u can follow. Books and
conversation may assist it, but adopt neither blindly and
implicitly; try both by that best rule God has given to direct
us--reason. Of all the truths do not decline that of thinking. The
host of mankind can hardly be said to think; their prejudices are
almost all adoptive; and in general I believe it is better that it
should be so, as such common prejudices contribute more to order
and quiet than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated
as they are. We have many of these useful prejudices in this
country which I should be very sorry to see removed. The good
Protestant conviction that the Pope is both Antichrist and the
Whore of Babylon is a more effectual preservative against Popery
than all the solid and unanswerable arguments of Chillingworth.'

THE JOHNSONIAN LEGEND

The ten handsome volumes which the indefatigable and unresting zeal of
Dr. Birkbeck Hill, and the high spirit of the Clarendon Press, have
edited, arranged, printed, and published for the benefit of the world
and the propagation of the Gospel according to Dr. Johnson are
pleasant things to look upon. I hope the enterprise has proved
remunerative to those concerned, but I doubt it. The parsimony of the
public in the matter of books is pitiful. The ordinary purse-carrying
Englishman holds in his head a ready-reckoner or scale of charges by
which he tests his purchases--so much for a dinner, so much for a
bottle of champagne, so much for a trip to Paris, so much for a pair
of gloves, and so much for a book. These ten volumes would cost him L4
9s. 3d. 'Whew! What a price for a book, and where are they to be put,
and who is to dust them?' Idle questions! As for room, a bicycle takes
more room than 1,000 books; and as for dust, it is a delusion. You
should never dust books. There let it lie until the rare hour arrives
when you want to read a particular volume; then warily approach it
with a snow-white napkin, take it down from its shelf, and,
withdrawing to some back apartment, proceed to cleanse the tome. Dr.
Johnson adopted other methods. Every now and again he drew on huge
gloves, such as those once worn by hedgers and ditchers, and then,
clutching his folios and octavos, he banged and buffeted them together
until he was enveloped in a cloud of dust. This violent exercise over,
the good doctor restored the volumes, all battered and bruised, to
their places, where, of course, th