ng,
and that out of all proportion to those who have tickets. We hear from
its enemies that the Church is doomed, and from its friends that it is
in danger; there is a small but energetic party who are bent on reducing
the Army, and even on doing away with it; nay, so wicked and
presumptuous has human nature grown, that mutterings are heard and
menaces uttered against the delay and exactions of the Law itself;
whereas Literature has no foes, and is enlarging its boundaries in all
directions. It is all 'a-growing and a-blowing,' as the peripatetic
gardeners say of their plants; but, unlike their wares, it has its roots
deep in the soil and is an evergreen. Its promise is golden, and its
prospects are boundless for every class of writer.

In some excellent articles on Modern Literature in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ the other day, this subject was touched upon with respect to
fiction, and might well have filled a greater space, for the growth of
that description of literature of late years is simply marvellous.
Curiously enough, though France originated the _feuilleton_, it was from
America and our own colonies that England seems to have taken the idea
of publishing novels in newspapers. It was a common practice in
Australia long before we adopted it; and, what is also curious, it was
first acclimatised among us by our provincial papers. The custom is
rapidly gaining ground in London, but in the country there is now
scarcely any newspaper of repute which does not enlist the aid of
fiction to attract its readers. Many of them are contented with very
poor stuff, for which they pay a proportional price; but others club
together with other newspapers--the operation has even received the
technical term of 'forming a syndicate'--and are thereby enabled to
secure the services of popular authors; while the newspapers thus
arranged for are published at a good distance from one another, so as
not to interfere with each other's circulation. Country journals, which
are not so ambitious, instead of using an inferior article, will often
purchase the 'serial right,' as it is called, of stories which have
already appeared elsewhere, or have passed through the circulating
libraries. Nay, the novelist who has established a reputation has many
more strings to his bow: his novel, thus published in the country
newspapers, also appears coincidently in the same serial shape in
Australia, Canada, and other British colonies, leaving the three-volume