nly thing about which every
man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which,
every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the
divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on
sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before
you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is,
not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the
_fashion_ to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you read,
form _your own judgment_, and stand by that judgment in despite of the
sayings of what are called learned men, until fact or argument be
offered to convince you of your error. One writer praises another; and
it is very possible for writers so to combine as to cry down and, in
some sort, to destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with the
combination, unless the person thus assailed be blessed with uncommon
talent and uncommon perseverance. When I read the works of POPE and of
SWIFT, I was greatly delighted with their lashing of DENNIS; but
wondered, at the same time, why they should have taken so much pains in
running down such a _fool_. By the merest accident in the world, being
at a tavern in the woods of America, I took up an old book, in order to
pass away the time while my travelling companions were drinking in the
next room; but seeing the book contained the criticisms of DENNIS, I was
about to lay it down, when the play of 'CATO' caught my eye; and having
been accustomed to read books in which this play was lauded to the
skies, and knowing it to have been written by ADDISON, every line of
whose works I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom and genius,
I condescended to begin to read, though the work was from the pen of
that _fool_ DENNIS. I read on, and soon began to _laugh_, not at Dennis,
but at Addison. I laughed so much and so loud, that the landlord, who
was in the passage, came in to see what I was laughing at. In short, I
found it a most masterly production, one of the most witty things that I
had ever read in my life. I was delighted with DENNIS, and was heartily
ashamed of my former admiration of CATO, and felt no little resentment
against POPE and SWIFT for their endless reviling of this most able and
witty critic. This, as far as I recollect, was the first _emancipation_
that had assisted me in my reading. I have, since that time, never taken
any thing upon trust: I have judged for my