THE CHEAP LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

It is more than one hundred years since good and brilliant Lady Montague wrote "no entertainment is cheaper than reading, nor any pleasure so lasting." Her ladyship was an immense devourer of books, especially of new publications; nothing came amiss to her, from the heroic verse of Pope, to the grandiloquent mock-heroics of Richardson, and the ephemeral trash of the fashionable scribblers. It is difficult to ascertain the price of books from 1700 to 1760; but we conjecture that her ladyship's reading would not be called cheap at this day; nor should we have been anxious to settle her account with her bookseller.

The Spectator, after the stamp duty was imposed, was sold at four cents a copy, now equal, on account of the depreciation of the currency, to about eight cents. The of Addison and Steele do not average in papers length more than a single column of this sheet; so to measure such things by the quantity,—had the Spectator been of the same size of the Journal of Commerce, it would have sold at $3.20 a copy, and the subscription price would have been upwards of one thousand dollars a year. From 1700 to 1756, about 5,280 new works were published in England, or about 93 per annum; from 1816 to 1851 the average was 1,252 for each year; while in 1853 there were 2,530 new works published; and since then the average has steadily increased. Including pamphlets and ephemeral issues, some 10,000 new publications appear annually in

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Germany; some 2,300 volumes in the United States; and the total number of volumes annually put into circulation throughout France is estimated at 10,000,000 copies, at prices ranging from a franc down to a sou. Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the author of Recollections of a Life-Time, estimates the amount of the production of the American book trade for 1850 at $12,500,000; and for 1856 at $16,000,000; $6,000,000 whereof he allots to the city of New York.

One or two other facts may be mentioned in reference to the high price of books in old times. St. Jerome (A. D. 380), it is said, impoverished his estate to procure the works of Origen; King Alfred gave an immense tract of land for one book; in 1274 a copy of the Bible sold for £34, when labor was 1d. a day; in 1466 at from £60 to £20, and about the same time the Romance of the Rose for $150. Compare these prices with the cheapness of modern works, and especially with the enormous sale of some of our late publications. It is said that 35,000,000 of Webster's Elementary Spelling Book have been sold; that its annual issue is over 1,000,000; while some 3,000,000 of his Dictionaries are annually circulated. Of Mitchell's geographical books there is a probable issue of 1,000 per day, and of Prof. Davies's mathematical series 300,000 were sold in 1857. There were sold of Livingstone's Travels in South Africa 10,000 copies; of Kane's Arctic Explorations 65,000; while dropping down to fiction, we find that the serials of Dickens have a sale of 35,000;

* New American Cyclopedia.

that 310,000 copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin were sold; 70,000 Fern Leaves, and 45,000 of the Life of Bar

Here now is a fine opportunity to compassionate the mental poverty of our great-grandfathers, to expatiate on the intellectual progress of this generation, and to tweak the tail-feathers of the American eagle, preparatory to a triumphant scream over the enlightenment of our people.

Much of this kind might be truthfully said; but as there are two sides to every question, so the enormous circulation of modern books doubtless has its drawbacks as well as its advantages. Of the thousands of new publications annually cast broadcast over the land, how many will bear Charles Lamb's description of "books which are books?" How few princes in this kingdom of literature; how many plebeians and grovelers; once or twice only in a generation, do we uncover and bend low before the throne of genius! True poetry blooms into full flower as rarely as the century plant; once only in an age do mortals kindle their little torches with Promethean fire, or from the heights of Olympus speak with the "larger utterance of the early gods." But the little song-singers twitter each around his little. Parnassus, and the small thinkers and the small writers swarm around their small circles as thickly as insects in the summer air. The best thoughts of to-day have been better thought; the best things of to-day have been better said; and the best poem and novel of to-day are but a repetition of the passions, thoughts and senti* New American Cyclopedia.

ments of the life drama which is as old as the world itself.

We frankly admit that this is an extreme view; we mean it to be such. The truth is sometimes exhibited in exaggerations; and, after all, we have only repeated Solomon's proverb, that "there is nothing new under the sun." But to speak more guardedly, and of modern books; how many of the great mass put forth during the last year or so, are really of a superior order, or likely to survive the present generation? We can almost count on our fingers the live books of this period.

But over and above the inferiority and ephemeral character of the great mass of the publications of the day, and the number of stupid and sham books annually inflicted upon the public, there is a positive evil in modern literature which demands a passing allusion. The evil is sown broadcast with the good; and a million teeming presses scatter tares among the wheat. The sensation stories which are cried in the street, and the yellow covered publications under which the shelves of the book shops fairly groan, implant in the bosom of the young and the immature in heart, false ideas of honor, of principle, of life, of morality and of religion There is nothing which so inflames the passions and imagination of the young as these pictures of life, dressed up in gaudy colors and disguised with the thin covering of manly and generous impulses. A slimier and more venomous reptile still, lurks under the counter of the bookseller, and in the bosom of the boy-peddler. Should the statistics on this subject ever be published, the good citizen would lose hope for the morals and

principles of the rising generation. An investigation, made by a committee of the house of commons in 1851, showed that the sale of immoral and infidel publications amounted to 29,000,000 annually. And we have reason to believe that an expose in this country would be scarcely less appalling.

We admit again that we have presented only one side of this subject; and that there is a better and more hopeful one. The true hope, however, is in the latent but vigorous virtue of the great bulk of our people, the good and humanizing influences of the day, and the growing intellectual and moral culture of all classes. Were it not for such influences as these, we should mourn rather than rejoice over the cheapness of modern literature, and pray for a mighty censor of the press to separate the good from the bad, and winnow the wheat from the chaff.

FREIDRICH THE SECOND.*

The modern public demands, over and above all other excellencies, that the historical work submitted to its judgment, shall be readable; and spurns with impatience the routine of dry facts and figures which satisfied the old fashioned chroniclers of the past. Whatever other fault may be laid at the door of Carlyle, he is eminently free from that of dullness. No one can read these

History of Freidrich the Second, called Frederick the Great, by Thomas Carlyle, in 4 volumes, vols. I and II, New York, Harper & Brothers.