Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Macmillan's Magazine, 1860, Vol. 2
Natural and becoming as it is to think modestly of the literary achievements Of our own time, in comparison with certain periods of our past literary his tory, it may yet be asserted with some confidence that in no age has there been so large an amount Of real ability en gaged in the conduct Of British literature as at present. Whether our topmost men are equal in stature to the giants of some former generations, and Whether the passing age is depositing on the shelf Of our rare national classics mas terpieces Of matter and of form worthy to rank With those already there, are questions which need not be discussed in connexion with our statement. It is enough to remember that, for the three hundred publications or so which eu nually issued from the British press about the middle Of the seventeenth century, we now produce every year some five thousand publications Of all sorts, and, probing this ?eeting mass of contemporary authorship as far round us and in as many directions as we can, in order to appraise its contents, to see, as I believe we should see, that the pro digious increase of quantity has been ac companied by no deterioration of average quality. Lamentations are indeed com mon over the increase of books in the world. This, it is said, is the Mudz'aeval era. DO not these lamentations proceed, however, on a false View of literature, as if its due limits at any time were to be N o. 7. - vol. II.
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