CHAPTER CCXXV.

TWO QUESTIONS GROWING OUT OF THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.

A Taylor who has no objection to wear motley, may make himself a great coat with half a yard of his own stuff, by eking it out with cabbage from every piece that comes in his way.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

But here two questions arise:

Ought Dr. Dove, or ought he not, to have been an author?

Was he, or was he not, the happier, for not being one?

“Not to leave the reader,” as Lightfoot says, “in a _bivium_ of irresolutions,” I will examine each of these questions, _escriviendo algunos breves reglones, sobre lo mucho que dezir y escrivir se podria en esto;—moviendo me principalmente a ello la grande ignorancia que sobre esta matheria veo manifiestamente entre las gentes de nuestro siglo._[1]

[Footnote 1: GARIBAY.]

“I am and have been,” says Robert Wilmot, “(if there be in me any soundness of judgment) of this opinion, that whatsoever is committed to the press is commended to eternity; and it shall stand a lively witness with our conscience, to our comfort or confusion, in the reckoning of that great day. Advisedly therefore was that proverb used of our elder Philosopher, _Manum a Tabulâ_; withhold thy hand from the paper, and thy papers from the print, or light of the world.”

Robert Wilmot _says_, I say, using the present tense in setting his words before the reader, because of an author it may truly be said that “being dead he yet speaketh.” Obscure as this old author now is, for his name and his existing works are known only to those who love to pore among the tombs and the ruins of literature, yet by those who will always be enough “to make a few,” his name will continue to be known, long after many of those bubbles which now glitter as they float upon the stream of popularity are “gone for ever;” and his remains are safe for the next half millennium, if the globe should last so long without some cataclasm which shall involve its creatures and its works in one common destruction.

Wilmot is right in saying that whatever is written for the public, is as regards the individual responsibility of the writer, written for eternity, however brief may be its earthly duration;—an aweful consideration for the authors of wicked books, and for those who by becoming instrumental in circulating such books, involve themselves in the author's guilt as accessaries after the fact, and thereby bring themselves deservedly under the same condemnation.

Looking at the first question in this point of view, it may be answered without hesitation, the Doctor was so pure in heart, and consequently so innocent in mind that there was no moral reason why he ought not to have been an author. He would have written nothing but what,—religiously speaking might have been accounted among his good works,—so far as, so speaking, any works may deserve to be called good.

But the question has two handles, and we must now take it by the other.

An author more obscure in the literature of his own country than Wilmot, (unless indeed some Spanish or Italian Haslewood may have disinterred his name) has expressed an opinion, directly the reverse of Wilmot's concerning authorship. Ye who understand that noble language which the Emperor Charles V. ranked above all other living tongues may have the satisfaction of here reading it in the original.

“_Muchos son los que del loable y fructuoso trabajo de escrevir, rehuir suelen; unos por no saber, a los quales su ignorancia en alguna manera escusa; otros por negligencia, que teniendo habilidad y disposicion par ello no lo hazen; y a estos es menester que Dios los perdone en lo passado, y emiende en lo por venir; otros dexan de hazello por temor de los detractores y que mal acostumbran dezir; los quales a mi parecer de toda reprehension son dignos, pues siendo el acto en si virtuoso, dexan de usarlo por temor. Mayormente que todos, o los mas que este exercicio usan, o con buen ingenio escriven, o con buen desseo querrian escrevir. Si con buen ingenio hazen buena obra, cierto es que dese ser alabada. Y së el defecto de mas no alcanzar algo, la haze diminuta de lo que mejor pudiera ser, deve se loar lo que el tal quisiera hazer, si mas supiera, o la invencion y fantasia de la obra, por que fue, o porque desseo ser bueno. De manere que es mucho mejor escrevir como quiera que se pueda hazer, que no por algun temor dexar de hazerlo._”[2]

[Footnote 2: QUESTION DE AMOR. PROLOGO.]

“Many,” says this author, “are they who are wont to eschew the meritorious and fruitful labour of writing, some for want of knowledge, whom their ignorance in some manner excuses; others for negligence, who having ability and fitness for this, nevertheless do it not, and need there is for them, that God should forgive them for the past, and amend them for the time to come, others forbear writing, for fear of detractors and of those who accustom themselves to speak ill, and these in my opinion are worthy of all reprehension, because the act being in itself so virtuous, they are withheld by fear from performing it. Moreover it is to be considered that all, or most of those who practise this art, either write with a good genius, or a good desire of writing well. If having a good genius they produce a good work, certes that work deserves to be commended. And if for want of genius it falls short of this, and of what it might better have been, still he ought to be praised, who would have made his work praiseworthy if he had been able, and the invention and fancy of the work, either because it is or because he wished it to be so. So that it is much better for a man to write whatever his ability may be, than to be withheld from the attempt by fear.”

A very different opinion was expressed by one of the most learned of men, _Ego multos studiosos quotidie video, paucos doctos; in doctis paucos ingeniosos; in semidoctis nullos bonos; atque adeo literæ generis humani unicum solamen, jam pestis et perniciei maximæ loco sunt._[3]

[Footnote 3: SCALIGER.]

M. Cornet used to say, _que pour faire des livres, il faloit être ou bien fou ou bien sage, que pour lui, comme il ne se croïoit pas assez sage pour faire un bon livre, ni assez fou pour en faire un méchant, il avoit pris le parti de ne point ecrire._

_Pour lui_, the Docteur of the Sorbonne: _pour moi_,—every reader will, in the exercise of that sovereign judgement whereof every reader is possessed, determine for himself whether in composing the present work I am to be deemed _bien sage_, or _bien fou_. I know what Mr. Dulman thinks upon this point, and that Mr. Slapdash agrees with him. To the former I shall say nothing; but to the latter, and to Slenderwit, Midge, Wasp, Dandeprat, Brisk and Blueman, I shall let Cordara the Jesuit speak for me.

_O quanti, o quanti sono, a cui dispiace Vedere un uom contento; sol per questo Lo pungono con stile acre e mordace, Per questi versi miei chi sa che presto Qualche zanzara contro me non s'armi, E non prenda di qui qualche pretesto. Io certo me l'aspetto, che oltraggiarmi Talun pretenderà sol perchè pare, Che di lieti pensier' sappia occuparmi. Ma canti pur, lo lascerò cantare E per mostrargli quanto me ne prendo, Tornerò, se bisogna, a verseggiare._

Leaving the aforesaid _litterateurs_ to construe and apply this, I shall proceed in due course to examine and decide whether Dr. Daniel Dove ought, or ought not to have been an author,—being the first of two questions, propounded in the present chapter, as arising out of the last.