a writer must make up for the ephemeral glory of the last production, by the quick appearance of its successor. It is by the number, rather than the value of his works that he must attain to celebrity: so that the whole resolves itself into a race against time between the author and his publisher, in which the latter must not have cleared his shelves of the last most exciting and astounding work, before the former has supplied its place by something still more captivating and wondrous.* It is on this account, that certain of our novelists have adopted the new fashion of giving out their stock of ideas by monthly and by weekly instalments, on a sort of numerus defendit principle; namely, that their numbers may defend them from oblivion, and preserve that reputation fresh for a year or more, which otherwise could not have outlived a poor fifty pounds-worth of advertisements.

It is clear, then, that in the present state of literature, a reader must not be confounded with a student. The consumption of the whole tribe of students put together, would not furnish a market for the humblest of fashionable publishers. The students, besides, are the property of the bouquinist (we want the term in our language), and they rarely so much as open a publication till it has passed through the process of a trade sale. But if the students were faithless to their own providers, and were to take, in a body, to the literature of the day, their mode of getting through a volume, according to what they call reading, is such a snail's gallop, that the compositors themselves would beat them hollow. A student never skips, but a reader makes it a point of so doing; nay, some readers only read the beginnings and ends of books; and some confine themselves to an occasional dip into them. A great many also read for the sole purpose of conciliating the downy god. It is therefore a good rule for a writer who aims at a large circle of readers, to provide them with regular sleeping stages; while on the other hand, it would be but an unprofitable waste of strength and resources, to attempt an even excellence which would be lost on their perfunctory employers. It is quite enough for all the purposes of authorship, and fully as much as the public expects, if each volume contains its splendidus pannus, for quotation in a favourable review, with just sufficient vitality in its two extremities, to give it a character of some sort.

This, by the by, leads to the observation, that to be a reader, does not in the least presuppose the possession of a critical judgment; and the author would be an egregious dupe, who should imagine any such connexion. When the bookseller does not require a book to speak for itself, and depends on his own efforts for coaxing a sale, surely the author is no better than an impertinent jackanapes if he presumes to do more than his employer requires of him, and insists on supplying his purchasers with more than they want. Let it therefore be borne

in recollection that readers are like horsemen; and that as a new horse is always better than a good one, so there is a decided preference for the last publication, over that which is only lasting.

But if readers are not students, it follows of necessity (let the partisan

Literary productions are seldom finished-they are got up to be read by the many, and to be read at once. If the work sells for a day, the author's time and pains will be better laid out in writing a second, than in improving the first."-Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1840.

of the libre arbitre say what he may) that they cannot be learned. The student indeed may peruse to remember, but the first and greatest quality of a reader is to forget; so that if an author supplies him with the same thought ten times over, decies repetita placebit. This is a forty Bridgewater-power instance of design and the fitness of things: for novelty being the reader's greatest passion, the shortness of his memory tends to the further gratification of his task. Novelty is in reality about the rarest commodity "under the sun;" and it would be utterly impossible to keep the press moving, if readers were cursed with too retentive a memory, and authors were not permitted to repeat themselves and their predecessors ad libitum.

From this quality of readership flow two consequences, neither of which are indifferent to literary success. First, that all learning should be eschewed, not only as pedantic, but as superfluous. Learning, indeed, is too cumbrous an impedimentum for the railroad pace of the press; and a youth, fresh from the university, requires to be trained and sweated out of his Greek and Latin, as a Newmarket jockey is out of his superfluous flesh, in order to be rendered sufficiently light weight to start for the Derby. The second consequence is, that an author need not, as has already been hinted, pique himself on being too original. Originality and novelty are very different things. That which is original, cannot be common; and that which is uncommon, cannot be commonly intelligible; and as nothing is so ordinary with the masses as to meet with what they do not understand, such originality cannot appear new. Originality, therefore, is apt to startle a genuine reader, and to interrupt his progress through the book. The novelty of which such a reader is desirous, must be commonplace and even-going. Its images must be familiar, its thoughts cut on the most fashionable models (that is, the most orthodox), and its style must resemble as nearly as possible that of a newspaper editor. Thus for instance, the new Newgate school is any thing but original. Nothing is so completely e medio ductus acervo, as robbery and housebreaking, and cutting of throats is as old as Homer. The genre, in fact, is but the common melodrama translated into three volumes octavo, as is fully proved by the ease with which it found its way back to its natale solum, the bards of the minors.

Among the various categories of readers, none has undergone a greater revolution than the juvenile reader. Peter Parley has superseded the late Mr. Newberry of " the corner of St. Paul's Churchyard;" and it is not, probably, too much to say, that such is the extreme wisdom and virtue instilled into the rising generation, that they have nearly obtained the monopoly of the market, and left neither of those commodities for the service of the grown literature of the day.

One circumstance should not for a moment be forgotten, in the condition of all sorts of readers, the great one with which we started, and that is, the hurry in which they usually exist. The processes of life have become so multiplied, and its businesses and pleasures so varied, that no one has time for doing any thing completely and thoroughly. We need not urge this as a reason for keeping within the established number of volumes, assigned to each different subject, because the publishers will guard that point, and prevent mere typographical tediousness. But in the conduct and ordering of their subject, au

thors require that a sense of this hurry should ever be present in their imagination.

The first consequence to be deduced from it, is that nobody reads an entire work. The best readers content themselves with glancing from paragraph to paragraph, pausing only at what particularly suits their individual tastes. Any very minute attention, therefore, to logical succession, or intimate dependence of conclusions upon their premises is clearly lost labour. That charm which was once found in the unity of a subject, and in its Aristotelian development, must be "foolishness" to those who will not trace the chain of thought, link by link, but dash (not exactly in medias res, but) into any part of the work at which the volume is disposed to open. It does not therefore materially signify (if copy should turn out deficient in the printing) where the additional matter is placed, or how little connexion it may have with the original text. All that is wanting is a specific number of pages; and if the author is pressed for time, he may get the deficiency supplied by an inferior hand, without troubling the man who undertakes the job, to read the work he is to extend.

Hence, may be traced the frequency of the décousu as a style, and the prevalence of the rigmarol even in the best writers.

Another consequence, or rather the same under another aspect, is that brevity, more than ever, is the soul of wit; all subordinate details, which readers cannot afford time to dwell upon, must be scrupulously suppressed as idle and expletive. Thus it is sufficient to make bold statements of fact, no matter how paradoxical or startling to an opponent, without pausing to detail the reasons on which they are founded; and more especially if the work be of a polemical and contentious nature, it is well for the writer to confine himself to the vituperative part of the subject; leaving aside the grounds of his dislikes, as a matter uninteresting to the reader, and unnecessary to the discussion.

There is a class of readers who, if not themselves very numerous, are the cause of considerable popularity to the authors they take in hand to patronize,-those who read for the sake of talking. Now this is a desultory race, and have less time than others to waste upon reading. But in every art, science, or moral theme, there are certain points particularly calculated to elevate and surprise, either as new or rare, or as beyond the comprehension or experience of the unlettered listener. These are the parts which should be brought into evidence, and reduced to a state fitted for display. Anecdotes also should be pressed into the subject, apropos to any thing, or to nothing. They cannot be too numerous, or too thickly studded with glittering names. But, above all, the writers who would captivate this class of readers, should number his paragraphs, and provide his work with a gocd table of contents, which will supersede the necessity of reading more of the book, than is strictly necessary to the purpose in hand.

There remains for notice one more fact new in the literature of the day, and deserving of all consideration if it were only for its singularity;—namely, that the greatest number of readers and the best, are found in the female sex. The author who aims at popularity, cannot too strongly imbue himself with that important verity. Notwithstanding the prevalent rage for tambouring and other varieties of needlework, the ladies still find more time at their disposal than the

gentlemen, who between Melton and the moors, the Exchange and the club-house, would as soon think of sitting down to tent-stitch or herringbone, as of reading any thing beyond party politics, or a sermon. This circumstance is already making itself felt in literature, not only in the gradual disappearance of all works of a scope beyond the routine of female education, but in the more frequent success of productions most strikingly characterized by effeminacy of style, and of thought,— annuals, albums, and decorated works in general. It also explains most satisfactorily the rapid increase in the number of female authors. When females only read, it is most natural that females should especially address them.

Here for the present we must stop: not that the subject is exhausted, -far from it; but it is high time to look about, and see whether in our tediousness, we may not already have left our readers behind us. Magazine readers are a class apart,-not of the most patient disposition. Touch and go is their favourite notion; and least we should cease to touch, we shall stand not in the order of our going, but go at once.

[This and the following sonnet were composed at Rome, on the occasion of the Signora assuming the vestal babit.]

From the umbrageous wood, unpierced by day,
The skilful florist oft selects and takes

A plant, which neath the sunbeam's genial ray,
At season due to bloom and beauty wakes;
This to another grafts itself, and soon
The bright and genial influence appears,
The heaven-clad stem acknowledges the boon,
And gracefully its buds and blossoms wears.
Exalted lady, dost thou understand?
The florist is the ruler of the earth,

The world the forest, and thou art the plant.
Thrice happy plant, no hours of woe or mirth
Henceforth for thee the changeful year shall bring,
But heaven shall smile on thee with endless spring.

The stream that unrestrained pursues its course,
Though limpid first from some steep rock it fell,
Yet dashing onward soon expends its force,
And stagnates in some deep sequestered dell;
But if in close canal it tranquil flows,
Vigour it takes, and when its course is run,
A silver fount it forms, and sportive throws
Its graceful arms to greet the noonday sun.
Alas that stream am I, that insecure
From summer's scorching heat or winter's frost,
Grows dull and stagnates in the vale obscure;
But thou, veiled sister of the sacred host,
Thou art that stream which crystalized and pure
Leads him to heaven who makes his God his boast.

E. E. E.

E. E.E.

IDEAS AND REFLECTIONS ON THE PROPERTIES OF MUSIC.

BY HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE CROWN PRINCE OF HANOver.

[Had Walpole lived till these days, his list of royal and noble authors would have been somewhere about double the length he has left it. In his time it was considered a little marvellous for "a person of quality" to seek the bubble reputation through the agency of a publisher. Whether the higher classes were more modest in their pretensions than in the present day, or thought it beneath them to allow the breath of criticism to come betwixt the wind and their nobility, has not been ascertained; but a book from such a source, orindeed any thing that looked like an extraordinary exhibition of intellect, was a rarity of the rarest kind, and was regarded with that sort of indulgence which is usually allowed to persons who attempt a task under very singular disabilities. Nowadays there is scarcely any branch of science or department of literature in which persons of rank are not continually evincing remarkable talent. The wit among lords may still exist, but only as an exception. The lord among wits, lately an unheard-of phenomenon, is now almost an everyday occurrence. A book from a nobleman has ceased to be obliged to appeal to our liberality, to be thought a creditable performance-considering whence Instead of which, publications from the noble of both sexes, are daily brought before the public, evincing a desire on the part of the authors, that they should be judged with all other competitors in the race of intellect, and this judgment awaits them without favour or prejudice.

it came.

But royalty as well as nobility, is found stepping forth from behind the barriers of ignorance and pride, which in times happily gone by, were so effective in excluding it from the sympathies of the rest of the world, and is frequently discovered honourably engaged in contributing no inconsiderable quota to the intellectual pleasures of society. In sculpture, the lamented Princess Marie of France has enriched modern art with a masterpiece worthy of its most distinguished professors. In poerty and music-as we a short time since informed our readers-two scions of the House of Saxony, joined their separate accomplishment to produce a work as creditable to their feelings as to their intellects, and now we have the pleasure of making public in England, through the medium of a translation, pretensions to genius, no less incontestable in a literary production, from the pen of a member of our own royal familymost generally known among his countrymen as Prince George of Cumberland.

We regret not having sufficient space to attempt to do justice to this charming composition; but as its merits are so conspicuous, it can scarcely fail of being appreciated wherever it is read. The lamentable deprivation under which this gifted enthusiast labours, must greatly increase the interest with which his imaginative language will be perused; and the passage in which the illustrious writer alludes to his own experience, in describing the blind man's discovery of the intentions of the composer from the pictorial character of his music, cannot fail to awaken the deepest sympathy. We sincerely hope the operation his Royal Highness has lately undergone, may be attended with the best results.]

PREFACE.

How often do we hear expressions used by lovers of music, which show that, so far from appreciating the lofty and sublime character of music, they wholly misconceive it: that they regard it only as a medium of ordinary amusement, like cards and dancing, and feel little more respect for it than for those pastimes. We hear questions concerning the proper conception and enjoyment of music from persons who have