I, then a young man, with
a most praiseworthy desire of reading "books that are books," but with
a most lamentable ignorance of even the names of the principal
English authors, was both a pleased and a benefited listener to the
conversations of these bookish men. Hawthorne says that to hear the
old Inspector (whom he has immortalized in the quaint and genial
introduction to the "Scarlet Letter") expatiate on fish, poultry, and
butcher's-meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing the same for
the table, was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster; and to hear these
literary gourmands talk with such gusto of this writer's delightful
style, or of that one's delicious humor, or t' other's brilliant wit
and merciless satire, gave one a taste and a relish for the authors so
lovingly and heartily commended. Certainly, after hearing the genial,
scholarly, gentlemanly lawyer S---- sweetly discourse on the old English
divines,--or bluff, burly, good-natured, wit-loving Master R----
declaim, in his loud, bold, enthusiastic manner, on the old English
dramatists,--or queer, quaint, golden-hearted Dr. D---- mildly and
modestly, yet most pertinently, express himself about Old Burton and Old
Fuller,--or wise, thoughtful, ingenious Squire M---- ably, if not very
eloquently, hold forth on Shakspeare and Milton, I had (who but a dunce
or dunderhead would not have had?) a "greedy great desire" to look into
the works of
"Such famous men, such worthies of the
earth.
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