Will nothing but from Greece or Rome Please me? is nothing good at home? Yes; better; but I look in vain For a Molière or La Fontaine. Swift in his humour was as strong, But there was gall upon his tongue. Bitters and acids may excite, Yet satisfy not appetite. W. S. LANDOR. THE MOONS OF LITERATURE SIR, ... we must read what the world reads at the moment. It has been maintained that this superfoetation, this teeming of the press in modern times, is prejudicial to good literature, because it obliges us to read so much of what is of inferior value, in order to be in the fashion; so that better works are neglected for want of time, because a man will have more gratification of his vanity in conversation, from having read modern books than from having read the best books of antiquity. But it must be considered, that we have now more knowledge generally diffused; all our ladies read now, which is a great extension. Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients. Greece appears to me to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance.--S. JOHNSON. (Boswell's _Life_.) THE READING OF NEW BOOKS From Lien Chi Altangi to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China There are numbers in this city who live by writing new books; and yet there are thousands of volumes in every large library unread and forgotten. This, upon my arrival, was one of those contradictions which I was unable to account for. Is it possible, said I, that there should be any demand for new books before those already published are read? Can there be so many employed in producing a commodity with which the market is overstocked; and with goods also better than any of modern manufacture! What at first view appeared an inconsistency is a proof at once of this people's wisdom and refinement. Even allowing the works of their ancestors better written than theirs, yet those of the moderns acquire a real value, by being marked with the impression of the times. Antiquity has been in the possession of others; the present is our own: let us first therefore learn to know what belongs to ourselves, and then, if we have leisure, cast our reflections back to the reign of Shonsu, who governed twenty thousand years before the creation of the moon.