Madame Blaz de Bury; Chaucer, by Mr. John Saunders; Hudibras, by Mr. Ramsay. The small comparative sale of such volumes was to me a tolerably satisfactory proof that abridgments and analyses of standard authors are not likely to be successful. Unless important works are inaccessible from their rarity or their bulk, the greater number of readers—and these perhaps are the more judicious -are ill-content with hashes and essences.

Amongst the original works was one which was an exception to the general character of the books in my series, which for the most part carried the recommendation of popular names as their authors. This was "Memoirs of a Working Man." It was writen by a tailor of the name of Carter. He was the author of one of the little books published by Knight and Co., called the "Guide to Trade," and had been recommended to me in 1840 as a highly deserving man, carrying on a little business for himself, with a dependent family, and struggling with the severest ill health. In the introduction which I wrote to the "Memoirs of a Working Man," I stated that when the author brought to me his manuscript, which he wished to be published by subscription, I carefully read his simple record of an uneventful life, advised him to curtail such particulars as could only be interesting to himself and his family, but on no account to suppress what would be interesting to all-the history of the formation of his habits of thought, and thence of his system of conduct the development of his intellectual and moral life. In conclusion I said: "Upon receiving the Manuscript thus altered and completed, I proposed to publish it in the Weekly Volume. This is

the extent of my editorial duty. I have not added, nor have I altered, a single word. The purity of its style is one of the most remarkable characteristics of this little book."

The series of the Weekly Volume, although it did not involve any considerable loss, was certainly not a commercial success. "Why Mr. Knight did not profit largely by the speculation, is a problem yet to be solved," said the writer of a paper on "Literature for the People." The solution was that the people did not sufficiently buy the series. There were not twenty volumes that reached a sale of ten thousand, and the average sale was scarcely five thousand Although very generally welcomed by many who were anxious for the enlightenment of the humbler classes, the humbler classes themselves did not find in them the mental aliment for which they hungered. They wanted fiction, and the half dozen historical novelets of the series were not of the exciting kind which in a few years became the staple product of the cheap press. It was perhaps as useless as it was unwise to battle against this growing taste, which was not limited to hard-handed mechanics and their families. In 1854, when I was inclined to think too harshly of the popular appetite for fiction, which was stimulated by the coarsely seasoned food of such publications as the 'London Journal,' Mr. Dickens remonstrated with me in the most earnest and affectionate spirit. I extract from a letter of his, marked by his accustomed good sense, a passage which deserves the serious consideration of those who look too severely upon the exuberance of this species of popular literature. "The English are, so far as I know, the hardest worked people on whom the sun shines. Be con

tent if in their wretched intervals of leisure they read for amusement and do no worse. They are born at the oar, and they live and die at it. Good God, what would we have of them!"

At the time of the issue of the Weekly Volume, the sale of books at railway stations was unknown. Seven years afterwards it had become universal. Then, in the vicinity of great towns where there was a railway station, the shelves of the newspaper vender were filled with shilling volumes known as the 'Parlour Library,' 'The Popular Library,' 'The Railway Library,' 'The Shilling Series.' In their bulk of thin paper and close printing they would appear to be twice as cheap as my volumes, but, except in very rare instances, they had involved no expense of copyright. In a few years, a most remarkable development of cheapness in books, especially in works of fiction, was accomplished without "the great damage of the circulating libraries." Wonderful organizations of the circulating library system presented a far greater encouragement to original authorship than at the period when the few rich purchased books for their sole use. The day of furniture books was almost past. When the circulating libraries had done their work of "the season," then came the cheap reprint. This was the crucial test of an author's popularity. My work as a publisher was finished before these times arrived, which are certainly more favourable for publishing enterprise than those of my own commercial experience.

Somewhat before the commencement of the Weekly Volume, I was engaged for several years in the publication of a series of popular books which had a very large sale, but were little known to the

general reading public. They were picture books, especially adapted for sale, in the neighbourhood of the great manufacturing towns and other populous districts, by the class of book-hawkers known as canvassers. There were four books, forming seven volumes in folio, which I included under the generic Dame of " The New Orbis Pictus," in imitation of that work of Comenius, which, after the lapse of two centuries, still holds its place amongst the educational books of continental Europe. That work, which was once amongst the most popular of books, originally contained several hundred rude wood cuts with appropriate descriptions. My series comprised the following separate books: "Pictorial Museum of Animated Nature:" "Pictorial SundayBook:" "Old England:" "Pictorial Gallery of Arts." I told the public that what the Orbis Pictus had imperfectly accomplished was fully carried out in this series, in which was accumulated the largest body of eye-knowledge that had ever been brought together, consisting in the whole of twelve thousand engravings. It is satisfactory to me to think that these books may have presented to some portions of the population-who without the canvasser's importunity would never have expended a monthly shilling upon literature-sources of instruction and amusement as various and extensive as my general title implies-The Pictorial World. Of this series I was necessarily the editor. The descriptions in each book were for the most part confided to persons of literary habits and competent knowledge-these were, Mr. William C. L. Martin for Natural History, Dr. Kitto for Sacred History, Mr. Dodd for

the Useful Arts, Mr. Wornum for the Fine Arts, and Mr. John Saunders for our National Antiquities. I must mention, however, that the first Book of "Old England" and part of the second, were written by myself. At the period of its publication there was an awakening feeling for the prèservation of our historical monuments. The barbarous neglect which had permitted so many druidical remains, such as Abury, to be in great part destroyed; so many traces of the Roman occupation to be buried; and so many of the noble ecclesiastical edifices of the Norman era to be defaced; this ignorant apathy was rapidly giving place to a just reverence for the past.