June 20, 1891. 



OUR COLUMNS. 



21 



" Into this library I was turned loose at an earh' age, to make acquaintance with any sort 

 of literature I chose." At this point I noticed that some of the meaner-looking of my 

 audience pricked up their ears, but the vast majority remained as unconcerned as ever. 

 " Doubtless," I continued, " I shall shock the feelings of most of you by the discursive and 

 profitless nature of my reading, but you cannot be offended at the jDrospect of my turning 

 over a new leaf ; in fact, I quite intend to limit the range of my studies in the future, for 

 I feel that many of you have grossly over- written yourselves, and are much to blame in 

 that particular. 



" To proceed. There were many volumes of sermons in that library, and many great 

 divines in old brown boards. Adams and Fuller, worthy old souls, I remember best, but I 

 used to dip into their writings in search of quaint and curious conceits oftener than for 

 theological assistance. A sermon of Laurence Sterne's, ' I can do all things,' opened 

 delightfully. Chalmers and Guthrie and the like I was required to read on Sundays, and 

 naturally I know little about them now. 



" Does anyone in these times read The Vestiges of Creation, or remember anything of the 

 stir it made ? I read it, and Humboldt's Cosmos, too, and Hugh Miller's 17te Old Heel 

 Sandstone, Footprints of the Creator, and My Schools and Schoolmasters. Poor man ! his 

 was a melancholy end. Hard by him on the shelves stood Smollett, glorious in red and 

 gold, a joy only to be snatched occasionally. Not so Forster's Life of Oliver Cxoldsmith, 

 and Boswell's Johnson ; these were quite as attractive as the others, and lawful indulgence 

 even in the drawing-room. 



" I did not affect the poets or the playwrights much in those days, in spite of the galleries 

 of them on the top shelves ; perhaps it was because we had no library steps. Byron and 

 Wordsworth I just inspected, nothing more ; George Eliot's Spanish Gypsy had recently 

 come out, and there was a rare copy of Poems by Two Brothers. The Letters — I always 

 liked letters, Madame de Sevigne's and Lord Chesterfield's were there — of Robert Burns, 

 with the numerous corrections in his poems either made by himself or suggested by his 

 friends, were a fund of amusement. I tried my best at Paradise Lost, but it ended in a 

 mere race between my brother and myself. He won, of course, ladies and gentlemen, but 

 I used to enjoy the work all the same, in small doses. 



"Would you believe it? I dabbled in philosophy. Sir William Hamilton's erudition 

 amazed me as much as that of the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy. Dugald 

 Stewart and Locke and Berkeley I examined and partly read. Browne, with his endless 

 quoting of Robert Montgomery, is remembered by me, as by everybody else, for that reason 

 only. I do not think my father much approved of my looking into Hume's Essays, but 

 Addison and Steele and Burke on The Snblime and Beautiful, were there as a corrective. 



" Where did I get my politics and modern history ? Mostly, w^ise youth, from the pages 

 of Punch, recumbent, like myself, for comfort's sake upon the floor. Oh ! those dear little 

 black silhouettes in the early numbers I There was a Life and Despatches of Napoleon I. 

 very voluminous, and, fond as I am of warlike entertainment (on paper), I never quite 

 achieved it all ; some one had been before me with a pot of red ink and illuminated the 

 margins with comical notes and quizzical profiles by way of indignant commentary. 

 Burnet's Llistory bored me. Robertson's Conquest of Mexico and Peru I knew as well as 

 anything, except Russell's Crimean War, — that was the book for me. And how well I 

 remember (this by way of episode, please,) sitting, as a small boy, on the knee of a 

 gigantic British officer, who had been wounded in the thigh by a Russian at the attack on 

 the Redan. ' And what did you do then ? ' said I. ' Do, lad,' said he, ' I cut o:ff his 

 head.' A Life of Columbus and the Voyages of Captain Cook were so vivid that the 



