in Literature, a term signifying the reduction of a book into a smaller compass.

The art of conveying much sentiment in few words, is the happiest talent an author can be possessed of. This talent is peculiarly necessary in the present state of literature; for many writers have acquired the dexterity of spreading a few trivial thoughts over several hundred pages. When an author hits upon a thought that pleases him, he is apt to dwell upon it, to view it in different lights, to force it in improperly, or upon the slightest relations. Though this may be pleasant to the writer, it tires and vexes the reader. There is another great source of diffusion in composition. It is a capital object with an author, whatever be the subject, to give vent to all his best thoughts. When he finds a proper place for any of them, he is peculiarly happy. But rather than sacrifice a thought he is fond of, he forces it in by way of digression, or superfluous illustration. If none of these expedients answer his purpose, he has recourse to the margin, a very convenient apartment for all manner of pedantry and impiety. There is not an author, however correct, but is more or less faulty in this respect. An abridger, however, is not subject to these temptations. The thoughts are not his own; he views them in a cooler and less affectionate manner; he discovers an impropriety in some, a vanity in others, and a want of utility in many. His business, therefore, is to retrench superfluities, digressions, quotations, pedantry, &c., and to lay before the public only what is really useful. This is by no means an easy employment: To abridge some books, requires talents equal, if not superior, to those of the author. The facts, manner, spirit, and reasoning must be preserved; nothing essential, either in argument or illustration, ought to be omitted. The difficulty of the task is the principal reason why we have so few good abridgements: Wynne's abridgement of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, is perhaps the only unexceptionable one in our language.

These observations relate solely to such abridgements as are designed for the public. But,

When a person wants to set down the substance of any book, a shorter and less laborious method may be followed. It would be foreign to our plan to give examples of abridgements for the public: But as it may be useful, especially to young people, to know how to abridge books for their own use, after giving a few directions, we shall exhibit an example or two, to show with what ease it may be done.

Read the book carefully; endeavour to learn the principal view of the author; attend to the arguments employed: When you have done so, you will generally find, that what the author uses as new or additional arguments, are in reality only collateral ones, or extensions of the principal argument. Take a piece of paper or a common-place book, put down what the author wants to prove, subjoin the argument or arguments, and you have the substance of the book in a few lines. For example,

In the Essay on Miracles, Mr Hume's design is to prove, That miracles which have not been the immediate objects of our senses, cannot reasonably be believed upon the testimony of others.

Now, this argument (for there happens to be but one) is,

"That experience, which in some things is variable, in others uniform, is our only guide in reasoning concerning matters of fact. A variable experience gives rise to probability only; an uniform experience amounts to a proof. Our belief of any fact from the testimony of eye witnesses is derived from no other principle than our experience in the variety of human testimony. If the fact attested be miraculous, here arises a contest of two opposite experiences, or proof against proof. Now, a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined; and if so, it is an undeniable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted by any proof whatever derived from human testimony."

In Dr Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles, the author's principal aim is to show the fallacy of Mr Hume's argument; which he has done most successfully by another single argument, as follows:

"The evidence arising from human testimony is not solely derived from experience: on the contrary, testimony hath a natural influence on belief antecedent to experience. The early and unlimited assent given to testimony by children gradually contracts as they advance in life: it is, therefore, more consonant to truth to say, that our difference in testimony is the result of experience, than that our faith in it has this foundation. Besides, the uniformity of experience, in favour of any fact, is not a proof against its being revered in a particular instance. The evidence arising from the single testimony of a man of known veracity will go farther to establish a belief in its being actually reversed: If his testimony be confirmed by a few others of the same character, we cannot withhold our assent to the truth of it. Now, though the operations of nature are governed by uniform laws, and though we have not the testimony of our senses in favour of any violation of them; still, if in particular instances we have the testimony of thousands of our fellow-creatures, and those too men of strict integrity, swayed by no motives of ambition or interest, and governed by the principles of common sense, That they were actually eye witnesses of these violations, the constitution of our nature obliges us to believe them."

These two examples contain the substance of about 400 pages.—Making private abridgements of this kind has many advantages: It engages us to read with accuracy and attention; it fixes the subject in our minds; and, if we should happen to forget, instead of reading the books again, by glancing a few lines, we are not only in possession of the chief arguments, but recall in a good measure the author's method and manner.

Abridging is peculiarly useful in taking the substance of what is delivered by professors, &c. It is impossible, even with the assistance of short-hand, to take down, verbatim, what is said by a public speaker. Besides, although it were practicable, such a talent would be of little use. Every public speaker has circumlocutions, redundancies, lumber, which deserve not to be copied. All that is really useful may be comprehended in a short compass. If the plan of the discourse, and arguments employed in support of the different branches, be taken down, you have the whole. Then you may afterwards extend in the form of a discourse drafted in your own language. This would not only be a more rational employment, but would likewise be an excellent method of improving young men in composition; an object too little attended to in all our universities.

"The mode of reducing, says the author of the Curiosities of Literature, what the ancients had written in bulky volumes, practised in preceding centuries, came into general use about the fifth. As the number of students and readers diminished, authors neglected literature, and were disgusted with composition; for to write is seldom done, but when the writer entertains the hope of finding readers. Instead of original authors, there suddenly arose numbers of abridgers. These men, amidst the prevailing disgust for..." for literature, imagined they should gratify the public by introducing a mode of reading works in a few hours, which otherwise could not be done in many months; and, observing that the bulky volumes of the ancients lay buried in dust, without any one endeavoring to examine them, the disagreeable necessity inspired them with an invention that might bring those works and themselves into public notice, by the care they took of renovating them. This they imagined to effect by forming abridgements of these ponderous volumes.

All these Abridgers, however, did not follow the same mode. Some contented themselves with making a mere abridgement of their authors, by employing their own expressions, or by inconsiderable alterations. Others compiled these abridgements in drawing them from various authors, but from whole works they only took what appeared to them most worthy of observation, and drested them in their own style. Others, again, having before them several authors who wrote on the same subject, took passages from each, united them, and thus formed a new work. They executed their design by digressing in common places, and under various titles, the most valuable parts they could collect, from the best authors they read. To these last ingenious scholars, we owe the rescue of many valuable fragments of antiquity. They happily preserved the best maxims, the characters of persons, descriptions, and any other subjects which they found interesting in their studies.

There have been learned men who have censured these Abridgers, as the cause of our having lost so many excellent entire works of the ancients; for posterity becoming less studious, was satisfied with these extracts, and neglected to preserve the originals, whose voluminous size was less attractive. Others on the contrary say, that these Abridgers have not been so prejudicial to literature, as some have imagined; and that had it not been for their care, which snatched many a perishable fragment from that shipwreck of letters, which the barbarians occasioned, we should perhaps have had no works of the ancients remaining.

Abridgers, Compilers, and even Translators, in the present fastidious age, are alike regarded with contempt; yet to form their works with skill requires an exertion of judgment, and frequently of taste, of which their contemporaries appear to have no conception. It is the great misfortune of such literary labours, that even when performed with ability, the learned will not be found to want them, and the unlearned have not discernment to appreciate them."