Recapitulation . 419 



racier of the period under consideration. Print- 

 ing presses have not only become numerous in the 

 populous cities, in every literary portion of the 

 world; but also in remote parts of the country 

 these engines for the diffusion of information are 

 found : thus furnishing the good with the means 

 of sowing the seeds of truth and virtue, and the 

 wicked with the means of scattering poison, to 

 an extent never before witnessed in human society. 

 7. The last century is entitled to distinction 

 above all others, as the age of books; an age in 

 which the spirit of writing, as well as of publica- 

 tion, exceeded all former precedent. Though 

 this is closely connected with the foregoing par- 

 ticular, it deserves a more distinct and pointed 

 notice. Never, assuredly, did the world abound 

 with such a profusion of various works, or pro- 

 duce such an immense harvest of literary fruits. 

 The publication of books, in all former periods 

 of the history of learning, laboured under many 

 difficulties. Readers were comparatively few f 

 of course writers met with small encouragement 

 of a pecuniary kind to labour for the instruction 

 of the public. 2 Hence, none in preceding centu- 



y " To prove the paucity of readers," in the seventeenth century, " it 

 may be sufficient to remark, that the British nation had been satisfied 

 From 1623 to 1664, that is, a period of forty-one years, with only nvo edi- 

 tions of the works of Shakspeare, whicli probably did not together make 

 one thousand copies." ir/f c/ Mii.ton, by Johnson. 



Whereas, in the eighteenth century, from 1733 to 1778, that is, in for- 

 ty-five years, ten large and splendid editions of the same author were 

 given to the public, and, probably, at least ten more, of a less magnificent 

 kind, in various parts of the British dominions. Allowing each of these 

 editions to have consisted of two thousand copies, which, on an average, 

 may be supposed a moderate allowance, the number of copies of one pub- 

 lication called for by the English literary public, in a given period of the 

 eighteenth century, will be found forty times greater than the number 

 called for, during a period nearly equal in the seventeenth. 



z The advantage now enjoyed by authors, of deriving large profits 

 from the sale of copy-rights, is wholly modern. Mr. Baretti, a friend 

 of Dr. Johnson, who resided for some time in England, about half a 

 century ago, told the Doctor, that he was the first man in Italy who re- 

 ceived money for the copy-right of a book. Boswell's Life of Jokn- 

 Son, vol. ii. p. 503. Though this practice had been established ion & be- 



