s mornings to serious
reading, and it is only an hour's leisure in the evening, which he used
to trifle away, that he gives to books of taste; but I had rather he
would let them all alone; the best of them will only fill his heart with
cold morality, and stuff his head with romance and fiction. I would not
have a religious man ever look into a book of your belles-lettres
nonsense; and if he be really religious, he will make a general bonfire
of the poets."

"That is rather too sweeping a sentence," said Mr. Stanley. "It would, I
grant you, have been a benefit to mankind, if the entire works of some
celebrated poets, and a considerable portion of the works of many not
quite so exceptionable, were to assist the conflagration of your pile."

"And if fuel failed," said Sir John Belfield, "we might not only rob
Belinda's altar of her

Twelve tomes of French romances neatly gilt,

but feed the flame with countless marble-covered octavos from the modern
school. But having made this concession, allow me to observe, that
because there has been a voluptuous Petronius, a scoffing Lucian, and a
licentious Ovid, to say nothing of the numberless modern poets, or
rather individual poems, that are immoral and corrupt--shall we
therefore exclude all works of imagination from the library of a young
man? Surely? we should not indiscriminately banish the Muses, as
infallible corrupters of the youthful mind; I would rather consider a
blameless poet as the auxiliar of virtue. Whatever talent enables a
writer to possess an empire over the heart, and to lead the passions at
his command, puts it in his power to be of no small service to mankind.
It is no new remark that the abuse of any good thing is no argument
against its legitimate use. Intoxication affords no just reason against
the use of wine, nor prodigality against the possession of wealth. In
the instance in dispute, I should rather infer that a talent capable of
diffusing so much mischief was susceptible of no small benefit. That it
has been so often abused by its misapplication, is one of the highest
instances of the ingratitude of man for one of the highest gifts of
God."

"I can not think," said I, "that the Almighty conferred such a faculty
with a wish to have it extinguished. Works of imagination have in many
countries been a chief instrument in civilization. Poetry has not only
preceded science in the history of human progress, but it has in many
countries preceded the