had
been previously made at Damascus, and several different varieties had
long been manufactured in China.

Had there been more readers, paper would have been more abundantly
produced, and there would have been more copiers--nay, even there would
have been printers. An increased demand would have been answered by an
increased supply. As soon as such a demand arose in Europe the press was
introduced, as it had been thousands of years before in China.

[Sidenote: Longevity of books curtailed.] So far as the public is
concerned, printing has been an unmixed advantage; not so, however, in
its bearing on authors. The longevity of books is greatly impaired, a
melancholy conclusion to an ambitious intellect. The duration of many
ancient books which have escaped the chances of time is to be hoped for
no more. In this shortening of their term the excessive multiplication
of works greatly assists. A rapid succession soon makes those of
distinction obsolete, and then consigns them to oblivion. No author can
now expect immortality. His utmost hope is only this, that his book may
live a little longer than himself.

[Sidenote: Multiplication of books.] But it was with printing as with
other affairs of the market--an increased demand gave origin to an
increased supply, which, in its turn reacting, increased the demand.
Cheap books bred readers. When the monks, abandoning their useless and
lazy life of saying their prayers a dozen times a day, turned to the
copying and illustrating of manuscripts, a mental elevation of the whole
order was the result; there were more monks who could read. And so, on
the greater scale, as books through the press became more abundant,
there were more persons to whom they became a necessity.

[Sidenote: The mode of communicating knowledge changes.] But, secondly,
as to the change which ensued in the mode of communicating
information--a change felt instantly in the ecclesiastical, and, at a
later period, in the political world. The whole system of public worship
had been founded on the condition of a non-reading people; hence the
reading of prayers and the sermon. Whoever will attentively compare the
thirteenth with the nineteenth century cannot fail to see how essential
oral instruction was in the former, how subordinate in the latter.
[Sidenote: Injury to pulpit instruction.] The invention of the
printing-press gave an instant, a formidable rival to the pulpit. It
made possible that which had been im