en among these how
fair a proportion depends for its value and fruitfulness on the
student? And, again, on his training. For we are aware of readers who
prefer Bunyan to Spenser, others who place Sterne, Voltaire, and Byron
before both, and not a few who have emerged with profit and without
pollution from the perusal of the labours of Rabelais and Aretino.
There is a literal deluge of moral and colourless works, on the
contrary, from which even the average modern reader comes away only
with an uncomfortable sense of waste of time and eyesight.

Of printed matter in book-shape there is no end. The mass grows day
by day, almost hour by hour. Yet the successful candidates for
admission to our inner circle of publications of all ages and
countries, which so far meet on common ground in being provided with a
passport to succeeding times requiring and recognising no critical
_vise_, increase in numbers slowly, O so slowly! It would be
presumptuous and unsafe to attempt to discount the ultimate verdict on
many now popular names; but it is to be apprehended that, looking at
the much more numerous body of writers, the calls to immortality will
hereafter be in a relatively diminishing ratio. The influences and
agencies by which certain schools of thought and work are artificially
forced to the front are too often temporary, and their life is apt to
be, Hamadryad-like, conterminous with that of their foster-parents. It
has been my lot to witness the rise, decline, and evanescence of
groups of authors and artists, whom it was almost sacrilegious to
mention even with qualification. Adverse criticism was out of the
question for any one valuing his own repute.

How various all the afore-mentioned standard or permanent books are,
and still in one respect how similar! Similar, inasmuch as they or
their subject-matter are surrounded by an atmosphere which preserves
them as in embalmed cerements. In strict truth, there may be some
among the number which are far indeed from being individually
important or costly, while others in a critical sense have long been
entirely obsolete, or perhaps never possessed any critical rank. It
does not signify. Their testimonials are independent of such
considerations. Many, most of them, are on ever-living topics; many,
again, in their essence and material properties are sanctified and
odorous.

I find myself possessed by a theory, possibly a weak and erroneous
one, in favour of such a book, for insta