He would repeat to you forwards and backwards all the
signs from Ludgate to Charing Cross." He says of Mr. John Hales,
that, "He loved Canarie," and was buried "under an altar monument
of black marble--------with a too long epitaph"; of Edmund
Halley, that he "at sixteen could make a dial, and then, he said,
he thought himself a brave fellow"; of William Holder, who wrote
a book upon his curing one Popham who was deaf and dumb, "he was
beholding to no author; did only consult with nature." For the
most part, an author consults only with all who have written
before him upon a subject, and his book is but the advice of so
many. But a good book will never have been forestalled, but the
topic itself will in one sense be new, and its author, by
consulting with nature, will consult not only with those who have
gone before, but with those who may come after. There is always
room and occasion enough for a true book on any subject; as there
is room for more light the brightest day and more rays will not
interfere with the first.
We thus worked our way up this river, gradually adjusting our
thoughts to novelties, beholding from its placid bosom a new
nature and new works of men, and, as it were with increasing
confidence, finding nature still habitable, genial, and
propitious to us; not following any beaten path, but the windings
of the river, as ever the nearest way for us.
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