I am, Sir, your humble servant,
VIATOR.
No. 85. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1753
Qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam,
Multa tulit fecitque puer. Hon. De Ar. Poet. 412.
The youth, who hopes th' Olympic prize to gain,
All arts must try, and every toil sustain. FRANCIS.
IT is observed by Bacon, that "reading makes a
full man, conversation a ready man, and writing
an exact man."
As Bacon attained to degrees of knowledge
scarcely ever reached by any other man, the directions
which he gives for study have certainly a just
claim to our regard; for who can teach an art with
so great authority, as he that has practised it with
undisputed success?
Under the protection of so great a name, I shall,
therefore, venture to inculcate to my ingenious
contemporaries, the necessity of reading, the fitness of
consulting other understandings than their own, and
of considering the sentiments and opinions of those
who, however neglected in the present age, had in
their own times, and many of them a long time
afterwards, such reputation for knowledge and acuteness
as will scarcely ever be attained by those that
despise them.
An opinion has of late been, I know not how,
propagated among us, that libraries are filled only
with useless lumber; that men of parts stand in need
of no assistance; and that to spend life in poring upon
books, is only to imbibe prejudices, to obstruct and
embarrass the powers of nature, to cultivate memory
at the expense of judgment, and to bury reason
under a chaos of indigested learning.
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