295 



ed, from the long poems of Chaucer and Gower and 

 others. We may conceive Milton to have been much in- 

 debted both to him and to Spenser, and Scott has exhi- 

 bited as much industry in collating the poetic history 

 and early ballads of his nation, as in giving them back 

 again to the world in the fresher and lighter creations of 

 his own. We know, in the bibliomanie of the times, 

 that single folios have been ground down and melted up 

 into dozens of volumes of the size and character which 

 suit the lighter reading of the present day. In view of 

 this, Doctor Johnson prophesied that the time was fast 

 coming when men would write only duodecimos and 

 paragraphs; while the facetious Sterne exclaimed against 

 fabricating new books as quacks do new medicines, by 

 pouring out of one bottle into another.* 



But besides antique or standard productions, there are 

 books even of our own day, which from their size and 

 number can scarce be expected to pass through new edi- 

 tions, and which, if not preserved now, must become rare 

 and difficult of access. It would, for instance, even now, 

 be almost impossible to procure a complete copy of the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society, or of the Academy of 

 Sciences or of the National Institute; while of the Me- 

 moirs of the Berlin Academy, there is, I believe, but a 

 single complete copy in the country; yet all these works 

 are of great value and comparatively recent date. 



It is also more incumbent on us to collect and preserve 

 the works of the distinguished authors of our own lan- 

 guage, from the peculiarly light, and comparatively 

 worthless character of English productions of the pre- 

 sent day. The poets, as Scott, Byron, Wordsworth and 

 some other of their cotemporaries, will undoubtedly oc- 

 cupy high and permanent places, and mark an era in the 

 language. But of more useful writing whether relating 

 to history or to moral or physical science, there are not 

 many treatises which may expect to be remembered even 

 for half a century. The public taste seems to have been 



