neously.' 'The extent and variety
of the labours called for at the hands of those actively engaged on
modern cheap periodicals can scarcely be conceived by the uninitiated
public. If their eyes were opened on the subject, they would
certainly wonder less why it is that the literary talent of the
current generation does not tend to display itself by striking
isolated efforts: they would also more readily understand wherefore
parties in the situation of the present writer may well experience
some unsatisfactory feelings in looking back on the labours of the
past. Though years spent in respectable periodical writing can by no
means be termed misspent, yet such a career presents in the retrospect
but a multitude of disconnected essays on all conceivable themes, and
such as too often prove their hurried composition by crudeness and
imperfections.' The consideration of such a state of things 'may
furnish a salutary lesson to the many among the young at this day,
who, possessing some literary taste, imagine that the engagements of
common life alone stand in the way of its successful development, and
that to be enabled to pursue a life of professional writing in any
shape would secure to them both fame and fortune to the height of
their desires. They here err sadly. No doubt supereminent talents will
sooner or later make themselves felt under almost any circumstances;
but the position described assuredly offers no peculiar advantages for
the furtherance of that end. Ebenezer Elliot, leaving his forge at eve
with a wearied body, could yet bring to his favourite leisure tasks a
mind less jaded than that of the _litterateur_ by profession.' 'The
regular periodicalist, too, of the modern class has usually no more
stable interest in his compositions than has the counting-house clerk
in the cash-books which he keeps. To publishers and conductors fall
the lasting fruits. Let those among the young who feel the ambition to
seek fame and fortune in the walks of literature think well of these
things, and, above all, ponder seriously ere they quit, with such
views, any fixed occupation of another kind.'

There is certainly food for thought here; and that, too, thought of a
kind in which the public has a direct interest. If such be the
dissipating effect of _writing_ for newspapers and the lighter
periodicals, it is surely natural to infer that the exclusive
_reading_ of such works must have a dissipating effect also. It is too
obvious tha