rative fame of Sir Walter Scott has been as great, perhaps, as that of any other author, of modern or even of ancient days, not excepting even Petrarch and Dante; and yet his numerous works, with all their solid worth, are gradually yielding place to others, whose readers, pressed by the continual flow of new works, can find but little time, even for the Waverly Novels! So that the day may well come, and may not be distant, when Sir Walter's name, brilliant, like that of Shakspeare and Milton, will scarce retain sufficient ardour to command the reading attention of one in a thousand, even of the reading public!

Witness the morbid taste that devours (to the exclusion of almost every other species of intellectual nouriture) those really admirable works, now so noised in the world, under the euphonic names of 'Pickwick,' and 'Nickleby,' and 'Slick,' yea, and also an hundred of the like genus, as destitute, however, of their conceded genius, as is an egg of squareness! It is not the philosophy, the truth, the morals, or the information, to be extracted from these fashionable volumes, that these fashionable readers are really in search of for these all, are very apt to be either neglected by such diseased appetites, or, to be wholly evaporated by the keen excitement occasioned by the spicy and ludicrous materials which every where abound in them, and which mainly constitute the vehicle by which they are imparted. Nothing, now-a-days, can render sound knowledge and sober morals even endurable, unless fiction and fun be more than prominent

and, doubtless, even all history, metaphysics, yea, perhaps, even mathematics, and our holy religion will have to be ere long, handed over to the broadly grinning pens of this very popular class of writers! I love to laugh, and heartily too, yet not always, or on all subjects—but such is the mania, now, for the ludicrous, that we may soon look for a Principia Newtoni, edited by some Nicholas Nickleby; or a Polyglot Bible, illustrated by a second Cruikshanks! for, unless philosophy be thus disguised by fun, and morals be gilded at all points by the fascinations of romance, I ween that all the solid books of former days will be consigned to the worms, or their contents be cooked up in more palatable dishes from the cuisine of 'Messrs. Jack Downing, Boz, Slick & Co.!' (an admirable firm I admit,) but still, not one that should swallow up such as 'Messrs. Bacon, Shakspeare, Johnson & Co.' and many others that might be named.

The truth, however, is that the existent, and used literature of almost any age, but especially of our own, when compared with that which is unknown, or forgotten, 'as of the days beyond the flood,' forms but an insignificant portion of the 'world of books.' Nearly every age has had its favourite and peculiar knowledge, which has superseded, or newly fashioned that of preceding times; and, in looking through the long vista of time, there is nothing in man's history that more forcibly shows the uncertainty of his attainments, and the fleeting duration of even the philosopher's fame, than the

thousand systems and theories that rise, culminate, and fall! Where are now the much vaunted and infallible knowledge of Aristotle, the vortices of Descartes, the learning of the astrologists, the deep researches of the alchemists, the experiments of the phlogistians, and the innumerable other devices of human invention, and of supposed inestimable discovery ?-you must seek for them among the things that are forgotten; and though they may have reigned supreme, in their day, as positive knowledge, and have gained their authors much fame, they are now regarded but as so many idle fancies, that have brought as much reproach, as lustre upon our species! If, then, in the days of Solomon, he could truly say, 'there is nothing new under the sun,' how many cycles, and revolutions, and changes have the great mass of human ideas since performed!-like the congregated and blended waters of the ocean's vast reservoir, they have assumed an infinitude of forms-they pass into clouds and vapours-they descend on the earth in rain, snow, hail, frosts, and dews-they form springs, and rivulets, and rivers, and lakes and seas; and at last, disappear in the great abyss; but again, at various intervals, and under new modifications, to re-appear in other regions, and in other ages!

Whether, in the glorious days of Israel's great monarch, the world were as populous as now, can scarce be known; but if the copia librorum were then deemed an evil, it must be a still greater one at this time; if, indeed, an evil it can be at all,

The earth is computed now to contain about eight hundred millions of inhabitants-the larger part of whom are grossly illiterate and without books; and yet, it is not improbable, there are now as many printed and manuscript volumes, (not distinct works) as there are people on the face of the globe; and in christendom, vastly more! Book-making seems to go on in a kind of geometrical ratio, for the very purpose, it would seem, of keeping pace with population; thus giving another proof against Mr. Malthus, who says that population increases in that ratio; but that the supply of food is only an arithmetical progression!

Had the millions of volumes that now repose, in dusty oblivion, in our numerous public and private libraries, the faculty of locomotion, and of speech, withal, so as to reveal their hidden treasures to willing auditors, what a march of mind would then ensue! But, as matters now are, it would require the press to be vastly more prolific than it is, before its redundancy could be justly regarded, if ever, as an essential evil. We are not used to complain of too much air, nor yet of too much earth, or water; why then of too many books? This per se, cannot occasion a diminution of readers; nor is it the cause even of superficial reading-neither the quantity, nor the quality being, of itself an evil, much to be complained of. What, then, is the true ground of complaint? It surely is not over-much reading, nor indiscriminate reading; but merely and wholly that the reading of our day is rather guided by

fashion, by a love of novelty, and an indomitable passion for excitement, than by any sound judgment and careful selection-and finally, that many persons are mere collectors of books, who are mainly content with looking at them! Were every individual, on the contrary, true to himself, how idle would the complaint then be, that his field for selection was too vast!

Whilst authors, therefore, are humiliated by this unfounded, and oft reiterated lament, readers should remember that the fault is wholly their own; for although the natural atmosphere may be vitiated by many noxious elements flowing into it, the world of good books must continue unchanged, though very many worthless ones may issue daily from the press. Proximity, or juxtaposition between books, can occasion no contagion or infection among their contents; the virtuous and the vicious reciprocally will continue to avoid what suits not their taste; and after all, the useless and vicious books, compared with those of various degrees of merit, would be found so truly insignificant, as scarce to be worthy of notice,

All, then, that is required is, that we should abandon a morbid love of novelty, an unmeaning fashion in literature; and select with some judgment, from the works of all ages, and of all nations. Were such the conduct of readers, with what pride might authors then frequent the now almost desolate halls of the numerous libraries of Europewhich, though daily visited by a few strangers, to take a passing look at the myriads of printed