with keen enjoyment; but I stuck to him, and talked and talked, till at last he got afraid I would talk the hind-leg off his favourite dog, so he gave me some cheap things and a few guns, and told me he hoped he would never see my face again. Good old Dutchman, Van Shuyten. I've sent him one small lot of ivory a year ago, so that he can't call me a little thief when I get back. I hope he got it. And for the rest I don't care. I had some wood stacked for you. That was my old house. Did you see?'

know. Canoes get upset sometimes and sometimes you've got to clear out so quick when the people get angry.' He thumbed the pages. 'You made notes in Russian?' I asked. He nodded. 'I thought they were written in cipher,' I said. He laughed, then became serious. 'I had lots of trouble to keep these people off,' he said. 'Did they want to kill you?' I asked. 'Oh no!' he cried, and checked himself. Why did they attack us?' I pursued. He hesitated, then said shamefacedly, 'They don't want him to go.' 'Don't they?' I said, curiously. He nodded a nod full of mystery and wisdom. 'I tell you,' he cried, 'this man has enlarged my mind.' He opened his arms wide, staring at me with his little blue eyes that were perfectly round.

IT is only a month or two ago that a writer in 'Maga' complained that the famous Education Act of 1870 had disappointed the high hopes of its champions,-that, despite the vast sums spent upon the People's education, the People still prefers the penny novelette to any other form of literature. Of course it does, and it is far better that its choice should be honest than that it should be wise. The Act of Parliament which compelled the free and enfranchised citizen to read, did not provide him with taste; and though he can to-day make his mark upon a voting-paper with some degree of accuracy, he has travelled no farther on the road towards refinement or intelligence. Sometimes his growth suffers by overwork; sometimes his eye, once used to the sights of the hedgerow, is dimmed by the impact of print. But the Act, which the Don Quixotes of Liberal opinion designed to regenerate the world, did not do much more harm than good to the class for whose benefit it was passed. Its peculiar triumph is to have inflicted an injury upon those well-meaning persons, whose energy and enthusiasm forced it upon Parliament.

The Nemesis was sure and complete. The gentlemen who invented the new vice of illiteracy were certain that the millennium was at hand. They acknowledged that their own

standard of intelligence was high; but they declared that once the people was forced to learn, it would in a single stride scale the snow-clad heights of knowledge. The popular taste, said they, will be levelled up at the mere approach of education. A schoolmaster would suddenly jump into the midst of every village, like a wizard hurled up a stage-trap, and with spellingbook for wand would transform the honest bumpkin into a pious reader of the 'Quarterly Review.' But, alas! for the vanity of human hopes. The popular taste was never levelled up; the taste of the superior person was levelled down. The change was gradual, but it was irresistible, and it might easily have been foreseen. The School Boards of England created a "reading public" which required not instruction but printed matter. And straightway there arose a thousand ingenious mechanics, who devised and manufactured cubic yards of stuff that looked like books and papers. Writers, editors, venders determined to supply the new demand, with an anxious adaptability to the altered circumstances of the intellectual market. With wits enormously sharpened by the greed of gain, they discovered precisely what it was for which their patrons clamoured. They invented a new poetry which was doggerel, a new fiction which was "high-toned" and

sentimental, a new journalism which was vulgar and indiscreet. Now was the opportunity for the fair-minded Liberal to interpose. He might have objected that it was not for the triumph of absurdity that he had passed his philanthropic bill; he might have reminded the millions, whose eyes he had opened to the titillation of print, that there was something hidden in books besides sensation and eavesdropping. But he said not a word: he only leapt with an insane joy upon the scandal and triviality provided for his inferiors; and his joy was shared by the hardy Conservative, who had opposed the bill, and who, without the boon of universal education, might never have known how Lord Tom Noddy wore his whiskers at twenty-five, or what was the fashion of Miss Evelina Jones's frock, when eighteen years had written their legend upon that gifted actress's face. In brief, a fresh set of books and periodicals had been contrived for those who merely read "by Act of Parliament," and it was eagerly seized upon by the miracles of erudition and refinement who had hitherto solaced their leisure with serious reviews and ponderous histories.

The vice was there already, though it lacked opportunity; the hunger for vulgarity merely pined for want of sustenance. But no sooner was sustenance given it than the hunger grew voraciously, and to-day there are few men who will ever glut their appetite for what is mean and trivial. The taste, then,

which should have been levelled up has been levelled down; the School Board has imposed its fancy upon the whole community; the man, in fact, has told the master what to read, and the master has generally obeyed with a sad alacrity. Thus a spurious alloy has ousted the purer metals. Thus the literary currency has been debased.

were not

A

Time was when reading was a leisured and scholarly pursuit, when the busiest man carried with him to the country such books as were merely designed to annihilate the brain. In these brave days the classics were still remembered, and a skilfully edited Greek play might be rewarded by a bishopric. century ago we find Charles Fox reading Porson's 'Orestes' and 'Hecuba,' on the recommendation of the wicked Grafton, and declaring that “this is the sort of reading I now take most delight in." Turn to the 'Memoirs of Charles Greville, and you will see that, man about town as he was, he yet knew how to read, and to choose the best. The records of Messrs Blackwood and Murray, again, reveal to us a world which not long since passed away, a world which professed a sincere interest in such literature as was not ephemeral, and which was content to wait one month or even three for a political commentary. That an article in the 'Quarterly' should shake a Ministry seems incredible to this generation, which despises the fourth

edition of an evening paper, when the extra special lies hot-pressed upon the counter. Where, moreover, shall you match Mr Gladstone, who, being neither scholar nor man of letters, was yet a lover of books and a loyal student? He, at any rate, was not always content with the hasty success of the moment, and even in the midst of a political crisis he could so fully detach himself from affairs as to speculate upon Homer or divide the straws of theological controversy. But to-day the cheap novel is sufficient to beguile the "cultured" brain, which has cheerfully sunk to the level ordained for it by the majority. So we are assailed upon all sides by books which are no books-by the novel, which follows the fashion of the hour, and which will be forgotten as soon as it has passed through the mill of the Circulating Library. It is curious, indeed, to note how easily the art of fiction, once practised for its own sake, has settled down to supply the popular demand. If theology be demanded, a dozen samples are on the counter at once; if the unravelling of dialect seems a pleasant pastime, a hundred new dialects are invented within the twinkling of an eye; if some astute practitioner discovers that the romantic movement is at last being felt in England, an army of false Dumas is instantly enrolled. And these curious examples of illiterate literature are seriously examined and compared. They have no other ob

ject, of course, than to lull the lazy brain to sleep; and perhaps they achieve that humble object well enough. But the purveyors of fiction are not satisfied with the abundant pudding which is theirs. They would claim for their wares a critical consideration, and for themselves a comfortable corner of immortality by the side of Fielding and Thackeray. For the moment they seem to attain the summit of their will; but time is the sternest leveller of all, and he will throw them all into the common sepulchre of oblivion.

However, the hastily educated are not satisfied with the newest effects of fiction. They would scrape a bowing acquaintance with the masters who are dead and gone. So there are prepared for their delight countless reprints, pleasant to look upon and light to hold, which shall perform the trick of introduction. The reprints are prefaced by a brief essay, which gives the criticasters something to write about, and serves as a buffer between the hastily educated and the superhuman task of perusing a classic. Neither Dickens nor Scott can make a direct appeal nowadays to their readers. The shock is always decently broken; and if the reader never gets as far as the original, he at least knows what somebody else thinks about it. In brief, we live in an Alexandrian age, which only differs from its type in lack of erudition.

Of course the popularity of books which are no books is