upon) their life and its humble vicissitudes, their errors and their virtues. We owe it also, though unconsciously, to the gloomy misanthropy of Byron; for proportioned to the intenseness with which we shared that feeling was the reaction from which we awoke from it; and amongst the more select and poetical of us, we owe it yet more to the dreaming philanthropy of Shelley, and the patriarchal tenderness of Wordsworth. It is this feeling that we should unite to sustain and to develope. It has come to us pure and bright from the ordeal of years -the result of a thousand errors-but born, if we preserve it, as their healer and redemption.

Diodorus Siculus tells us, that the forest of the Pyrenean mountains being set on fire, and the heat penetrating to the soil, a pure stream of silver gushed forth from the earth's bosom, and revealed for the first time the existence of those mines afterwards so celebrated.

It is thus from causes apparently the most remote, and often amidst the fires that convey to us, at their first outbreaking, images only of terror and desolation, that we deduce the most precious effects, and discover the treasures to enrich the generations that are to come!

CHAPTER III.

Cheap Works.-Diffusion of Knowledge.-Its necessary Consequences.-Writers are less profound in proportion as the public are more numerous.-Anecdote of Dr.---Suggestions how to fill the Fountain while we diffuse the Stream.Story of the Italian Master.

I THINK, sir, that when our ingenious countryman, Joshua Barnes, gave us so notable an account of the Pigmies, he must, in the spirit of prophecy, have intended to allegorize the empire of the Penny Periodicals. For, in the first place, these little strangers seem, Pigmylike, of a marvellous ferocity and valour; they make great head against their foes-they spread themselves incontinently-they possess the land-they live but a short time, yet are plenteously prolific; they owe much to what the learned Joshua terms "the royal Lescha," viz. a certain society (evidently the foretype of that lately established under the patronage of my Lord Brougham)-set up as he showeth "for the increase and propagation of experimental knowledge;" above all, and a most blissful peculiarity it is, "for taxes, they are wholly unacquainted with them!" they make vigilant war against the cranes, who I take it are palpably designed for tax-gatherers in general, quocunque gaudentes nomine—a fact rendered clear to the plainest understanding by the following description of these predatory birds:

"The cranes being the only causers of famine in the land, by reason they are so numerous that they can devour the most plentiful harvest, both by eating the seeds beforehand, and then picking the ears that remain."

Certes, however, these little gentry seem of a more general ambition than their Pigmæan types; for the latter confined themselves to a limited territory "from Gadazalia to Elysiana; " but these, the pigmies of our time, overrun us altogether, and push, with the rude insolence of innovation, our most venerable folios from their stools. The rage for cheap publications is not limited to Penny Periodicals; family libraries of all sorts have been instituted, with the captivating profession of teaching all things useful-bound in cloth, for the sum of five shillings a month! Excellent inventions, which, after showing us the illimitable ingenuity of compilation, have at length fallen the prey of their own numbers, and buried themselves amongst the corpses of the native quartos which they so successfully invaded.

Cheap publications are excellent things in themselves. Whatever increases the reading public, tends necessarily to equalize the knowledge already in the world; but the process by which knowledge is equalized is not altogether that by which the degree of knowledge is heightened. Cheap publications of themselves are sufficient for the diffusion of knowledge, but not for its advancement. The schoolmaster equalizes information, by giving that which he possesses to others, and for that very reason can devote but little time to increasing his own stock.

Let me make this more familiar by telling you an anecdote of our friend Dr.--. You know that he is a man of the very highest scientific attainments? You know also that he is not overburthened with those same precious metals on the history of which he can so learnedly descant. He took a book some months ago to a publisher of enterprise and capital: it was full of the profoundest research; the bookseller shook his head, and

"Pray, sir," said he, musingly, "how many persons in England are aquainted with the ultimate principles by which you come to your result?"

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'Not fifty, sir," cried the doctor, with all the enthusiasm of a dis

coverer.

"And how many can understand the elementary principles which occupy your first chapter?"

“Oh!" said the doctor, with indifference, "those principles are merely plain truths in mechanics, which most manufacturers ought to know, and which many literary dandies think it shows learning to allude to; perhaps, therefore, several thousands may be familiar with

the contents of the first chapter; but, I assure you, sir, you don't get far before"

"Pardon me, doctor," interrupted the bookseller, shortly-"if you address the fifty persons, you must publish this work on your own account; if you address the thousands, why it is quite another matter. Here is your MS.; burn all but the first chapter as a commercial speculation, the rest is mere rubbish. If you will then spin out the first chapter into a volume, and call it The Elements of Familiarly Explained-why, I think, sir, with your name, I could afford you three hundred pounds for it."

Necessity knows no law. The Elements are published to teach new thousands what other thousands knew before, and the Discoveries lie in the doctor's desk, where they will only become lucrative, when some richer man shall invent and propagate them, and the public will call on the poor doctor" to make them familiar."

Now observe a very curious consequence from this story: Suppose a certain science is only cultivated by five hundred men, and that they have all cultivated the science to a certain height. A book that should tell them what they knew already, they would naturally not purchase, and a book that told them more than they knew they would eagerly buy; in such a case, the doctor's position would have been reversed, and his Discoveries would have been much more lucrative to him than his Elements. Thus we may observe, that the tone of knowledge is usually more scholastic in proportion as the circle of readers is confined. When scholars are your audience, you address them after the fashion of a scholar. Hence, formerly, every man thought it necessary, when he wrote a book, to bestow upon its composition the most scrupulous care; to fill its pages with the product of a studious life; to polish its style with the classic file, and to ornament its periods with the academical allusion. He knew that the majority of those who read his work would be able to appreciate labour or to detect neglect; but, as the circle of readers increased, the mind of the writer became less fastidious; the superficial readers had outnumbered the profounder critics. He still addressed the majority, but the taste of the majority was no longer so scrupulous as to the fashion of the address. Since the Revival of Letters itself, the more confined the public, the more laborious the student. Ascham is more scholastic than Raleigh; Raleigh than Addison; and Addison than Scott.

The spirit of a popular assembly can enter into the crowd you write for, as well as the crowd you address; and a familiar frankness, or a superficial eloquence, charms the assembly when full, which a measured wisdom and a copious knowledge were necessary to win, when its numbers were scattered and select.

It is natural that writers should be ambitious of creating a sensation : a sensation is produced by gaining the ear, not of the few, but the many; it is natural, therefore, that they should address the many; the style pleasing to the many becomes, of course, the style most frequently aimed at hence the profusion of amusing, familiar, and superficial writings. People complain of it, as if it were a proof of degeneracy in the knowledge of authors-it is a proof of the increased number of readers. The time is come when nobody will fit out a ship for the intellectual Columbus to discover new worlds, but when everybody will subscribe for his setting up a steam-boat between Calais and Dover. You observe then, sir, (consequences which the fine talkers of the day have wholly overlooked) that the immense superficies of the public operates two ways in deteriorating from the profundity of writers in the first place, it renders it no longer necessary for an author to make himself profound before he writes; and in the next place, it encourages those authors who are profound, by every inducement, not of lucre alone, but of fame, to exchange deep writing for agreeable writing the voice which animates the man ambitious of wide fame, does not, according to the beautiful line in Rogers, whisper to him 'ASPIRE," but " DESCEND." "He stoops to conquer." Thus, if we look abroad, in France, where the reading public is less numerous than in England,* a more subtle and refining tone is more fashionable in literature; and in America, where it is infinitely larger, the tone of literature is infinitely more superficial. It is possible, that the highsouled among literary men, desirous rather of truth than fame, or willing to traverse their trial to posterity, are actuated, unconsciously, by the spirit of the times; but actuated they necessarily are, just (lo return to my former comparison) as the wisest orator, who uttered only philosophy to a thin audience of sages, mechanically abandons his refinements and his reasoning, and expands into a louder tone and more familiar manner as the assembly increases ;-the temper of the popular meeting is unavoidably caught by the mind that addresses it.†

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:

From these remarks we may perceive, then, that in order to increase the height of knowledge, it is not sufficient to diffuse its extent; nay, that in that very diffusion there is a tendency to the superficial, which requires to be counteracted. And this, sir, it seems to me that we can

* In France, the proportion of those educated in schools is but one in twentyeight.

†M. Cousin, speaking of professors who, in despair of a serious audience, wish at least for a numerous one, has well illustrated this principle. "Dans ce cas c'en est fait de la science, car on a beau faire, on se proportionne à son auditoire. Ily a dans les grandes foules je ne sais quel ascendant presque magnétique, qui subjugue les ames les plus fermes; et tel qui eût été un professeur sérieux et instructif pour une centaine d'étudians attentifs, devient léger et superficiel avec un auditoire superficiel et léger."

only thoroughly effect by the Endowments of which I have before spoken. For since the government of knowledge is like that of states, and instituted, not for the power of the few, but the enjoyment of the many, so this diffusion of information amongst the ignorant is greatly to be commended and encouraged, even though it operate unfavourably on the increase of information amongst the learned. We ought not therefore, to resist, even were we able, which we are not, the circulation of intelligence; but by other means we should seek to supply the reservoirs, from which, aloft and remote, the fertilizing waters are supplied. I see not that this can be done by any other means than the establishment of such professorships, and salaries for the cultivators of the highest branches of literature and science, as may be adequate, both in the number and in the income allotted to each, to excite ambition. Thus a tribunal for high endeavour will be established, independent of the court of the larger public-independent indeed, yet each acting upon the other. The main difficulty would be that of appointing fit electors to these offices. I cannot help thinking that there should, for the sake of emulation, and the prevention of corruption or prejudice, be different electoral bodies, that should promote to vacancies in rotation; and these might be the three branches of the legislature, the different national universities, and, above all (though the notion may seem extravagant at first sight), foreign academies, which being wholly free from sectarian or party prejudices, would, I am convinced, nine times out of ten (until at least they had aroused our emulation by exciting our shame), choose the most fitting persons; For foreign nations are to the higher efforts of genius, the Representatives of Posterity itself. This, to be sure, is not a scheme ever likely to be realised; neither, I confess, is it wholly free from objections: but unless some such incitement to the loftier branches of knowledge be divised, the increasing demand will only introduce adulteration in the supply. So wide a popularity, and so alluring a remuneration, being given to the superficial, whoever is ambitious, and whoever is poor, will naturally either suit his commodity to the market, or renounce his calling altogether. At present, a popular instructor is very much like a certain master in Italian, who has thriven prodigiously upon a new experiment on his pupils. J was a clever fellow, and full of knowledge which nobody wanted to know. After seeing him in rags for some years, I met him the other day most sprucely attired, and with the complacent and sanguine air of a prosperous gentle

man:

"I am glad to see, my dear sir," said I, "that the world wags well with you."

"It does."

"Doubtless, your books sell famously."