ON READING. 11 



others may be summed up as follows : Tlie improvement of style or 

 the cultivation of taste ; the acquisition of information, or the gratifica- 

 tion of cuiiosity ; the securing of mental discipline or moral improve- 

 ment; amusement or relaxation. One of these is before us, or two or 

 more combine to influence us, whenever we begin the perusal of any 

 publication. Tt is probable that the majority of men are influenced by 

 the desire of acquiring information, or of amusement ; and we should 

 not err greatly in supposing that a very large proportion read for amuse- 

 ment simply; to while away what might otherwise be a tedious hour, or 

 to satisfy the cravings of an appetite for the strange, the terrible, and 

 the exciting. Such men eagerly seize on works which minister to this 

 appetite, every indulgence of whicli but serves to strengthen its demands. 

 They are as much the charmed victims of a depraved passion, as the 

 poor drunkard who seeks his pleasme in the excitement of intoxicating 

 drink. And as there are not wanting at every turn those who will fur- 

 nish the burning draught to the crazed inebriate, so there are those in 

 great numbers who are ready to furnish the cup of poisoned literature 

 to this craving appetite. These victims are found in every class, of ev- 

 ery age and grade ; from the young lady who languishes over the last 

 new romance, or the school boy whose eyes dilate over the "Pirate's 

 Own Book," or some other equally sage and moral record, to the wrin- 

 kled dame who, "with spectacles on nose," in her chimney corner, de- 

 vours the weekly chronicle of dreadful accidents, awful catastrophes, 

 and horrid murders. Doubtless, in this case, the appetite and the sup- 

 ply are, each in its turn, both cause and effect. Tire one encourages 

 the other, and the other reciprocates the encouragement. It is some- 

 what singular that the complaint should have been made some hundred 

 and twenty years ago by the vvise man, whose words are quoted at the 

 head of this article : "The great number of books and papers of amuse- 

 ment, which, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way, have in 

 part occasioned, and must perfectly fall in with and humor, this idle 

 way of reading and considering things," Had he lived in our day, his 

 complaint might have been more bitter. Not only do volumes issue in 

 thousands from the press, and at prices so low as by their very cheap- 

 ness to tempt a purchaser, but quarterly and niontiily magazines, in great 

 numbers circulate through tiie land, while weekly and daily papers are 

 multiplied almost beyond computation. All branches of science, every 

 department of literature, every variety of taste, linds among these its or- 

 gan and minister. The man of science, the scholar, the politician, the 

 merchant, the mechanic, the farmer, the jurist, the physician, the theo- 

 logian, the sectarian, the transccndentalist, and the sa?is-cu/oi/f, each has 



