After considering him attentively, I recognized in him a diligent
getter-up of miscellaneous works, which bustled off well with the
trade. I was curious to see how he manufactured his wares. He
made more stir and show of business than any of the others;
dipping into various books, fluttering over the leaves of
manuscripts, taking a morsel out of one, a morsel out of another,
"line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a
little." The contents of his book seemed to be as heterogeneous
as those of the witches' cauldron in Macbeth. It was here a
finger and there a thumb, toe of frog and blind worm's sting,
with his own gossip poured in like "baboon's blood," to make the
medley "slab and good."
After all, thought I, may not this pilfering disposition be
implanted in authors for wise purposes? may it not be the way in
which Providence has taken care that the seeds of knowledge and
wisdom shall be preserved from age to age, in spite of the
inevitable decay of the works in which they were first produced?
We see that Nature has wisely, though whimsically provided for
the conveyance of seeds from clime to clime, in the maws of
certain birds; so that animals, which, in themselves, are little
better than carrion, and apparently the lawless plunderers of the
orchard and the corn-field, are, in fact, Nature's carriers to
disperse and perpetuate her blessings.
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