1826.] Familiarities — Quotations. 461 



Genii and gallant knights pass to battle in an armour of rose-Ieavea, 

 riveted with dew-dro|)s; while the ladye for whose love they combat, and 

 whom we carr}' about with us in some miniature quotation, can boast a 

 foot that would fail to crush the thistledown, though trampling upon the 

 domestic associations of readers, and (save us, ye bishops and curates!) 

 upon human creeds and divine commandments. It is a garden of the 

 Hesperides, without a dragon to watch over it — an Eden of liberty, 

 having no forbidden tree ; the apples we pluck in quotation are propitious 

 as that which Acontius threw into the bosom of Cydippe.* 



Shall we not rejoice then and revel in the glorious liberty of extract, 

 and quote to the thousandth line ? Shall we not have ^ages like the 

 Pyramids ? Who ever skipped a quotation, though it made against the 

 interest of the story? Besides, how manj' books might be numbered 

 that are valuable only in a solitary quotation I — as the oyster is esteemed 

 for the pearl it may sometimes contain. How often does it happen that 

 an obscure line finds its way into a periodical — causes an inquiry or two 

 concerning its author — is requoted in every book that comes out during the 

 next three months, and " sleeps again I" Lastly, how many pages have 

 been preserved from portmanteaus, by a timely flag of truce in the shape 

 of some well-remembered and often-uttered line ! — some reciprocitj' 

 of taste and sympathy, for the first time discovered, between the author 

 and his reader ! An appropriate title-page quotation, for instance, is 

 more necessary to the salvation of a book than some people imagine : it is 

 the " picture in little" of all that follows. It may be made to say more for 

 the quality and nature of a volume than the preface and advertisement 

 combined (which is usually not a little). We read certain books that 

 bear a favourite line ui)on the title-page, as we should be tempted 

 to accept a pinch of snuft", when assured that the box was carved from 

 Shakspeare's mulberry-tree. Again, the heads of chapters offer an 

 inviting niche for the depository of some relic of a grandeur " untalked of 

 and unseen," which we have snatched from the open pathway of time, 

 ere its wheel had crushed it to common dust. There is a vacant dreari- 

 ness in entering upon the confines of a chapter, where no eventful 

 sentence stands like a spirit to point the way, and supply a stepping- 

 stone to adventure. We travel from chapter to chapter, and think " all 

 is barren." But when a fond and powerful name, such as we could wish 

 to hear taught in society as a spell to open hearts with, and kindle imagi- 

 nation among men — « hen the glory of a poet's verse pours its strength 

 into the soul ere we plunge from the shore of mystery — we receive and 

 retain an inward light that will guide us along the heights of hyperbole, 

 and through the shadowy recesses of metaphor. Moreover, we are 

 sometimes spared the trouble of plunging at all ; for the poets express 

 things so pithily, that we may gather the business and substance of a 

 chapter from the line and a half at the head of it. To confess a truth, 

 this has been our method of late years in much of romance-reading : we 

 can illustrate the fact, that he who simply runs through the heads of 

 chapters, together with the last three lines of every volume, will know 

 as much at the end of the twenty-seventh (should the work so far 



• Acontius, it will be remembered, fell in love \vith the high-born Cytlippe at the 

 sacrifices in the Temple of Diana, an oath uttered in which, was, by a law in Cea, 

 irrevocable. The youth, having procured an apple, ^^TOte upon it to this effect : — 

 " By Dian, I will marry Acontius." He then watched his opportunity, and flung it 

 into Cydippe's bosom. The virgin read it — thus inadvertently pronouncing the oath ; 

 and Acontius gained by his apple almost as much as Adam lost by his. 



