Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I doubt if 'Reason's Feast' Provides a dish that pleases more than 'Beauty and the Beast'; I doubt if all the ledger-leaves that bear a sterling sum, Yield happiness like those that told of 'Master Horner's plum'. Old Story Books! Old Story Books! I never pass ye by Without a sort of furtive glance--right loving, though 'tis sly; And fair suspicion may arise--that yet my spirit grieves For dear 'Old Mother Hubbard's Dog' and 'Ali Baba's Thieves'. ELIZA COOK. THE FIRST AUTHORS FOR YOUTH And as it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest: as Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest falling too much in love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and barren in language only. When their judgements are firm and out of danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language: yet I would have him read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tincted with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good too; and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be once in safety.--BEN JONSON. _Timber._ BOOKS AND THE WORLD A man who, without a good fund of knowledge and parts, adopts a Court life, makes the most ridiculous figure imaginable. He is a machine, little superior to the Court clock; and, as this points out the hours, he points out the frivolous employment of them. He is, at most, a comment upon the clock; and, according to the hours that it strikes, tells you, now it is levee, now dinner, now supper time, &c. The end which I propose by your education is, to unite in you all the knowledge of a scholar, with the manners of a courtier, and to join, what is seldom joined in any of my countrymen, Books and the World. They are commonly twenty years old before they have spoken to anybody above their Schoolmaster and the Fellows of their college. If they happen to have learning, it is only Greek and Latin; but not one word of Modern History or Modern Languages. Thus prepared, they go abroad, as they call it; but, in truth, they stay at home all that while; for being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages, they go into no foreign company, at least none good; but dine and sup with one another only, at the tavern.--LORD CHESTERFIELD. _Letters to his Son._ ADVICE TO MOTHERS