200 REVIEWS — THE BOOKSELLER. 



Bookseller tells us that Mr. "Whitwell Elwyn, — formerly on the staff 

 of the Literary Gazette, — now fills his chair. So also, all who are 

 curious may cull from the BooJcseller' s gossip hints as to the editorial 

 forces of Bentley's Kew Quarterly, the Irish Literary Gazette, the 

 L^clectic, and a host of other periodicals, old and new. 



"Whatever editor or author specially desires to keep secret it forth- 

 with becomes the duty of the Bookseller to hunt out and make 

 public ; for are not author and bookseller as naturally antagonistic as 

 spider and fly, painter and picture-dealer, or architect and building 

 committee ? The monument of Dr. Johnson, in St. Paul's, is said, 

 from its pose and barly proportions, to represent the author who 

 felled the bookseller! Its vicinity to ''The Row " has not, we fear, 

 had all the moral weight on the fraternity haunting Ave Maria Lane, 

 Amen Corner, and the neighbouring purlieus, that authors would 

 desire. More recently an author, entertained at a booksellers' din- 

 ner, insisted on drinking Napoleon's memory, as one worthy to be 

 had in reverence, at least by authors, — for did he not shoot a book- 

 seller! No author's secret shall therefore be safe henceforth, if the 

 BooTcseller can ferret it out ; and abundant thanks will reward the 

 bibliopolic gossip for his zeal. 



The world at large greatly covets a knowledge of all such literary 

 secrets as are implied in anonymous publications ; and, indeed, 

 piqued by the lack of a full compliance with the cravings of its un- 

 reasonable curiosity, an " Eikon Basilike," a " Junius' Letters," or a 

 " Vestiges of Creation," assume an importance far beyond their real 

 worth. But for the best interests of literature : the independence 

 of criticism, the perfect freedom of opinion, and the right of private 

 judgment in scientific and literary as well as in theological expres- 

 sions of heretical or unpopular opinions, we are inclined to believe 

 that it is for the ultimate behoof of all, that so long as a writer 

 chooses to publish anonymously — unless when dealing in personali- 

 ties and slanders, — his right of withholding his name should be re- 

 spected. The AthencBum may bandy words with the Literary Gazette, 

 and receive its quid pro quo, and nobody the worse for it ; but no 

 man of good sense would willingly encourage the idea that instead 

 of such literary abstractions, the beligerents are in reality Mr. Hep- 

 worth Dixon and Mr. Shirley Brooks. This, however, our Canadian 

 press has yet to a great extent to learn ; and nothing tends more to 



