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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
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