whether in the case of publications which appeal directly to general readers, and are within the scope of their judgments, the fortune of a book is in any way affected by the arts of the log-roller. Amusement mingled with impatience is probably the prevailing sentiment when Mr. C and Mr. D are loud in each other’s praises. We remember the amœbæan strains of Hayley and Miss Seward in Porson’s epigram:-- _Miss Seward_: Tuneful poet, Britain’s glory; Mr. Hayley, that is you. _Mr. Hayley_: Ma’am, you carry all before you; Trust me, Lichfield Swan, you do. * * * * * _Miss Seward_: Ode, didactic, epic, sonnet; Mr. Hayley, you’re divine. _Mr. Hayley_: Ma’am, I’ll take my oath upon it, You yourself are all the nine. Or, in a less good-natured mood, we may perhaps recall with a certain satisfaction Pope’s cruel but pathetic picture of the minor log-rollers of his day:-- Next plunged a feeble but a desperate pack, With each a sickly brother at his back. Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood, Then numbered with the puppies in the mud. But there are certain subjects and certain spheres in which the arts of the log-roller, if equally contemptible, are not quite so harmless. During the last fifteen years the Press has been teeming with books designed to circulate among readers who are seriously interested in _belles lettres_ and criticism. Some of them have appeared as volumes in a series, some as independent monographs and manuals, and some in the humbler forms of editorial introductions and notes. Among them may be found works of really distinguished scholars, and works in every way worthy of such scholars; and it is no doubt works like these which have given credit and authority generally to publications of this kind. The popularity of these productions has been extraordinary, and their manufacture has become one of the most lucrative of hackney employments. Nor is this all. Their professed purpose is the dissemination of serious instruction, is to become text-books in literary history and in literary criticism; and, as text-books on those subjects, they have made their way, or are making their way, not merely into our public libraries, but also into the libraries of nearly every educational institute in England. Indeed it would not be too much to say that if, among general readers, about eighty in every hundred derive almost all they know about English literature, both historically and critically, from these volumes, in our schools and colleges, the average number of those whose studies are and ought to be independent of them is yearly diminishing. It is of these text-books and of the responsibilities incurred by those who produce and circulate them that we wish to speak.