It is not, however, from the captious taste of the public that most is to be feared, but from its indifference. Let it not be believed that, because a mob of the votaries of Mr. Jerome and Mr. Sims have been drawn to the precincts of the Abbey to gaze upon a pompous ceremonial, these admirable citizens have suddenly taken to reading _Lucretius_ or _The Two Voices_. What their praise is worth no one among us would venture to say in words so unmeasured as those of the dead Master himself, who, with a prescience of their mortuary attentions, spoke of these irreverent admirers as those _Who make it seem more sweet to be_ _The little life of bank and brier,_ _The bird who pipes his lone desire_ _And dies unheard within his tree,_ _Than he that warbles long and loud,_ _And drops at Glory's temple-gates,_ _For whom the carrion-vulture waits_ _To tear his heart before the crowd._ If this is more harsh reproof than a mere idle desire to be excited by a spectacle or by an event demands, it may nevertheless serve us as an antidote to the vain illusion that these multitudes are suddenly converted to a love of fine literature. They are not so converted, and fine literature--however scandalous it may sound in the ears of this generation to say it--is for the few. How long, then, will the many permit themselves to be brow-beaten by the few? At the present time the oligarchy of taste governs our vast republic of readers. We tell them to praise the Bishop of Oxford for his history, and Mr. Walter Pater for his essays, and Mr. Herbert Spencer for his philosophy, and Mr. George Meredith for his novels. They obey us, and these are great and illustrious personages about whom newspaper gossip is continually occupied, whom crowds, when they have the chance, hurry to gaze at, but whose books (or I am cruelly misinformed) brave a relatively small circulation. These reputations are like beautiful churches, into which people turn to cross themselves with holy water, bow to the altar, and then hurry out again to spend the rest of the morning in some snug tavern.