Scotch versifier, dwindles down to less than six thousand pounds sterling, a sum which Pope realized by his translation of the Iliad.

THE OLD BOOK TRADE.

A passion for the obsolete productions of authors long since forgotten, or seldom named, having lately infected the brains of a few of our nobility and gentry, with whom the price of a hobby-horse was a secondary consideration, certain publishers in this metropolis, who like tailors and milliners, always catch at the first hint of any thing new and uncommon, quickly produced all the dusty and musty folios, quartos, octavos, and duodecimos, of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, which they could collect in the pure recesses of their warehouses, and having furbished up the illuminated pages, and brushed the covers of those literary caskets, most generously invited the learned and great men of the realm to come and feast, but not without money," at their literary banquet. Whether the bait will attract the gudgeons of black letter, remains to be seen; possibly, during a lucid interval, those book-fanciers may discover, that it would be more praiseworthy to endow a school for the education of the children of their tenantry, than to pay one or two thousand pounds for the

worthless and illegible production of a departed scribbler. The sober-minded friend of literature must, indeed, smile at the foolish competitions of black letter amateurs, when he is informed that an English nobleman paid upwards of two thousand pounds for the Decameron of Boccacio! But it is by the extravagance of such ninnies that tradesmen live; and those booksellers who are now so active for the accommodation of the excellent critics of the puerile madrigals, the absurd tales, and the obscene narratives of the half-taught bards, who amused James the First and Charles the Second with their ribaldry, may well be termed the resurrection-men of antiquated literature. They never disentomb the dead, or rummage the depths of obscurity for the remains of unestablished genius without the hope of reward; the subject, whether dissected or embalined, is received as a treasure by the amateur of worm-eaten pages, and the publisher and purchaser are mutually gratified.

Indeed, all the arts of puffing are resorted to without scruple by certain publishers, who emulate empirical quacks and the venders of lottery tickets, in the invention of attractive falsehood. By practice, they have acquired a readiness at embellishment, insomuch that they may fairly claim the palm for successful imposition. If the lottery ticket vender stimulates avarice, by pro

claiming that his office is the true and only Temple of Fortune; and the quack revives the hope of the dying, by professing to work miracles, the publisher is no less successful in exciting curiosity, and profiting by the credulity of his honest fellow-citizens.

The common trick of dividing one impression of a work into several editions, has been so long practised by publishers, that like a habit of swearing or lying, the turpitude of the deception excites no remorse. In the art of printing, the word token is a technical term for two hundred and fifty sheets, of course the first two hundred and fifty copies of the impression may be termed the first edition, the second token, the second edition, &c. By this easy expedient, an impression of one thousand copies, will, by a dexterous alteration made by the compositor in the titlepage, appear to have passed through four editions; and that such is the common practice of some adepts in the trade of publishing, need not be doubted. One company of publishers, and a long-tailed company too, has recently published an annual work as a sixteenth edition! How many editions has Moore's Almanack passed through, according to this mode of calculation?

From the foregoing observations, the reviewers are generally the satirists, and publishers the panegyrists of modern authors. In some instances

indeed, the reviewer humanely lends his aid to the publisher, to preserve the bantling of some addle-pate, and to recommend it to the public till the sale has realized the expence of paper, printing, and advertisements, including puffs; and thus, like an indifferent dramatic piece, which languishes through its nine probationary nights and then expires, many a heavy and worthless volume is palmed on the liberal credulity of the public, by the secret conclave of publishers and compilers.

REVIEWERS.

In a free country like England, where the inhabitants are remarkable for good sense, and averse to every mode of oppression, literary Reviewers are the only description of secret inqui sitors tolerated and encouraged. How shall we account for this singular deviation from the general manliness and candour of the English character? Have the critics, under the specious pretext of improving public taste, gradually established a tribunal as arbitrary as ever disgraced a despotic government? And has the republic of letters, with all its pretensions to freedom, become enthralled by the arts of a few cunning and avaricious publishers and disappointed authors? Does the influence of Reviewers depend upon

the indolence of their admirers; or is it supported by their own genuine merit? Perhaps all these causes combine with the general pre-disposition of mankind to indulge in censure; and hence, an author is dissected for the amusement of the public.

The present despotism of English Reviewers has been the work of time. At the first establishment of our most popular literary Journal, the Monthly Review, little more was attempted by the critics connected with that publication, than a few strictures on the article reviewed, with illustrative extracts. The exercise of unauthorized power assumed by anonymous censors, for the regulation of the republic of letters, was circumscribed by that constitutional liberty of the press, enjoyed by a free people; and it was not till after the lapse of several years, that the Reviewers exerted their executive authority, and put the law of criticism in force against literary delinquents. Still, however, their decisions and decrees were tolerable, and evidently founded on the principles of our political constitution, with this important difference, that the culprit was not permitted to confront his accusers at their bar, according to the practice of the ancient Romans, and modern Britons. The Reviewers, with the promptitude of despotic authority, at once acquitted or condemned the