All
possible encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth
of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain; let
criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will
print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good
books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to
learn their names. Many a man of passable information at the
present day reads scarcely anything but reviews, and before long
a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking
catalogue."
"My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most drearily
in my face, "excuse my interrupting you, but I perceive you are
rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of an author who was
making some noise just as I left the world. His reputation,
however, was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their
heads at him, for he was a poor, half-educated varlet, that knew
little of Latin, and nothing of Greek, and had been obliged to
run the country for deer-stealing. I think his name was
Shakespeare. I presume he soon sunk into oblivion."
"On the contrary," said I, "it is owing to that very man that the
literature of his period has experienced a duration beyond the
ordinary term of English literature.
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