but Mr. Mudie sends whole libraries at once to some subscribers. Thus for the highest class subscription a hundred new books are despatched, and changed as often as required. This liberal arrangement has entirely superseded half the labour of country book-clubs, athenæums, and literary societies. Instead of buying their books, they get them in the gross from Mr. Mudie, and of course can afford to supply their readers with a much larger supply than they did of old for the same money. It must not be supposed that this great lending library is constituted on the principle of the inferior ones we have been so long accustomed to, where the bulk of the volumes consist of novels. This class of literature scarcely amounts to a third of the volumes circulated by Mr. Mudie. The great majority consists of books of travel, adventure, biography, history, scientific works, and all the books of genre—as they say in painting—which are sought for by the public. We can perhaps give a better idea of the nature of the most popular works by mentioning the circulation obtained by some of them. Macaulay had the honour of first bringing before the public the system of Mr. Mudie. In December, 1855, when volumes iii. and iv. of his “History of England” were published, it was announced that 2500 copies were at once supplied to this library. The public looked on in astonishment; it was the number contained in many a respectable library. This number has, however, been far surpassed since. Of Livingstone’s “Travels in Africa” 3250 copies were in circulation at one time. Here there was a union of religious readers and those fond of scientific travel and adventure, and at the lowest calculation not less than 30,000 readers must have been introduced to the work of the great South African traveller through the medium of this establishment. This alone is fame to a moderate man. People are very fond of saying that nobody reads poetry now-a-days; yet 1000 copies of “Idylls of the King” were necessary to supply the demand for Tennyson’s last new book. McClintock’s “Voyage in Search of Franklin” was another great success; 3000 volumes were at one time “reading.” A very singular illustration of the effect of theological controversy upon a book was made evident when “Essays and Reviews” were first published, inasmuch as 50 copies remained for some little time unread upon the shelves. As the idea arose that they were a little naughty, the demand began to increase, until ultimately Mr. Mudie had to place 2000 copies upon his shelves. As a rule, novels have a short life, and not a merry one; we must except, however, some of the very first class such as those of Miss Evans; 3000 copies of “Silas Marner,” for instance, were necessary to supply the demand by the subscribers. Thackeray, Dickens, and Trollope are of course always in demand, and Carlyle and Kingsley, again, seem never out of fashion. The peculiarities of readers are evinced by the style of their reading; thus one well-known and celebrated man confines himself to the Waverley Novels, when “Count Robert of Paris” is done, beginning again at “Waverley.” Then there are the sluggish and the omnivorous readers. Many persons will only read one book during their subscription, whilst one lady, for her guinea subscription, read a number of volumes which, if purchased, would have cost her 200l.
Town subscribers generally change their own books over the counter, and the bustle of the scene may be imagined when we say that, on the average, 1000 exchanges are effected in the day, representing not less than 3000 volumes. Suburban subscribers are supplied with their exchanges by cart, and those living in the country have their own boxes; these are of all sizes, from those holding four volumes to the monster packages holding one hundred. Upwards of a hundred of these boxes are received and sent out each day. Taken altogether, no less than 10,000 volumes are circulating diurnally through this establishment. The amount of reading this represents is enormous, and it cannot be denied that, as an educating power, this great Circulating Library holds no mean position among the better classes of society. Its value to authors, moreover, cannot be lightly estimated, inasmuch as its machinery enables a bountiful supply of their works to be distributed to the remotest parts of the island, thereby increasing their reputation in an ever-widening circle. What a gulf of time seems to separate us from that age when the only means the great master-minds of our noble craft possessed of making themselves known to the world was that of cringing to some noble debauchee, or of beslavering a gouty earl in a sycophantish dedication.
FECHTER’S “OTHELLO.”
TO THE EDITOR OF “ONCE A WEEK.”
Sir,—Strong objections having been made to one point in my critique on “‘Othello’ at the Princess’s,’”[1]—viz., my approval of Mr. Fechter’s “solution by the action with the toilet-glass of the difficult passage, ‘It is the cause,’”—I venture to send the grounds of the approbation then accorded. It is asserted that the sixth line of the opening soliloquy, “Yet she must die, lest she betray more men,” is the real explanation of the murder. To this I reply, that I do not conceive Othello to be in a state of mind in which logical precision is to be expected. He is throughout the last two acts, “wrought,” “perplexed,” “passion-tost.” His saying at one moment that he proposes to kill Desdemona, “lest she betray more men,” is by no means a reason why the old, old dread should not recur to him. From the beginning, in the trembling sensitiveness of his happiness, he has always felt amazed that a creature of such dazzling loveliness should give her heart to a scarred, sun-scorched soldier. He is easily jealous of Desdemona’s love, because the ease with which he won that love surprised him.
I conceive that nothing but a far-fetched explanation like that of Stevens[2] can elucidate the words, “It is the cause,” save this glance at the reflex of the speaker’s own dusky person.
The course of thought in his wild, ulcerated heart is something like this:
