A new
book is the fair field for petulance and coxcombry to gather laurels
in--the butt set up for roving opinion to aim at. Can we wonder, then,
that the circulating libraries are besieged by literary dowagers and
their grand-daughters, when a new novel is announced? That mail-coach
copies of the _Edinburgh Review_ are or were coveted? That the
manuscript of the _Waverley_ romances is sent abroad in time for the
French, German, or even Italian translation to appear on the same day as
the original work, so that the longing continental public may not be
kept waiting an instant longer than their fellow-readers in the English
metropolis, which would be as tantalizing and insupportable as a little
girl being kept without her new frock, when her sister's is just come
home, and is the talk and admiration of every one in the house? To be
sure, there is something in the taste of the times; a modern work is
expressly adapted to modern readers. It appeals to our direct
experience, and to well-known subjects; it is part and parcel of the
world around us, and is drawn from the same sources as our daily
thoughts. There is, therefore, so far, a natural or habitual sympathy
between us and the literature of the day, though this is a different
consideration from the mere circumstance of novelty. An author now
alive, has a right to calculate upon the living public; he cannot count
upon the dead, nor look forward with much confidence to those that are
unborn.
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