The English Miscellany

Robert Boyle The reflective essay on a variety of topics can be traced back to Montaigne (1533-1592). His essays display erudite wit and a slippery, speculative, anecdotal approach to a range of themes. In the course of reading his work we start to piece together fragments of his personality and we warm to his humane openness to life. Robert Boyle (1627-1691) was also significant for his ability to compose meditative and inspiring short essays on any topic. Examples are The Christian Virtuoso (1690-91) and his Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects (1665) which included a defence of his methodology. The notion that ordinary, ephemeral topics were suitable for serious readers and profound spiritual reflection was most famously parodied in Jonathan Swift’s Meditations on a Broomstick (1701) But a Broom-stick, perhaps you'll say, is an Emblem of a Tree standing on its Head; and pray what is Man, but a Topsy-turvy Creature, his Animal Faculties perpetually mounted...

Because there are now millions of free blogs we have the opportunity to dip into lots of different kinds of writing and to sample quite different approaches to recurring topics or themes. Doing this kind of reading randomly can have wonderful results. It's called serendipity which involves surprise discoveries and unexpected connections. Serendipity is, of course, an eighteenth century word (1754). While we may consider that the period of the Enlightenment was obsessed with reason, system, order and process, the variety of different kinds of topical, fictional and journalistic writing offered many opportunities for fluid expression by creative people and mercurial personalities. Serendipity is also a useful strategy for broadening your interests and for avoiding the so-called writer's block. I believe that all great writers are also intelligent critical readers. I despair when I hear people saying that they want to write, but then proceed to say that they are not...