Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 | Page 3

great writers
we have casually mentioned have no equals in the present world; yet
the present world is more mature in point of taste than their own. That
is the reason why they are great authors now. Some books last for a
season, some for a generation, some for an age, or two, or more; always
dropping off when the time they reach outstrips them. One of these lost
treasures is sometimes reprinted; but if this is done in the hope of a
renewed popularity, the speculation is sure to fail. Curious and studious
men, it is true, are gratified by the reproduction; but the general reader
would prefer a book of his own generation, using the former as
materials, and separating its immortal part from its perishing body.
And the general reader, be it remembered, is virtually the age. It is for
him the studious think, the imaginative invent, the tuneful sing: beyond

him there is no appeal but to the future. He is superstitious, as we have
seen, but his gods are few and traditional. He determines to make a
stand somewhere; and it is necessary for him to do so, if he would not
encumber his literary Olympus with a Hindoo-like pantheon of millions.
But how voracious is this general reader in regard to the effusions of
his own day! What will become of the myriads of books that have
passed through our own unworthy hands? How many of them will
survive to the next generation? How many will continue to float still
further down the stream of time? How many will attain the honour of
the apotheosis? And will they coexist in this exalted state with the old
objects of worship? This last is a pregnant question; for each generation
will in all probability furnish its quota of the great books of the
language, and, if so, a reform in the superstition we have exposed is no
longer a matter of mere expedience, but of necessity. We are aware that
all this will be pronounced rank heresy by those who assume the style
of critics, who usually make a prodigious outcry when a great author is
mutilated, even by expunging a word which modern decency excludes
from the vocabulary of social and family intercourse. This word,
however--supposing it to represent the mortal and perishing part of an
author's productions--belongs not to him, but to his age; not to the
intellectual man, but to the external and fleeting manners of his day and
generation. Such critics usually take credit to themselves for a
peculiarly large and liberal spirit; but there seems to us, on the contrary,
to be something mean and restricted in views that regard the man as an
individual, not as a portion of the genius which belongs to the world.
Yet, even as an individual, the man is safe in his entirety, for there is no
project of cancelling the printed works extant in our libraries, public
and private. The true question simply is: Are great authors to be
allowed to become practically obsolete--and many of them have
become so already--while we stand upon the delicacies and ceremonies
of Book-worship?

OUR TERRACE.
London has been often compared to a wilderness--a wilderness of brick,
and so in one sense it is; because you may live in London all the days

of your life if you choose--and, indeed, if you don't choose, if you
happen to be very poor--without exciting observation, or provoking any
further questioning than is comprised in a demand for accurate
guidance from one place to another, a demand which might be made
upon you in an Arabian desert, if there you chanced to meet a stranger.
But London is something else besides a wilderness--indeed it is
everything else. It is a great world, containing a thousand little worlds
in its bosom; and pop yourself down in it in any quarter you will, you
are sure to find yourself in the centre of some peculiar microcosm
distinguished from all others by features more or less characteristic.
One such little world we have lived in for a round number of years; and
as we imagine it presents a picture by no means disagreeable to look
upon, we will introduce the reader, with his permission, into its very
limited circle, and chronicle its history for one day as faithfully as it is
possible for anything to do, short of the Daguerreotype and the
tax-gatherer. Our Terrace, then--for that is our little world--is situated
in one of the northern, southern, eastern, or western suburbs--we have
reasons for not being particular--at the distance of two miles and
three-quarters from the black dome of St Paul's. It consists of thirty
genteel-looking second-rate houses, standing upon a veritable terrace,
at least three feet above the level of the carriage-way, and