ed intellects of the middle classes; upon the working it produces at first no effect whatever. The reason is, that the great majority of them have not intellects sufficiently strong to make at once the transition from error to truth, unless the evils of error have been long and forcibly brought before their senses. If that be the case, indeed, the humblest classes are the very first to see the light. Witness the Reformation in Germany, or the Revolution in France. They are so, because they are less interested than their superiors in the maintenance of error. But if the new discoveries of thought relate not to present but remote evils, and do not appeal to what is universally known to the senses, but only to what may with difficulty be gathered from study or reflection, nothing is more certain than that the progress even of truth is exceedingly slow-that the human mind is to the last degree reluctant to admit any great change of opinion; and that, in general, at least one generation must descend to their graves before truths, ultimately deem ed the most obvious, are gradually forced upon the reluctant consent of mankind. Mr Burke's speeches never were popular in the House of Commons, and his rising up acted like a dinner-bell in thinning the benches. Now his words are dwelt on by the wise, quoted by the eloquent, diffused among the many. Oratory, to be popular, must be in advance of the audience, and but a little in advance; profound thought may rule mankind in future, but unless stimulated by causes obvious to all, will do little for present reputation. Hence it was that Bacon bequeathed his reputation to the generation after the next.

As little is there any reason to hope that the obvious and gratifying return to serious and standard publications, evinced by the numerous reprints of our classical writers that issue from the press, can be taken as any sufficient indication that there exists in the public mind an adequate antidote to these evils. The fact of these reprints of standard works issuing from the press, certainly proves sufficiently that there is a class, and a numerous one too, of persons who, however much they may like superficial literature as an amusement for the hour, yet look to our standard works for the volumes which are to fill their libraries. But that by

VOL. LI. NO. cccxv.

no means affords a sufficient guarantee that the public will give any encouragment to the composition or publication of standard works at the present time, and with the present temper of the public mind. There is a most material difference between the reprint of a standard work, which has already acquired a fixed reputation, and the composition of a new work of a serious and contemplative cast, especially by an unknown author, and more particularly if it is in opposition to the general current of public opinion. It may safely be predicted of such a work, that if it really contains new and important truths, it will be distasteful to the majority of readers in all classes; and that whatever fame may in future be bestowed on its author, or however widely it may hereafter be read by the public, or command the assent of mankind, he will be in his grave before either effect takes place. Adam Smith, if we mistake not, had died before the Wealth of Nations had got past even a second edition. Several years had elapsed before a hundred copies of Mr Hume's History were sold; and he himself has told us, that nothing but the earnest entreaties of his friends induced him, in the face of such a cold and chilling reception, to continue his historical labours. Although, therefore, there exists a steady demand for standard classical works, it is by no means equally apparent that any thing like an adequate encouragement in the general case for the composition of new standard works, is to be found in the present state of society. Few men have the self-denial, like Bacon, to bequeath their reputation to the generation after the next, and to labour for nothing during the whole of their own lifetime; and the chance of finding persons who will do so, is much diminished, when society has reached that period in which, by simply lowering his mode of composition, and descending from being the instructor to be the amuser of men, the author can obtain both profit and celebrity from a numerous and flattering class of readers.

Nor is there the slightest ground for the hope, that the strong diversion of philosophical and literary talent into the periodical literature of the day, has only turned it into a new channel, and not diminished its amount or impaired its usefulness. If we con

H

template, indeed, the periodical literature of the day, every one must be struck with astonishment at the prodigious amount and versatility of talent which it displays. But how much of that has realized itself in works of a permanent or durable character, calculated to instruct or delight future ages? Turn to the early criticisms of the Edinburgh Review, flowing, as they did, from the able and varied pens of Brougham, Jeffrey, and Sydney Smith, and see how many of them will stand the test which thirty years' subsequent experience has afforded? Few persons now read the early critiques in the Quarterly Review, supported as they were by the talent of Gifford, Lockhart, Croker, and Dudley, which affords decisive evidence of the way in which each succeeding wave of periodical criticism buries in oblivion the last. Various attempts have been made to select from the immense mass of these periodicals, such of the pieces as appeared likely to attract permanent interest; but none of them have any remarkable success, and the epitome in four octavos seems rapidly following the fate of the original mass in sixty.

The reason why periodical literature, how able soever, never in general succeeds in acquiring a lasting reputation, is this. It is too deeply impregnated with the passions, the interests, and the errors of the moment. This arises from the same cause which Bulwer and Cousin have remarked as necessarily changing the character of oratory in proportion to the size of the audience to which it is addressed. Temporary literature necessarily shares in the temporary nature of the passions of which it is the mirror. Every one who is accustomed to that species of composition knows, that if he does not strike at the prevailing feeling of the moment, in the great majority of his readers he will produce no sort of impression, and he will very soon find his contributions returned upon his hand by the editor. "The great talent of Mirabeau," says Dumont, "consisted in this, that he intuitively saw to what point in the minds of his audience to apply his strength, and he sent it home there with the strength of a giant." That is precisely the talent required in periodical literature; and accordingly, every one engaged in it is aware that

he writes an article for a magazine or review in a totally different style from what he does any writing intended for durable existence. If we turn to the political articles in any periodical ten or fifteen years old, what a multitude of facts do we find distorted, of theories disproved by the result, of anticipations which have proved fallacious, of hopes which have terminated only in disappointment? This is no reproach to the writers. It is the necessary result of literary and philosophical talent keenly and energetically applied to the interests of the hour. It is in the cool shade of retirement, and by men detached from the contests of the world, that truth in social and moral affairs is really to be discovered; but how are we to look for that quality amidst the necessary cravings of an excited age, seeking after something new in fiction, or the passions of a divided community finding vent on politics in the periodical press?

The great profits which now accrue to authors who are lucky enough to hit upon a popular view with the public, is another circumstance which tends most powerfully to stamp this fleeting and impassioned character, both upon our creations of imagination and periodical effusions of political argument. The days are gone past when Johnson wrote in a garret in Fleet Street the sonorous periods which a subsequent century have admired, under the name of Chatham. The vast increase of readers, particularly in the middle and lower ranks, has opened sources of literary profit, and avenues to literary distinction, unknown in any former age. A successful article in a magazine or review brings a man into notice in the literary world, just as effectually as a triumphant debût makes the fortune of an actress or singer. But how is this success to be kept up? or how is this profit to be continued? Not certainly by turning aside from periodical literature to the cool shades of meditation or retirement, but by engaging still more deeply in the stirring bustle of the times; by catering to the craving for continued excitement, or plunging into the stream of turbulent politics. If, instead of doing so, he sits" on a hill retired," and labours for the benefit of mankind, and the instruction of posterity in a future age, he will soon find the cold shoulder of the public turned to

wards him. He may acquire immortal fame by his labours, but he will soon find that, unless he has a profession or independent fortune, he is gradually verging towards a neglected home the garret. Whereas, if he engages in the pursuit of fiction, or plunges into the stream of politics, he will erelong be gratified by finding, if he has talents adequate to the undertaking, that fame and fortune pour in upon him, that his society is courted, and his name celebrated, and not unfrequently political patronage rewards passing talent or service with durable honours or rewards.

Nothing, indeed, is more certain than that nothing great, either in philosophy, literature, or art, was ever purchased by gold; that genius unfolds her treasures to disinterested votaries only; and that but one reason can be assigned why such clusters of great men occasionally appear in the world, that "God Almighty," in Hallam's words, "has chosen at those times to create them." But admitting that neither gold nor honours can purchase genius, or unlock truth, the question is, to what extent they may draw aside talent, even of the highest class, from the cold and shivering pinnacles of meditation and truth, into the rich and flowery vales of politics, amusement, or imagination. The point is not what they can do, but what they can cause to be left undone. Doubtless there are occasionally to be found men of the very highest character of intellect and principle, who, born to direct mankind, feel their destiny, and, in defiance of all the seductions of fame or interest, pursue it with invincible perseverance to the end. But such men are rare; they seldom appear more than once in a generation. Above all, they are least likely to arise, and most likely to be diverted from their proper destiny, in an age of commercial opulence and greatness, or of strong political or social excitement. The universal thirst for gold, the general experience of its necessity to confer not merely comfort but respectability-the facility with which genius may acquire it, if it will condescend to fall in with the temper of the times the utter barrenness of its efforts, if it indulges merely in the abstract pursuit of truth, how clearly soever destined for immortality in a future age-the distinction to be im

mediately acquired by lending its aid to the strife of parties, or condescending to amuse an insatiable public-the long-continued neglect which is certain to ensue, if works likely to procure durable celebrity are attemptedare so many temptations which assail the literary adventurer on his path, and which, if not resisted by the heroic sense of duty of a Thalaba, will infallibly divert him from his ap pointed mission of piercing the Idol of Error to the heart.

These causes of danger to our standard literature become more pressing, when it is recollected that, by the fixed practice and apparently constitutional usage of this mixed aristocratic and commercial realm, no distinctions of rank are ever conferred upon literary ability, how distinguished soever. Sir Walter Scott, indeed, and Sir Edward Bulwer have been made baronets; but, in the first instance, it was on the personal friend of George IV. that this honour was conferred, not the great novelist; in the second, to the literary parliamentary supporter, not the author of England and the English, that the reward was given. Both indeed were entirely worthy of the honour; but the honour would never have been bestowed on the Scotch novelist, if he had been unknown in the aristocratic circles of London, and never dined at Carlton House; or on the English, if he had been a stranger to the Whig coteries of the metropolis. The proof of this is decisive. Look at what we have done for our greatest men, who had not these adventitious aids to court favour.

The influence of this circumstance is very great; and the want of any such national honours is an additional cause of the fleeting and ephemeral character of our general literature. The soldier and the sailor are certain, if they distinguish themselves, of obtaining such rewards. Look at the long lists of knights commanders of the bath, in both services, who were promoted by the last brevet. Nothing can be more just than conferring such distinctions on these gallant men ; they compensate to them the inequality of their fortunes, and stimulate them to heroic and daring exploits. The successful lawyer often comes in the end to take precedence of every peer in the realm, and becomes the

founder of a family which transmits his wealth and his honours to remote generations. But to literary abilities none of these higher and elevating objects of ambition are open. The great author can neither found a family nor acquire a title; and if he does not choose to degrade himself by falling in with the passions or frivolities of the age, it is more than probable that, like the Israelites of old, his life would be spent in wandering in the desert, and he would see only in his last hour, and that from afar, the promised land. And yet what is the influence of the soldier, the lawyer, or the statesman, compared to that which a great and profound writer exercises? and what do the monarchs, the cabinets, and the generals of one age do, but carry into effect the principles enforced by the master-spirits of the preceding?

It is evident, therefore, that there are a variety of causes, some of a positive, some of a negative kind, which are operating together to depress the character of our literature; to chill the aspirations of genius, or the soarings of intellect; to enlist fancy on the side of fashion, and genius in the pursuit of fiction; to bind down lasting intellect to passing interests, and compel it to surrender to party what was meant for mankind. This is not a class interest; it is an universal concern. It involves nothing less than the dearest interests and future fate of the nation; for what sort of people will we soon become, if temporary passions, interests, or frivolities, alone engross the talent of the empire; and the great lights of genius and intellect, which might enable us to keep abreast of our fortunes, become extinct among us? What are we to say are likely to be the principles of our statesmen, our legislators, or our rulers, if the elevating and ennobling principles of former times are gradually forgotten, and no successors to the race of giants arise to direct, purify, and elevate the public mind, amidst the rapidly increasing dangers which assail it, in the later and more opulent stages of society? What are we to expect but that we are to fall into the listless cravings of the Athenians, who were constantly employed in seeing and hearing something new; or to the deplorable destiny of the Byzantine empire, which, amidst incessant lite

rary exertion and amusement, did not produce a single work of genius for a thousand years? And if such mingled talent and frivolity should permanently lay hold of the British mind, what can we expect but that our latter end shall be like theirs, and that centuries of progressive degradation and ultimate national extinction, will terminate the melancholy era of social regeneration on which we have just entered.

It is perhaps of still more importance to observe, what, though equally true, is not so generally admitted, that these causes of degradation, so far from being likely to be alleviated or arrested by the progressive extension of the taste for reading among the middle and lower classes of society, is likely to be daily increased by that very circumstance. As it is the extension of the power of reading to the middle and working classes, that has, in great part, produced the present ephemeral character of our literature, and the incessant demand for works of excitement; so nothing appears more certain, than that it is likely to encrease with the extension of that class of readers. The middle and lower orders, indeed, who are so closely brought into contact with the real difficulties and stern realities of life, will always, in every popular community, cause a large part of the talent and intellect of the nation to be directed, not merely to works of amusement, but works of utility, and having an immediate bearing on the improvement of art, the extension of commerce, or the amelioration of the material interests of society. But these labours, however useful and important, belong to a secondary class of thought, and encourage only a second class of literary labourers. They are the instruments of genius, not genius itself; they are the generals and colonels in the great army of thought, but not the commander-inchief. "In the infancy of a nation," says Bacon, "arms do prevail; in its manhood, arms and learning for a short season; in its decline, commerce and the mechanical arts." The application of energy, talent, and industry, to material purposes, however useful or necessary those purposes may be, savours of the physical necessities, not the spiritual dignity of man; and the general turning of

public effort in that direction, is a symptom of the decline of nations. Let us not therefore lay the flattering unction to our souls, that the craving for the excitement of fiction, or the realities of mechanical improvement, which have extended so immensely among us, with the spread of knowledge among the middle and working classes, are to prove any antidote to the decline of the highest class of literature amongst us. On the contrary, they are among the most powerful causes which produce it.

Real genius and intellect of the highest character, it can never be too often repeated, works only for the future; it rarely produces any impression, or brings in any reward whatever, at the present. Works of fiction or imagination, indeed, such as Sir Walter Scott's novels, or Lord Byron's poetical romances, may produce an immediate impression, and yet be destined for durable existence; but such a combination is extremely rare, and is in general confined entirely to works that please. Those that instruct or improve, destined to a yet longer existence, have a much slower growth, and often do not come to maturity till after the death of the author.

"The solitary man of genius," says D'Israeli, "is arranging the materials of instruction and curiosity from every country and every age; he is striking out, in the concussion of new light, a new order of ideas for his own times; he possesses secrets which men hide from their contemporaries, truths they dared not utter, facts they dared not discover. View him in the stillness of meditation, his eager spirit busied over a copious page, and his eye sparkling with glad ness. He has concluded what his countrymen will hereafter cherish as the legacy of genius. You see him now changed; and the restlessness of his soul is thrown into his very gestures! Could you listen to the vaticinator! But the next age only will quote his predictions. If he be the truly great author, he will be best comprehended by posterity; for the result of ten years of solitary meditation has often required a whole century to be understood and to be adopted."

We are no enemies to the conferring the honours of the crown upon the most distinguished of our literary men. To

many, such elevation would form a most appropriate reward; to all, a legitimate object of ambition. But we are exceedingly jealous of the influence of all such court favours upon the assertors of political, social, or historical truth. We look to other countries, and we behold the withering effect of such distinctions upon the masculine independence of thought. We recollect the titled and well-paid literature of France, under the Emperor Napoleon, and we ask, what has come of all that high-sounding panegyric ? We read the annals of the titled historians of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and we sicken for the breath of a freeman. We remember it was only under a Trajan that a Tacitus could pour forth the indignation of expiring virtue at surrounding baseness, and we shudder to think how few Trajans are to be found in the decline of nations.

The only legitimate and safe reward of the highest class of literary merit, next to the consciousness of discharging its mission, is to be found in the prolongation of the period during which its profits are to accrue to the family of the author. We at once concede that even this motive, higher and more honourable than that of present or selfish gain, will never be sufficient to induce the loftiest class of genius or intellect to produce any great work. It is an overpowering sense of public duty-an ardent inspiration after deserved immortalitythe yearnings of a full mind, which must be delivered that are the real causes of such elevated efforts. They are given only to a few, because to a few only has God assigned the power of directing mankind. But, admitting that the divine inspiration is the fountain of truth-the "pure well of genius undefiled"-the point to be considered is, how is the stream which it pours forth to be kept in its proper channel?-how is it to be prevented from becoming rapidly merged in the agitated waves of human passion, or sunk in the bottomless morasses of interest or selfishness? By giving something like perpetuity to the rights of authorship, this can be best effected; because it is by so doing that we will most effectually ally it to the purest and most elevated motives which, in sublunary matters, can influence mankind.

Look at the merchant, the lawyer,