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You will say, good reader, that the party took a very short stroll on the hill, when we tell you that they were now stooping their heads at the lowly door of the cottage; but the terse littera scripta abridges wondrously the rambling vox emissa; and there might be other things said in the course of the conversation which history has not condescended to record.
Literature really means letters, for it comes from a Latin word littera, meaning a letter of the alphabet. Words are made by letters of the alphabet being set together, and our literature again by words being set together; hence the name. As on and on time went, every year more stories were told and sung and written down.
But the littera scripta manet the stroke of the brush is everlasting. Apollo always bends the bow in marble. One may read a poem till it is known by heart, and in another second the familiar words strike fresh upon the ear. Painters lay a canvas aside, and presently come to it, as they say, with a new eye; but a purchaser once seized with this desperate malady has no such refuge.
He was born before the days of historic doubt. He tells a true story. To allege an authority is with him to prove a fact, and to cite all writers who repeat the original source is to render truth impregnable. Rarely does he show any symptom of the modern malady of incredulity. Scripta littera is reason enough, unless the fair fame of his city chances to be at stake.
Et tibi quae Samios diduxit littera ramos, Surgentem dextro monstravit limite callem. Pers. three 56. There has the Samian Y's instructive make, Pointed the road thy doubtful foot should take; There warned thy raw and yet unpractised youth, To tread the rising right-hand path of truth. Brewster. They went home in different directions, and morally too their paths henceforth were widely diverse.
Sir W. Coventry came to me aside in the Duke's chamber to tell that he had not answered part of a late letter of mine, because LITTERA SCRIPTA MANET. About his leaving the office, he tells me, it is because he finds that his business at Court will not permit him to attend it; and then he confesses that he seldom of late could come from it with satisfaction, and therefore would not take the King's money for nothing.
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