VIRGINIBUS PUERISQUE To read my book, the virgin shy May blush, while Brutus standeth by: But when he's gone, read through what's writ, And never stain a cheek for it. R. HERRICK. _Hesperides._ A WHIMSICAL SURPRISE I should not care to be caught in the serious avenues of some cathedral alone, and reading _Candide_. I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having been once detected--by a familiar damsel--reclined at my ease upon the grass, on Primrose Hill (her Cythera), reading--_Pamela_. There was nothing in the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, I could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very sociably for a few pages; and, not finding the author much to her taste, she got up, and--went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture, whether the blush (for there was one between us) was the property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From me you shall never get the secret.--C. LAMB. _Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading._ ROMANCES ARE PERNICIOUS Make careful choice of the books which you read. Let the Holy Scriptures ever have the pre-eminence, and next them, the solid, lively, heavenly treatises which best expound and apply the Scriptures: and next those, the credible histories, especially of the Church, and tractates upon inferior sciences and arts: but take heed of the poison of the writings of false teachers, which would corrupt your understandings: and of vain romances, play-books, and false stories, which may bewitch your fantasies and corrupt your hearts. To a very judicious able reader, who is fit to censure all he reads, there is no great danger in the reading of the Books of any seducers: it doth but show him how little and thin a cloak is used to cover a bad cause. But alas, young soldiers, not used to such wars, are startled at a very sophism, or at a terrible threatening of damnation to dissenters (which every censorious sect can use) or at every confident triumphant boast, or at everything that hath a fair pretence of truth or godliness.... Meddle not therefore with poison, till you better know how to use it, and may do it with less danger; as long as you have no need. As for play-books, and romances, and idle tales, I have already showed, in my _Book of Self-denial_, how pernicious they are, especially to youth, and to frothy, empty, idle wits, that know not _what a man is_, nor what he hath to do in the world. They are powerful baits of the Devil, to keep more necessary things out of their minds, and better books out of their hands, and to poison the mind so much the more dangerously, as they are read with more delight and pleasure.--R. BAXTER. _Christian Directory._ WHETHER 'TIS LAWFUL TO READ ROMANCES