The accumulation of
manuscripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to
monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be
owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity;
that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern
genius drowned in the deluge. But the inventions of paper and the
press have put an end to all these restraints. They have made every
one a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and
diffuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are
alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent-
augmented into a river- expanded into a sea. A few centuries since,
five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library; but
what would you say to libraries such as actually exist, containing
three or four hundred thousand volumes; legions of authors at the same
time busy; and the press going on with fearfully increasing
activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless some unforseen
mortality should break out among the progeny of the muse, now that she
has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere
fluctuation of language will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much.
It increases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of
those salutary checks on population spoken of by economists.
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