ster look out very plainly through the judicial gravity with which he lays down the law concerning scores of words; as for example, when he defines Dandy thus: "In modern usage, a male of the human species who dresses himself like a doll and who carries his character on his back."

Every history purports to be an impartial record of facts, and a faithful transcript of the great truths which may be inferred from them. The historian, at the first thought, might be "set down" as nothing more nor less than an impersonal chronicler of actual events and facts. And yet who reads a history, even the most concise or rigidly impartial, who may not also read in the record of his facts the record of the author's partialities, and in his' philosophy a transcript of individual prejudices as well as of universal principles? The pithy Tacitus, by a pungent epithet and antithetic phrase, does not more effectually damn some hero in crime to everlasting fame, than he impresses you with a distinct and abiding image of his own strong and fervid character. Gibbon and Hume, Lingard and Macaulay, Bancroft and Hildreth, Arnold and Froude, have not simply written out the story of the countries which have been their themes, but have also more or less distinctly recorded an abiding memorial of their own characters and principles, if indeed they have not now and then given to the world a distinct expression of their own prejudices and passions.

The poet, the dramatist, and the novelist may personate as many characters as they will, and put into the mouths of their fictitious personages the words most appropriate to the character of each-words seemingly very far removed from their own sentiments and feelings; but yet, when it chances that their own private opinions have to be spoken or their individual feelings expressed, it will be done with an energy of words, an intensity of expression, which betrays

them as the author's own. Dante and Milton, Goethe and Schiller, Byron and Bulwer, introduce upon their shifting stage an immense variety of characters, and speak or sing through each of them the thoughts and emotions that belong to each. Their own genius lies in the power to forget themselves completely in their characters, or rather to transform themselves into the heroes whom they personate. But now and then occurs a sentence which is weighty with a double meaning, because the author speaks his own cherished opinions through his hero, or a strain will recur so often and in a character so peculiar, that we recognize it as the sad refrain of the poet's own sorrow. Herein is seen the man, and hereby does the individual man assert his right over the impersonal genius. Scott and Shakspeare are the least personal and subjective, the most completely objective and dramatic of all modern writers. Scott was large-hearted and many-sided enough ordinarily to lose himself in his characters. But now and then the reader can detect the humane Scotch sheriff, as well as the romantic and prejudiced tory, in characters and sayings in which neither would confess himself to be present. Shakspeare is rightly called the "myriad-minded:" and it may be hard to discern the man Shakspeare through the countless and strange variety of personages into which he so successfully transforms himself. But the man will speak out in the sonnets, which have been thought by many to have been written in order to satisfy even Shakspeare's longing at times to write in his own character and to give utterance to his own individuality. There are serious and solemn passages in his dramas in which no imitated voice is uttered: in which it is no masked histrionist who speaks, but Shakspeare's self utters sentiments and emotions that he could not repress. It is almost idle to observe that neither Dickens nor Thackeray, Trollope nor George Eliot, can always hide themselves in the motley of

men whom their fancy has created. Coleridge and Southey, Wordsworth and Tennyson, usually sing their own songs, and from a loving, or, it may be, a saddened heart. We may truly utter the seeming paradox, that while it is the proof and triumph of genius to be able to overcome and overrule the individual man, yet where the genius is not rooted in, and does not grow out of the intense affections and the earnest character of the writer's own individuality, he shows the art of a dexterous histrionist rather than the earnestness of a great nature.

As for those authors who write to amuse the public, the perpetrators of humor of all sorts, and the producers of every variety of bagatelle to suit the reading-market, it is not easy for the man to hide his individuality behind the mask which he assumes, however grotesque and comical that mask may be. The features of the man will always shine through the mask-if indeed there be a man beneath it. For very great is the difference whether it be a clown or a man which is behind-whether we see, through the disguise, the look half-vacant and half-villainous of which the venal and frivolous Bohemian can never rid himself, with all his tact and art, or the broad swimming eyes of love, with which Hood always looked out through his fun, or the sad earnestness into which Lamb relaxed so soon as he had stammered out his joke or his pun.

It is scarcely needful to add that essayists and critics, the authors of moral, political and religious tracts and books, are supposed of course to write their own opinions, which, though they be also the opinions of large masses of men, will be shaded by the color and hue of the minds from which they come, and be warmed with the feelings which glow in the hearts of all thoughtful and eloquent souls.

Let it not be thought for a moment, that the assertions that a book is written by a man, and is just

what its author makes it to be, and that to read a book is to converse with a living man-are barren truisms. We believe them to be fertile in important suggestions, and that if held fast in the mind they will serve as a clue to guide us safely and wisely through the labyrinth of books -which may mislead and bewilder as well as amuse and ennoble. We invite the reader's attention to the suggestions which may be derived from them.

These thoughts may suggest the principles which we need to guide us as we judge of books and read themand may help us distinguish the books which are books, from those which are only "things in books' clothing," as well as teach us how to make the best use of those which are books indeed.

CHAPTER III.

HOW TO READ-ATTENTION IN READING.

LET us then take our clue in hand and follow it out, feeling our way along, in the suggestions and applications to which it will naturally conduct us.

It is thought a great feat for a child to learn to read. The process is not a trivial one which is accomplished every day, and is going on in our nurseries and schoolhouses, by which the infant learns to distinguish letters, to spell them into words, to look through written characters, to interpret words into thoughts and feelings, and do all these so readily that the skill seems literally to have come by nature." It is indeed a great feat, as we see plainly when a full-grown man or woman attempts it for the first time, and as we mark the slow and painful steps by which such persons must halt and stumble for years, in order to master the mechanical part of the process. It is very rightly thought to be a most important step that is gained when either the child or the man has finished this apprenticeship, and to make a great difference with him to have overcome these obstacles. But why is it so important? What makes the difference so great? Who asks: what is all this for, and how may a man best use the power which is thus gained? It is not enough to say that it enables a person to transact business, to read his own accounts and letters from other people, to know what is going on at New York or Washington, to pore over newspapers, to gape over a few tales of blood and murder, or now and then to extract a thought from a good book on Sunday. If this were all, it were indeed worth all the cost, as the