, mathe- matics, geography, hiftory, grammar, &c. Infomuch, that if we may believe the author of a piece inferred in Caramu- el's work, if God mould permit all the fciences in all the u- niverfities in the world to be loft, they might be reftored by means of this book alone b . — "Fid. Aignan Trait, de la Goute, Par. 1707. 12°. Jour, des Scav. T. 39. p. 421, fia. h Archi- tect, civil refia y oBliqua confid. en el tempi de Jeruf. 3 vol. folio. VegeV. 1678. Jour, des Scav. T. 10, p. 348, feq. Nouv. Rep. Lett. T. 1. p. 103.
He fets out with a tedious preamble, perhaps foreign to the queftion ; and proceeds on to a digreffion, which gives rile to a fecond ; which carries him fuch a length, that we lofe fight of him : he opprefies us with proofs of tilings that needed none ; makes objections no body would have thought of, and to anfwer them is fometimes forced to make a differ- tation in form, to which he gives a particular title, and to lengthen it out, fubjoins the plan of fome future work, wherein he will treat the point more at large. Sometimes he argues in form, accumulates fyllogifm on fyllogifm, and induction on induction ; being careful to note that they are fo many geometrical demonft rations. At length you come to a ftring of confequences, which you never expected ; and after twelve or fifteen corollaries, wherein contradictions are not fpared, you are furprized for the conclufion to find a propofition which had never been mentioned, or at leaft had been utterly put out of your head, or perhaps another which has no relation to the fubject,
The fubject of the book, in all probability, is fome trifle;
perhaps the ufe of the particle, and t or the pronunciation of
B the
