1
I appeal unto Cæsar.
Acts. XXV. 11.
2
All authority must be out of a man's self, turned * * * either upon an art, or upon a man.
Bacon—
Natural History. Century X. Touching emission of immateriate virtues, etc.
3
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain.
Butler—
Miscellaneous Thoughts. L. 283.
4
There is no fettering of authority.
5
Shall remain!
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you
His absolute "shall"?
6
Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar,
And the creature run from the cur:
There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority;
A dog's obeyed in office.
7
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
8
Thus can the demi-god Authority
Make us pay down for our offense by weight.
9
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
10
And though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.
11
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow'd of the power in his eye
That bow'd the will.
12
The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals; or rather, can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves.
13
Write to the mind and heart, and let the ear
Glean after what it can.
14
Indeed, unless a man can link his written thoughts with the everlasting wants of men, so that they shall draw from them as from wells, there is no more immortality to the thoughts and feelings of the soul than to the muscles and the bones.
15
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world—they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
Bovee—
Summaries of Thought. Authors.
16
A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.
La Bruyère—
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age. Ch. I.
17
A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.
La Bruyère—
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age. Ch. XV.
18
And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
Bunyan—
Pilgrim's Progress. Apology for his Book.
19
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
Burke—
Reflections on the Revolution in France.
20
The book that he has made renders its author this service in return, that so long as the book survives, its author remains immortal and cannot die.
21
And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.
22
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.
23
But every fool describes, in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,—
Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.
