while such political sheets as the _Drapier's Letters_, or _Junius_,
set the whole kingdom in an uproar! And now, if Pope, or Swift, or
Fielding, or Johnson, or Sterne, were to rise from the grave, MS. in
hand, the most adventurous publisher would pass a sleepless night
before he undertook the risk of paper and print; would advise a small
edition, and exact a sum down in ready money, to be laid out in puffs
and advertisements! "Even then, though we may get rid of a few copies
to the circulating libraries," he would observe, "do not expect, sir,
to obtain readers. A few old maids in the county towns, and a few
gouty old gentlemen at the clubs; are the only persons of the present
day who ever open a book!"

And who can wonder? _Who_ has leisure to read? _Who_ cares to sit down
and spell out accounts of travels which he can make at less cost than
the cost of the narrative? _Who_ wants to peruse fictitious
adventures, when railroads and steamboats woo him to adventures of his
own? Egypt was once a land of mystery; now, every lad, on leaving
Eton, yachts it to the pyramids. India was once a country to dream of
over a book. Even quartoes, if tolerably well-seasoned with suttees
and sandalwood, went down; now, every genteel family has its "own
correspondent," per favour of the Red Sea; and the best printed
account of Cabul would fall stillborn from the press. As to Van
Dieman's Land, it is vulgar as the Isle of Dogs; and since people have
steamed it backwards and forwards across the Atlantic more easily than
formerly across the Channel, every woman chooses to be her own
Trollope--every man his own Boz!

For some time after books had ceased to find a market, the periodicals
retained their vogue; and even till very lately, newspapers found
readers. But the period at length arrived, when even the leisure