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DEDICATORY EPISTLE.
ix
I fear not. Let us look around! What encouragement to any of these subjects is held out to us? Are not writings of this sort far more the ephemerals of literature than writings of fiction?[1] Does the biography, or the essay, or the treatise, last even the year for which a novel endures? And if it does not exceed the novel in durability, it can scarcely equal it, you
- ↑ Nor is this, as at the first glance it may appear, owing to the fault or the unimportance of the writings themselves. While "The Sketch Book" is found in every young lady's dressing-room; and "Bracebridge Hall" is still in high request, in every country book-club; "The Life of Columbus," invaluable, if only from the subject so felicitously chosen; "The Wars of Grenada," scarcely less valuable from the subject so consummately adorned, and so stirringly painted; are, the one slowly passing into forgetfulness, and the other slumbering, with uncut leaves, upon the shelf. Compare the momentary sensation produced by the first appearance of Lord King's "Life of Locke," with the sensation, durable and intense, which, replete as it is with the treasure of Locke's familiar thoughts, it would have produced twenty years ago! "Godwin's History of the Commonwealth," one of the most manly and impartial records ever written, lives less upon the memory than "Almack's;" and "Cyril Thornton," produced some four years since, is in more immediate vogue than the admirable history by the same Author—published but the other day. True, that among a succeeding generation, there may possibly be a re-action—lethargic octavos be awakened from their untimely trance, and enlivened quartos "take up their beds and walk!" But now when people think as well as feel, and the present is to them that matter of reference and consideration which the future was with their more dreaming forefathers—the fame that is only posthumous, has become to all, but to poets, a very frigid and impotent inducement.
