ent as much time in _reading_ as other men of learning,
he should have been as _ignorant_ as they. He put little value on a
_large library_, for he considered all _books_ to be merely _extracts_
and _copies_, for that most authors were like sheep, never deviating
from the beaten path. History he treated lightly, and thought there were
more lies than truths in it. But let us recollect after all this, that
Hobbes was a mere metaphysician, idolising his own vain and empty
hypotheses. It is true enough that weak heads carrying in them too much
reading may be staggered. Le Clerc observes of two learned men, De
Marcilly and Barthius, that they would have composed more useful works
had they _read_ less numerous authors, and digested the better writers.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 108: He was remarkable for his memory of all that he read, not
only the matter but the form, the contents of each page and the peculiar
spelling of every word. It is said he was once tested by the pretended
destruction of a manuscript, which he reproduced without a variation of
word or line.]

[Footnote 109: He used to lie in a sort of lounging-chair in the midst
of his study, surrounded by heaps of dusty volumes, never allowed to be
removed, and forming a colony for the spiders whose society he so highly
valued.]

ABRIDGERS.

Abridgers are a kind of literary men to whom the indolence of modern
readers, and indeed the multiplicity of authors, give ample employment.

It would be difficult, observed the learned Benedictines, the authors of
the Literary History of France, to relate all the unhappy consequences
which ignorance introduced, and the causes which produced that
ignorance. But we must not forget to place in this number the mode of
reducing, by way of abridgment, what the ancients had written in bulky
volumes. Examples of this practice may be observed in preceding
centuries, but in the fifth century it began to be in general use. As
the number of students and readers diminished, authors neglected
literature, and were disgusted with composition; for to write is seldom
done, but when the writer entertains the hope of finding readers.
Instead of original authors, there suddenly arose numbers of Abridgers.
These men, amidst the prevailing disgust for literature, imagined they
should gratify the public by introducing a mode of reading works in a
few hours, which otherwise could not be done in many months; and,
observing that the bulky vol