OR, MANY THINGS IN FEW WORDS: ADDRESSED TO THOSE WHO THINK. AUTHOR OF BY THE REV. C. C. COLTON, A.M. LATE FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, HYPOCRISY, A SATIRE;" MOSCOW, A POEM;" CRITICAL REMARKS ON “ Φιλοσοφία εκ παραδειγματων.” "The proper study of mankind is man." A Lew Edition. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: WILLIAM TEGG AND Co., 85, QUEEN STREET, CHEAPSIDE. * 1851. MMP 12-10-69 PREFACE TO THE FIRST PART. THERE are three difficulties in authorship;-to write anything worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it—and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game, in which the booksellers are the kings, the critics the knaves, the public the pack, and the poor author the mere table, or thing played upon. For the last thirty years, the public mind has had such interesting and rapid incidents to witness and to reflect upon, and must now anticipate some that will be still more momentous, that anything like dulness or prosing in authorship will either nauseate or be refused: the realities of life have pampered the public palate with a diet so stimulating, that vapidity has now become as insipid as water to a dram-drinker, or sober sense to a fanatic. The attempts, however, of dulness, are constantly repeated, and as constantly fail. For the misfortune is, that the head of dulness, unlike the tail of the torpedo,* loses nothing of her benumbing and lethargizing influence by reiterated discharges; horses may ride over her, and mules and asses may trample upon her, but, with an exhaustless and a patient perversity, she continues her narcotic operations even to the end. In fact, the press was never so powerful in quantity, and so weak in quality, as at the present day; if applied to it, the simile of Virgil must be reversed, "Non trunco sed frondibus efficit umbram.” It is in literature as in finance; much paper and much poverty may co-exist. * See Humboldt's account of the Gymnotus Electricus. It may happen that I myself am now committing the very crime that I think I am censuring. But while justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do, justice to myself induces me to add, that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say. Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge. Where I am ignorant, and know that I am so, I am silent. That Grecian gave a better reason for his taciturnity, than most authors for their loquacity, who observed, "What was to the purpose, I could not say; and what was not to the purpose, I would not say." And yet Shakspeare has hinted, that even silence is not always "commendable;" since it may be foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish. The Grecian's maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pigmy, many a speech to a sentence, and many a folio to a primer. As the great fault of our orators is, that they get up to make a speech rather than to speak; so the great error of our authors is, that they sit down to make a book rather than to write. To combine profundity with perspicuity, wit with judgment, solidity with vivacity, truth with novelty, and all of them with liberality, who is sufficient for these things? a very serious question; but it is one which authors had much better propose to themselves, before publication, than have proposed to them by their editors after it. I have thrown together, in this work, that which is the result of some reading and reflection; if it be but little, I have taken care that the volume which contains it shall not be large. I plead the privilege which a preface allows to an author for saying thus much of myself; since, if a writer be inclined to egotism, a preface is the most proper place for him to be delivered of it: for prefaces are not always read, and dedications seldom; books, says my lord Bacon, should have no patrons but truth and reason. Even the attractive prose of Dryden could not dignify dedications, and perhaps they ought never to be resorted to, being as derogatory to the writer as dull to the reader, and when not prejudicial, at least superfluous. If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book; and if it be a good book it wants it not. Swift dedicated a volume to Prince Posterity, and there was a manliness in the act. Posterity will prove a patron of the soundest judgment, as unwilling to give as unlikely to receive adulation. But Posterity is not a very accessible personage; he knows the high value of that which he gives, he, therefore, is extremely particular as to what he receives. Very few of the presents that are directed to him reach their destination. Some are too light, others too heavy, since it is as difficult to throw a a straw any distance, as a ton. I have addressed this volume to those who think, and some may accuse me of an ostentatious independence in presuming to inscribe a book to so small a minority. But a volume addressed to those who think, is in fact addressed to all the world; for although the proportion of those who do think be extremely small, yet every individual flatters himself that he is one of the number. In the present rage for all that is marvellous and interesting, when writers of undoubted talent consider only what will sell, and readers only what will please, it is perhaps a bold experiment to send a volume into the world, whose very faults (manifold as I fear they are) will cost more pains to detect, than sciolists would feel inclined to bestow, even if they were sure of discovering nothing but beauties. Some also of my conclusions will no doubt be condemned by those who will not take the trouble of looking into the postulata; for the soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum. The following pages, such as they are, have cost me some thought to write, and they may possibly cost others some to read them. Like Demosthenes, who talked Greek to the waves, I have continued my task, with the hope of instructing others, with the certainty of improving myself. "Labor ipse voluptas." It is much safer to think what we say, than to say what we think; I have attempted both. This is a work of no party, and my sole wish is, that truth may prevail in the church, and integrity in the state, and that in both the old adage may be verified, that “the men of principle may be the principal men." Knowledge, indeed, is as necessary as light, and in this coming age most fairly promises to be as common as water, and as free as air. But as it has been wisely ordained that light should have no colour, water |