READING. 
Ill 
those languages; for these were not written in that 
Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select lan¬ 
guage of literature. They had not learned the nobler 
dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials on 
which they were written were waste paper to them, 
and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. 
But when the several nations of Europe had acquired 
distinct though rude written languages of their own, 
sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, 
then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to 
discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. 
What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear, 
after the lapse of ages a few scholars read, and a few 
scholars only are still reading it. 
However much we may admire the orator’s occasional 
bursts of eloquence, the noblest written words are com¬ 
monly as far behind or abo\e the fleeting spoken lan¬ 
guage as the firmament with its stars is behind the 
clouds. There are the stars, and they who can may 
read them. The astronomers forever comment on and 
observe them. They are not exhalations like our daily 
colloquies and vaporous breath. What is called elo¬ 
quence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric 
in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a 
transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, 
to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more 
equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted 
by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, 
speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in 
any age who can understand him. 
No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him 
on his expeditions in a precious casket. A written 
word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once 
