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Of whose originals
as well as principles I am now advancing to gratify the world with a
very particular account.

"Mellaeo contingens cuncta lepore."



SECTION VII.--A DIGRESSION IN PRAISE OF DIGRESSIONS.



I have sometimes heard of an Iliad in a nut-shell, but it has been
my fortune to have much oftener seen a nut-shell in an Iliad. There
is no doubt that human life has received most wonderful advantages
from both; but to which of the two the world is chiefly indebted, I
shall leave among the curious as a problem worthy of their utmost
inquiry. For the invention of the latter, I think the commonwealth
of learning is chiefly obliged to the great modern improvement of
digressions. The late refinements in knowledge, running parallel to
those of diet in our nation, which among men of a judicious taste
are dressed up in various compounds, consisting in soups and olios,
fricassees and ragouts.

It is true there is a sort of morose, detracting, ill-bred people
who pretend utterly to disrelish these polite innovations. And as
to the similitude from diet, they allow the parallel, but are so
bold as to pronounce the example itself a corruption and degeneracy
of taste. They tell us that the fashion of jumbling fifty things
together in a dish was at first introduced in compliance to a
depraved and debauched appetite, as well as to a crazy constitution,
and to see a man hunting through an olio after the head and brains
of a goose, a widgeon, or a woodcock, is a sign he wants a stomach
and digestion for more substantial victuals. Further, they affirm
that digressions in a book are like foreign troops in a state, which
argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its own, and often
either subdue the natives, or drive them into the most unfruitful
corners.

But after all that can be objected by these supercilious censors, it
is manifest the society of writers would quickly be reduced to a
very inconsiderable number if men were put upon making books with
the fatal confinement of delivering nothing beyond what is to the
purpose. It is acknowledged that were the case the same among us as
with the Greeks and Romans, when learning was in its cradle, to be
reared and fed and clothed by invention, it would be an easy task to
fill up volumes upon particular occasions without further
expatiating from the subject than by moderate excursions, helping to
advance or clear the main design. But with knowledge it has fared
as with a numerous army encamped in a fruitful country, which for a
few days maintains itself by the product of the soil it is on, till
provisions being spent, they send to forage many a mile among
friends or enemies, it matters not. Meanwhile the neighbouring
fields, trampled and beaten down, become barren and dry, affording

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