against the nature of things to pretend that in a
work to prove and clear up facts, an author should
only make use of his own thoughts, or that he ought
to quote very seldom. Those who say that the
work does not sufficiently interest the public, are
doubtless in the right; but an author cannot interest
the public except he discusses moral or political
subjects. All others with which men of letters
fill their books are useless to the public; and we
ought to consider them as only a kind of frothy nourishment
in themselves; but which, however, gratify the curiosity
of many readers, according to the diversity of their
tastes. What is there, for example, less interesting
to the public than the Bibliotheque Choisie
of Colomies (a small bibliographical work); yet is
that work looked on as excellent in its kind.
I could mention other works which are read, though
containing nothing which interests the public.”
Two years after, when he resumed these letters, he
changed his plan; he became more argumentative, and
more sparing of literary and historical articles.
We have now certainly obtained more decided notions
of the nature of this species of composition, and
treat such investigations with more skill; still they
are “caviare to the general.” An accumulation
of dry facts, without any exertion of taste or discussion,
forms but the barren and obscure diligence of title-hunters.
All things which come to the reader without having
first passed through the mind, as well as the pen of
the writer, will be still open to the fatal objection
of insane industry raging with a depraved appetite
for trash and cinders; and this is the line of demarcation
which will for ever separate a Bayle from a Prosper
Marchand, and a Warton from a Ritson; the one must
be satisfied to be useful, but the other will not
fail to delight. Yet something must be alleged
in favour of those who may sometimes indulge researches
too minutely; perhaps there is a point beyond which
nothing remains but useless curiosity; yet this too
may be relative. The pleasure of these pursuits
is only tasted by those who are accustomed to them,
and whose employments are thus converted into amusements.
A man of fine genius, Addison relates, trained up
in all the polite studies of antiquity, upon being
obliged to search into several rolls and records, at
first found this a very dry and irksome employment;
yet he assured me, that at last he took an incredible
pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the reading
of Virgil and Cicero.
As for our Bayle, he exhibits a perfect model of the real literary character. He, with the secret alchymy of human happiness, extracted his tranquillity out of the baser metals, at the cost of his ambition and his fortune. Throughout a voluminous work, he experienced the enjoyment of perpetual acquisition and delight; he obtained glory, and he endured persecution. He died as he had lived, in the same uninterrupted habits of composition; for with his dying hand, and nearly speechless, he sent a fresh proof to the printer!