BOOKS AND CRITICS. 



167 



a treat is to be enjoyed, and the number of these 

 diminishes in each generation. Cultivation and 

 intellectual tastes seem to be dying out among 

 the English aristocracy. It has been said (" New 

 Republic ") the fop of Charles II.'s time at least 

 affected to be a wit and a scholar, the fop of our 

 times aims at being a fool and a dunce. 



In the house of a middle-class family you will 

 also find a few books — chiefly religious books or 

 specialty books — little literature, and that casu- 

 al, showing no selection, no acquaintance with 

 the movement of letters. There will be nothing 

 that can be called a library. The intellectual 

 barrenness of these middle-class homes is appall- 

 ing. The dearth of books is only the outward 

 and visible sign of the mental torpor which reigns 

 in those destitute regions. Even in priest-ridden 

 France, where the confessor has all the women 

 and half the men under his thumb, there is more 

 of that cultivation which desiderates the posses- 

 sion of books. In many a French family of no 

 great means is a bookcase of some five hundred 

 volumes, not presents, but chosen, and in which 

 the chef$-d\euvre of French literature will be in- 

 cluded. They will be in half morocco, with gilt 

 edges ; binding not sumptuous, but elegant, and 

 perfectly clean, neither thumbed nor grease- 

 stained, nor gas-shriveled — a sign, you will say, 

 that they are not much used. Not so. A French- 

 man cannot endure a dirty book. It is an error 

 to suppose that the dirt on the cover and pages 

 of a book is a sign of its studious employment. 

 Those who use books to most purpose handle 

 them with loving care. The dirt on English 

 books is a sign of neglect, not of work. It is 

 disrespectful and ignorant handling. If you have 

 a select cabinet of books, with which you live 

 habitually as friends and companions, you would 

 not choose to have them repulsive in dress and 

 outward appearance. 



How insignificant an item of household expen- 

 diture is the bookseller's bill in a middle-class 

 family! A man who is making £1,000 a year 

 will not think of spending one pound a week on 

 books. If you descend to a lower grade of in- 

 come, the purchase of a book at all is an exception- 

 al occurrence, and then it will rarely be a book 

 of pure literature. The total population of the 

 United Kingdom is more than 33,000,000. The 

 aggregate wealth of this population is manifold 

 more than it was one hundred and fifty years 

 ago, but the circle of book-buyers, of the lovers 

 of literature, is certainly not larger, if it be not 

 absolutely smaller. 



One reason which maybe assigned for the book 



dearth among families of small means is want of 

 space. Room in this country is now become very 

 costly. A family of £1,000 a year in a town prob- 

 ably pays out £100 a year as rent. A heavy 

 tax ! And what do you get for it ? A hutch in 

 which you can scarcely put up your family or 

 breathe yourself. You have literally no room for 

 books. This, I grant, is a too true description of 

 the town dwelling. But it is not altogether an 

 account of why you are without a library. A set 

 of shelves, thirteen feet by ten feet, and six inches 

 deep, placed against a wall, will accommodate 

 nearly one thousand volumes 8vo. Cheap as 

 books now are, a well-selected library of English 

 classics could be compressed into less room than 

 this, was the companionship of books felt by you 

 to be among the necessaries of life. 



If narrow income and cramped premises will 

 not let us have a private . library, we may meet 

 our wants in some measure by public libraries. 

 The cooperative store, as applied to groceries, is 

 a discovery of our generation. But the principle 

 of cooperation was applied to libraries long be- 

 fore. The book-club is an old institution which 

 flourished in the last century, but is nearly ex- 

 tinct now. There were some twelve hundred of 

 these clubs scattered over England, and their dis- 

 appearance has had a marked effect on the char- 

 acter of our book-market. Each country club 

 naturally fell under the control of the one or two 

 best-informed men of the neighborhood. The 

 books ordered were thus of a superior class, and 

 publishers could venture upon publishing such 

 books, because they knew they could look to the 

 country clubs to absorb one edition. Now, the 

 supply of new books has passed away from the 

 local clubs, and into the hands of two great 

 central houses. Smith and Mudie, of course, 

 look only to what is most asked for. And, as 

 even among readers the ignorant, the indolent, 

 and the vulgar, are in a large majority, it is the 

 ignorant, the indolent, and the vulgar, who now 

 create that demand which the publisher Iras to 

 meet. Universal suffrage in the choice of books 

 has taken the place of a number of independent 

 centres which the aristocracy of intellect could 

 influence. 



It may prove some compensation for the de- 

 struction of the country book-clubs, that the great 

 towns are beginning to bestir themselves to look 

 after their book-supply. The earliest common 

 libraries were, as we should expect, in universi- 

 ties and colleges, often remote from populous 

 centres, such as the Sharp Library in Bamburgh 

 Castle. It is only quite recently that the trading 



