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Philosophy, with its abstruse questions, was set aside; the classic languages, the acquisition of which is accompanied by so much drudgery, one saw thrust into the background; the compendiums, about the sufficiency of which Hamlet had already whispered a word of caution into our ears, came more and more into suspicion.
Given the indisputable beauties of his works, this can only be due to their extreme length. And the proof of this, that in France and Spain, to encourage the taste for them, the most interesting parts have been extracted and published in editions and compendiums." This is suggestive, coming from one who speaks by the book.
For although it is a maxim in all books that we should trust only certain information, that we must be always suspicious, that is only a miserable book comfort, belonging to that description of knowledge in which writers of systems and compendiums take refuge for want of anything better to say.
I send thee this letter that, as soon as thou receivest it, thou make ready the monies and the tribute, and send them to us, together with the damsel whom thou hast bought and taken to wife; for I long to see her and hear her discourse; more especially because there hath come to us from Roumland an old woman of saintly bearing and with her be five damsels high bosomed virgins, endowed with knowledge and good breeding and all arts and sciences befitting mortals to know; and indeed tongue faileth me to describe this old woman and these who with her wend; for of a truth they are compendiums of perfections in learning and accomplishments.
Morgan had not been a paying guest in that house two days before the somber domestic tragedy that it roofed was as plain to him as if he had it printed and bound, and in his valise along with the compendiums of his valuable assortment. He found it pleasant to return to the farm early of an afternoon and sit in the kitchen door with his pipe, and watch Ollie's face clear of clouds as he talked.
The system of the world, as Canon Copernicus taught in the last century, following the doctrines of Aristarchus of Samos and Pythagorean philosophers, is doubtless known to you, as there have actually been prepared some compendiums of them for the urchins of village schools and dialogues abstracted from them for the use of town children.
It is the triumph of art that in this and in other splendid portions we wish more had been told. As the French say, "the secret of wearying is to say all," and this the Athenian thoroughly understood. Between our compendiums, which tell too little, and our long general histories, which tell too much, are Thucydides and Tacitus.
"That's true!" exclaimed the cornetist, with sparkling eyes. "Let who will pore over their compendiums, we choose to study in the vast picture-book which the dear God spreads open before us!
In the separate communions included within the general church of Christ are various, and in many respects, inestimable compendiums of Christian truth, arranged for the catechetical instruction of the young and ignorant; but it cannot be denied that these, one and all, exhibit some marks of sectarian feeling and dogmatic teaching in the details that relate to the special views which each communion takes of certain scriptural doctrines.
Besides there are sixty editions of portions of the work, of compendiums of it and commentaries on it. Altogether 129 editions are extant. Of these there are sixteen Latin editions, forty-three French, five Italian, four Low Dutch, five Catalan, and one English. Fourteen appeared in the fifteenth century, thirty-eight in the sixteenth century, and seventeen in the seventeenth century.