Poor Sack! He is very ill, indeed. We parted as never to meet again. It
has quite broke me down.' This pathetic narrative was strangely
diversified with the grave and earnest defence of a man's having married
his maid. I could not but feel it as in some degree ludicrous.
In the morning of Tuesday, June 15, while we sat at Dr. Adams's, we
talked of a printed letter from the Reverend Herbert Croft[942], to a
young gentleman who had been his pupil, in which he advised him to read
to the end of whatever books he should begin to read. JOHNSON. 'This is
surely a strange advice; you may as well resolve that whatever men you
happen to get acquainted with, you are to keep to them for life. A book
may be good for nothing; or there may be only one thing in it worth
knowing; are we to read it all through[943]? These Voyages, (pointing to
the three large volumes of _Voyages to the South Sea_[944], which were
just come out) _who_ will read them through? A man had better work his
way before the mast, than read them through; they will be eaten by rats
and mice, before they are read through.
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