NATURE AND BOOKS. 29 



time some new discovery is made by a foreign observer, 

 which necessitates a complete revision of the subject ; 

 and so having shifted the contents of the book about 

 hither and thither till he does not know which is the end 

 and which is the beginning, he pitches the much-muti- 

 lated copy into a drawer and turns the key. Farewell, 

 no more of this ; his declining days shall be spent in 

 peace. A few months afterwards a work is announced 

 in Leipsic which ' really trenches on my favourite sub- 

 ject, and really after spending a lifetime I can't stand 

 it.' By this time his handwriting has become so shaky 

 he can hardly read it himself, so he sends in despair for 

 a lady who works a type-writer, and with infinite patience 

 she makes a clean manuscript of the muddled mass. To 

 the press at last, and the proofs come rapidly. Such a 

 relief! How joyfully easy a thing is when you set about 

 it ! but by-and-by this won't do. Sub-section A ought 

 to be in a foot-note, family B is doubtful ; and so the 

 corrections grow and run over the margin in a thin treble 

 hand, till they approach the bulk of the original book — 

 a good profit for the printer ; and so after about forty 

 years the monograph is published — the work of a life is 

 accomplished. Fifty copies are sent round to as many 

 public libraries and learned societies, and the rest of the 

 impression lies on the shelves till dust and time and 

 spiders' webs have buried it. Splendid work in it too. 

 Looked back upon from to-day with the key of modern 

 thought, these monographs often contain a whole chest 

 of treasure. And still there are the periodicals, a century 

 of magazines and journals and reviews and notices that 

 have been coming out these hundred years and dropping 

 to the ground like dead leaves unnoticed. And then 

 there are the art works — books about shape and colour 

 and ornament, and a naturalist lately has been trying to 



