ther hand, if authors
are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life
by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'--puffing. The amount
of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless
task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those
critics--selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from
merit--now survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the
writers in whom there was really something of genius, but whom they
extolled beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel
Rogers. And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about
them, and that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.'

And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of
the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the
contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be:
certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests
of publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and--in
the higher literary organs, at least--unswayed by personal prejudice.
But the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now
but small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated
by the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days--if halcyon
days they were--are over. People read books for themselves now; judge
for themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and
cannot get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has
already secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little
effect reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those
who like his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is
written of them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded
(alas!) to change their minds, though his latest effort should be
described as though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some
statistics upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics
involve comparisons--which are odious. As for fiction, its success
depends more upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the
necessity of getting that charming book from the library while there
is yet time, than on all the reviews in Christendom.

O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases
Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover
They thought that I was not u