Now all this is, on our parts, exceedingly ridiculous and irrational. It not only exposes our servility, but it betrays our ignorance of many of the temporary excitements in favour of certain authors and their works, which take place in London. It shows that we are not aware of the fact, that, in the majority of cases, the rage for a new book, is owing to circumstances not at all connected with its merit. An influential and enterprising publisher,--a striking or a popular subject,--a sounding title,--a bold,--a wealthy or an eccentric author,--and, above all, a continued series of well-managed puffs, invariably do much more towards making a new book fashionable, than any excellence it may possess; and the inducement to purchase it is more frequently the knowledge that it is fashionable, than the conviction that it is good. Hence, it is to their title-pages, rather than to their nature or quality, that new books are mostly indebted for their immediate success. Their permanent success--that is, their enduring fame--is another matter. Merit, and merit only, can secure that; for it is the result of the cool and deliberate approbation which is awarded by the judgment of mankind, when the adventitious circumstances which first excited attention towards the book, have passed away, and can operate no longer on curiosity. The history of literature amply proves this. Books have often had, for a time, great mercantile value, and been highly profitable to the booksellers, that have been utterly worthless in a literary point of view. Of this fact the book-dealers are so well aware, that, rather than risk the expense of publishing the most beautiful composition of an unknown author, they will pay largely for manuscripts of the merest trash, from the pen of one to whom some lucky accident has already drawn public attention. Many of our well-meaning echoers of the London puffs of new books, are certainly ignorant of this circumstance, or they would not lend their aid to give circulation and temporary repute to much of the vile literature, which, under the names of novels, poems, travels, &c. the press of London has so largely poured forth, during the last eight or ten years, to the great deterioration not only of the literary taste, but of the manners and morals of the age.