Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 448

Edinburgh Journal, No. 448, by
Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 Volume 18, New Series,
July 31, 1852
Author: Various
Editor: William Chambers Robert Chambers
Release Date: April 20, 2007 [EBook #21193]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CHAMBERS'S EDINBURGH ***

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS,
EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'
'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.
No. 448. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2d.

BOOK-WORSHIP.
A book belongs in a peculiar manner to the age and nation that produce
it. It is an emanation of the thought of the time; and if it survive to an
after-time, it remains as a landmark of the progress of the imagination
or the intellect. Some books do even more than this: they press forward
to the future age, and make appeals to its maturer genius; but in so
doing they still belong to their own--they still wear the garb which
stamps them as appertaining to a particular epoch. Of that epoch, it is
true, they are, intellectually, the flower and chief; they are the
expression of its finer spirit, and serve as a link between the two
generations of the past and the future; but of that future--so much
changed in habits, and feelings, and knowledge--they can never, even
when acting as guides and teachers, form an essential part: there is
always some bond of sympathy wanting.
A single glance at our own great books will illustrate this--books which
are constantly reprinted, without which no library can be
tolerated--which are still, generation after generation, the objects of the
national worship, and are popularly supposed to afford a universal and
unfailing standard of excellence in the various departments of literature.
These books, although pored over as a task and a study by the few, are
rarely opened and never read by the many: they are known the least by
those who reverence them most. They are, in short, idols, and their
worship is not a faith, but a superstition. This kind of belief is not
shaken even by experience. When a devourer of the novels of Scott, for
instance, takes up Tom Jones, he, after a vain attempt to read, may lay
it down with a feeling of surprise and dissatisfaction; but Tom Jones
remains still to his convictions 'an epic in prose,' the fiction par
excellence of the language. As for Clarissa Harlowe and Sir Charles

Grandison, we have not heard of any common reader in our generation
who has had the hardihood even to open the volumes; but Richardson
as well as Fielding retains his original niche among the gods of
romance; and we find Scott himself one of the high-priests of the
worship. When wandering once upon the continent, we were thrown for
several days into the company of an English clergyman, who had
provided himself, as the best possible model in description, with a copy
of Spenser; and it was curious to observe the pertinacity with which,
from time to time, he drew forth his treasure, and the weariness with
which in a few minutes he returned it to his pocket. Yet our reverend
friend, we have no doubt, went home with his faith in Spenser
unshaken, and recommends it to this day as the most delightful of all
companions for a journey.
In the present century, the French and German critics have begun to
place this reverential feeling for the 'classics' of a language upon a more
rational basis. In estimating an author, they throw themselves back into
the times in which he wrote; they determine his place among the spirits
of his own age; and ascertain the practical influence his works have
exercised over those of succeeding generations. In short, they judge
him relatively, not absolutely; and thus convert an unreasoning
superstition into a sober faith. We do not require to be told that in every
book destined to survive its author, there are here and there gleams of
nature that belong to all time; but the body of the work is after the
fashion of the age that produced it; and he who is unacquainted with
the thought of that age, will always judge amiss. In England, we are
still in the bonds of the last century, and it is surprising what an amount
of affectation mingles with criticism even of the