198 



READING. 



which he adopted in his youth, 

 and to which he constantly ad- 

 hered, was this: He divided all 

 books that he chose to read into 

 two classes those for study, and 

 those for amusement. The second 

 class, by far the more numerous of 

 the two, comprehended all the 

 works which he wished to know 

 something of, and which he merely 

 skimmed, or read once through. 

 The first consisted of those which 

 he meant to study, to read over 

 again, or to consult as long as he 

 lived; these he took up continu- 

 ally, one after another, in the order 

 which he had ranged them, unless 

 upon occasions when he only wanted 

 to verify, to quote, or to imitate 

 some passage. He had five lib- 

 raries absolutely alike, and com- 

 posed of the same books at Pots- 

 dam, at old Sans Souci, at Berlin, 

 at Charlottenburg, and at Breslau. 

 When he removed from one of 

 these residences to another, he had 

 only to note how far he had got 

 in a book, and on his arrival, he 

 could proceed as though he were 

 on the same spot. Hence he al- 

 ways bought five copies of every 

 book that he wished to have. To 

 the five libraries above-mentioned 

 were afterwards added another in 

 the new palace of Sans Souci, and 

 a travelling library for the review 

 time. The books belonging to all 

 these libraries were uniformly 

 bound in red morocco, with gilt 

 leaves. Each book had its par- 

 ticular place, and on the cover was 

 a letter, denoting the library to 

 which it belonged. 



METHODICAL READING. 



Gibbon, the celebrated author of 

 the Decline and Fall of the Roman 

 Empire, has furnished a new idea in 

 the art of reading. " "We ought," 

 says he, " not to attend to the order 

 of our book, so much as of our 

 thoughts. The perusal of a parti- 

 cular work gives birth, perhaps, to 



ideas unconnected with the subject 

 it treats ; I pursue these ideas and 

 quit my proposed plan of reading." 

 Thus in the midst of Homer he 

 read Longinus ; a chapter of Lon- 

 ginus led to an epistle of Pliny ; 

 and having finished Longinus, he 

 followed the train of his ideas of the 

 sublime and beautiful in the inquiry 

 of Burke, and concluded with com- 

 paring the ancient with the modern 

 Longinus. Of all our popular wri- 

 ters, the most experienced reader 

 was Gibbon, and he offers import- 

 ant advice to an author engaged on 

 a particular subject : " I suspended 

 my perusal of any new book on the 

 subject till I had reviewed all that 

 I knew, or believed, or had thought 

 on it, that 1 might be qttalified to 

 discern how much the authors added 

 to my original stock." 



KNOWING AND JUDGING. 



Popa says that from fourteen to 

 twenty, he read only for amusement ; 

 from twenty to twenty-seven, for 

 improvement and instruction ; that 

 in the first part of his time he desired 

 only to know, and in the second he 

 endeavoured to judge. 



A MOTHER'S ADVICE. 

 Sir William Jones, when a mere 

 child, was very inquisitive. His 

 mother was a woman of great in- 

 telligence, and he would apply to 

 her for the information which he 

 desired ; but her constant reply was, 

 " Head, and you will know. 1 ' This 

 gave him a passion for books, which 

 was one of the pi-incipal means of 

 making him what he was. 



TH03IA3 HOOD THE HUMOURIST ON 

 THE BENEFITS OF READING. 



The secretaries of the Manchester 

 Athenaeum bazaar committee ad- 

 dressed to Thomas Hood a request 

 that he would allow his name to be 

 placed on the list of patrons of an 

 approaching bazaar. To this re- 



