SELF-EDUCATION. 5 of time, a thermometer to a negro who knows nothing of the measurement of heat, are simply worthless articles; very admirable in themselves, but beyond the comprehension of the individual. As with stomachs, so with minds: a ruminating animal would be killed or starved with a plentiful supply of flesh meat; a tiger could not live upon grass. The duty of the self-educator is therefore to seize eagerly that which he does understand, and to nourish his mind with it, and to reject that which he cannot comprehend, or to defer it until he shall be more advanced, and able to master it. Now, in some sort to make a fair beginning, the first thing is to understand the meaning of words. They are most important things; just as bricks make a wall, so words build up a book. No man who wishes to educate himself should be without a dictionary, nor should he ever pass by a word which he does not understand. If he take this trouble, he will be far on the way of self-improvement in a very short time. Horne Tooke, in his "Diversions of Purley" (a book which has suggested Dean Trench's "Study of Words," and Dean Alford's "Queen's English," both of which are very amusing as well as useful books, admirable in many ways, though not perfect), says that he was made the victim in a court of law of two prepositions and a conjunction—OF, and CONCERNING, and THAT, which he maintains, and quite rightly, that the lawyers do not understand. The reason why lawyers do not understand English-the result being the misconstruction and frequent unjust miscarriage of our laws-is because, lawyers being originally priests and Normans, the laws were written in Norman-French and Latin, and the words (fatal result!) bore a different signification in and evanescent tales and novels of the day, to the pure and noble study of our glorious literature. That the good fortune which has hitherto attended these Essays may still wait upon the book is the only wish its author would express; but he would remind the reader of the purpose of this work, and would urge that the space occupied forbad a complete view of the most fertile field in the world, so that many names are barely mentioned or regretfully omitted. He has, lastly, publicly to thank Mr. Edward Pepper, who has before assisted him, for reading the book for the press, and for selecting the far greater part of the admirable extracts of the old writers which will be found in the early portion of this volume. December, 1868. IX. The Rise of the Drama-Dramatic Literature X. Dramatic Literature (continued) XI. Dramatic Literature (continued) XII. The Bible and its Translators XIII. Theologians (continued) XIV. Letters and Letter-Writing XV. The Satirists 139 154 XVIII. Scottish Poets XVI. The Satirists (continued) XVII. The Satirists (continued) XIX. Political and Metaphysical Writers 239 XX. Political and Metaphysical Writers (continued). 249 XXI. The British Novelists 260 PAGE 273 285 295 305 317 328 CHAP. XXII. The British Novelists (continued) XXV. Poets of the Present Century.—Introductory XXVIII. Poets of the Present Century.-Shelley, Keats, XXIX. Some Scottish Poets.-Burns, Sir Walter Scott, 338 350 LL eminent men are, in a great measure, self-made. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Robert Lowe and Mr. John Stuart Mill, must each have had many tens of schoolfellows; nay, to point to an earlier and more wonderful example, in that Stratford Grammar School, where Shakespeare-he who had wrenched the key of Learning, and forcibly entered and made himself master of the house of Wisdom-first learnt Hic, hæc, hoc, genitive Hujus, which he has duly reproduced, there were many hundred boys nationally educated by the wise and beneficent Elizabeth-and but one Shakespeare, one Gladstone, one Mill, one Lowe. It follows that the difference lies in the boy or the man, and not in the school. All first-rate men, again, are to a great extent selfeducated; so said Dr. Johnson, who, by the way, added that he, and all like him, had done their chief reading before they were eighteen; for it is indeed certain that, if there is no royal road to learning, there are still B |