24 On Reading New Books. JULY, 



selves, though we pretend to owe little or nothing to our predecessors. 

 About the time of the French Revolution, it was agreed that the world had 

 hitherto been in its dotage or its infancy; and that Mr. Godwin, Condorcet, 

 and others were to begin a new race of men a new epoch in society. 

 Every thing up to that period was to be set aside as puerile or barbarous 

 or, if there were any traces of thought and manliness now and then discover- 

 able, they were to be regarded with wonder as prodigies as irregular a*id 

 fitful starts in that long sleep of reason and night of philosophy. In this 

 liberal spirit Mr. Godwin composed an Essay, to prove that, till the publi- 

 cation of The Enquiry concerning Political Justice, no one knew how to 

 write a word of common grammar, or a style that was not utterly uncouth, 

 incongruous, and feeble. Addison, Swift, and Junius were included in 

 this censure. The English language itself might be supposed to owe its 

 stability and consistency, its roundness and polish, to the whirling motion 

 of the French Revolution. Those who had gone before us were, like our 

 grandfathers and grandmothers, decrepit, superannuated people, blind and 

 dull; poor creatures, like flies in winter, without pith or marrow in them. 

 The past was barren of interest had neither thought nor object worthy to 

 arrest our attention ; and the future would be equally a senseless void, 

 except as we projected ourselves and our theories into it. There is nothing 

 I hate more than I do this exclusive, upstart spirit. 



" By Heavens, I'd rather be 



A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, 



So might I, standing on some pleasant lea, 



Catch glimpses that might make me less forlorn, 



Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea, 



Or hear eld Triton blow his wreathed horn." 



WORDSWORTH'S SONNETS. 



Neither do I see the good of it even in a personal and interested point of 

 view. By despising all that has preceded us, we teach others to despise 

 ourselves. Where there is no established scale nor rooted faith in excel- 

 lence, all superiority our own as well as that of others soon comes to 

 the ground. By applying the wrong end of the magnifying-glass to all 

 objects indiscriminately, the most respectable dwindle into insignificance, 

 and the best are confounded with the worst. Learning, no longer supported 

 by opinion, or genius by fame, is cast into the mire, and " trampled under 

 the hoofs of a swinish multitude." I would rather endure the most blind 

 and bigotted respect for great and illustrious names, than that pitiful, gro- 

 velling humour which has no pride in intellectual excellence, and no plea- 

 sure but in decrying those who have given proofs of it, and reducing them to 

 its own level. If, with the diffusion of knowledge, we do not gain an 

 enlargement and elevation of views, where is the benefit ? If, by tearing 

 asunder names from things, we do not leave even the name or shadow of 

 excellence, it is better to let them remain as they were ; for it is better to 

 have something to admire than nothing names, if not things the shadow, 

 if not the substance the tinsel, if not the gold. All can now read and 

 write equally ; and, it is therefore presumed, equally well. Any thing 

 short of this sweeping conclusion is an invidious distinction ; and those who 

 claim it for themselves or others are exclmionists in letters. Every one 

 at least can call names can invent a falsehood, or repeat a story against 

 those who have galled their pragmatical pretensions by really adding to the 

 stock of general amusement or instruction. Every one in a crowd has the 

 power to throw dirt : nine out of ten have the inclination. It is curious 



