xist, do, as you are often
requested to do by letters in the newspapers--from parties remanded by
the police-offices for some hanging matter--"suspend your judgment," or
you will deserve credit for very little. We promise you that there _are_
giants on the earth in these days, ay, and famous giants of their
cubits! But when a giant is made to drivel, his drivelings are very
little better than those of a pigmy. And we swear to you, (under
correction from the parish vestry, which is entitled to half-a-crown an
oath,) that the circulating libraries would make a driveler of Seneca!
Under the circulating library tyranny, Johnson himself would have been
forced to break up his long words into smaller pieces, to supply due
volume for three volumes.

Above all, we have no hesitation in declaring that the circulating
libraries are indictable for manslaughter, in the matter of the death of
Scott. They killed him, body and soul! In better times, when books were
bought, not hired, the sale of the first half dozen of his mighty novels
would have sufficed both the public and the author for thrice as many
years. They would have been purchased by all people of good condition,
as the works of Richardson were purchased, and read, and conned, and got
by heart. But behold! the circulating libraries "wanted novelty." It
suited them better to invest their capital in half a dozen new and
trashy books--such as extend their catalogue from No. 2470 to
2500--instead of half a dozen copies of the one sterling work, which
increases their stock in trade and diminishes their stock in consols,
but leaves the catalogue, which is the advertisement of their
perfections, halting at No. 2470.

Now, as it happened that the same boss of constructiveness which has
endowed our language with such a world of creations from the pen of
Scott, betrayed him also into inventiveness _per_ force of brick and
mortar--just as the same bent of genius which created the _Castle of
Otranto_, created also that other colossus of lath and plaster,
_Strawberry Hill_--the author of the Scotch novels was fain to sacrifice
to the evil genius of the times; and behold! as the assiduous slave of
the circulating libraries, he extinguished one of the greatest spirits
of Great Britain. But for the hateful factory system of the twice three
volumes per annum, he would have been still alive among us--happy and
happy-making, in a green old age--watching over the maturity of his
grandchildre