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    878 ^ THI) LEIDBE. [No. 338, Saturday,

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    BOOKKELLEES' AJDTJLTEBATKXNB ESS? v a i|...

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    CONGRATULATIONS. Two or three old notion...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    The Last K.G. If Edwaub . Iii. Were Now ...

    bullying them into benevolences . But no ' improvement * of modem days "would astound him so much as the proposal of Ma beloved cousin , Queen "Victobxa , to confer the Garter upon the SoizDAjr—upon the Salade ? " of out day . How a Christian Queen could introduce the Arch Infidel into that most exclusive order—that sacred hand which has hitherto been limited to kings , nobles , and the bastards of royalty— -so consistent and practical a prince would be unable to comprehend ; and it would be very difficult to explain to him the reason why .

    It is not in the mere technicalities that we see the difficulty . It has been asked , indeed , how you can place the Grarterupon the leg of a potentate who does not wear stockings ? But more difficult manoeuvres than that have been successfully attempted . In Naples we have more than once seen a crown placed upon a thing without a head . Besides , we are not sure that the darter originally was a garter ; and the fact that it is so called rather affirms , than otherwise , the pretty but apocryphal legend of the Countess of Saiisbuet . That part of the insignia was first

    called ' belt' as well as garter ; and it is much more probable that among the furniture of the Order would be the badge , sword , and "belt , than the badge , sword , and garter . But if Edwaed were engaged in contemplating Ids Order , —if the little incident of the Countess really happened at the ball ,- —if he saw a lady ; more beautiful than charity , and more Yirtuous than virtue , blushing at the rude glances of the knights , it is by mo means inconsistent with his character that he should

    Seize the occasion of rebuking their unfcnightly manner by making them wear , in tne most honourable Order of his country , for evermore , that same garter aa the most distinguishing badge . - To this dayj , and back to the earliest days of stockings , it haB been the practice to woik quaint devices upon that article of dress which the Knights of the Order wear upon the leg , and Queen Victoria Wears upon her arm—another reason for supposing that Edwabd suffered the belt to become a

    garter , and adopted the motto which might have been woven on -the gentler band . ( It is not the oath that could impose the difficulty ; for the oath has been changed many times , and conldibe changed as often . " We may yet have the Emperor of Chxna admitted "to the Order , and breaking a saucer upon hia admission , as our own Iiord Mayor , it is well known , until the present reign , counted hobnails in . proof of his legitimate authority . There is nothing , we venture to affirm , in the statutes which can

    exclude the SuiiTAN . It certainly is not his personal character : he will find amongst the KnightB BhakspuAim ' s notorious Sir Johh ITalstaff , whom real history represents as a very ordinary knight , though contemporaries did accuse him of treachery and cowardice . He will find also the Emperor JSiohoias , who broke every knightly rule by breaking hia word to the Order , and nevertheless was not expelled . It is not the putting of MahoundV arms in "Windsor Chapel that is the trouble ; though the fact will , indeed , mark the ascendancy of the ' Broad Church .

    But to what end introduce the Sultan as the youngest knight in the ancient Christian English . Order ? We do not know what the ¦ v ! Y * "fended to mean ; but we well know T ™* . £ *» meaa . Nothing ; except that AjD ^ MEDra . ™ il be able to write K . G . alter his name .

    878 ^ Thi) Leidbe. [No. 338, Saturday,

    878 ^ THI ) LEIDBE . [ No . 338 , Saturday ,

    Bookkellees' Ajdtjltebatkxnb Ess? V A I|...

    BOOKKELLEES' AJDTJLTEBATKXNB ESS ? v a i | / ^ ° rity for saying that owtica should do sharp justice upon bad

    effect in driving bad cheap books out of the field . But it seems to be considered that , to make up a volume for a railway stall , nothing more is necessary than a few forgotten sketches from old periodicals , some grossly bad illustrations , and a chimerically repulsive yellow coyer . "When the process las been advanced thus far the most disgusting part remains—the composition of a ; puif . A curious change has taken place in this respect , formerly , the least scrupulous advertizer was careful to quote hi 3 authority , and the list of -testimonies ran thus : — " The

    better , good cheap books having a strong books , as upon malefactors ; but what do the booksellers deserve ? There are two classes of them , at least , that ought to be marked for surveillance . The one class is composed of certain shilling-volume publishers , the other of magazine manufacturers , especially those of a philanthropic tinge . As to cheap literature , we are persuaded it is what the best literature will come to , and the sooner the better , good cheap books having a strong

    world will -writhe under this satire . " — Wormivood Mercury . " "We are much deceived if this poem does not become immortal . "— Tin Trwnpet . " Since Hobneb , we remember no novelist so suecessful . " - ^ -C' ow » £ r 2 / Cousi ? i . " The essay is a gush of intellectual glory . " ~—! Earthem Vessel . Now , whatever the absurdity -was , somebody had . written , printed , and perhaps paid for it . Even the

    ' everlasting immortality' of a particular ' work of travels' was really attributed to it by an evening paper . But , at present , that necessity seems abolished . "We take up a batch of reprints in dragon ' s blood board covers , and leari . from the fly-leaf , " TheseJ are the happiest efforts of their author . " The same fly-leaf presents other literary intelligence . Some ghastly parody of Coobeb's Red Indian romances in

    embellished wrapper is pronounced " a most thrilling tale of extraordinary adventures , " not one of the weekly animalculse lending even the sanction of its name to the imposture . Then , a mass of epileptic comedy on the late war is offered , " so truthful that the reader can hardly imagine the story to be a fiction . " " The most delightful book of travels ever written" is next in the list , followed by " one of the most delightfully written tales we have ever read "—the said we being the composer of the fly-leaf , or the critic of some unacknowledged gazette . We have no information , moreover , aa to the name and weight

    of the reviewer , who recommends a shilling selection of sketches as the companion volume of the London Labour and tfie London Poor , or aa to the authority which affirms Lily and Love to be a specific for the moral complaints of children ; or with respect to the claims of a youthful American authoress " to rank among the first writers of the day ; " or aa to " the other productions" of a talented lady , which are to be surpassed by her last production . Well may the great publishing houses , dreading to be confounded with these concocters of puffs , exclude " . c ritical opinions and laudatory notices" from their catalogues .

    One ^ of the worst consequences of this traffic is , that no book published in America is too bad to be republished as a shilling volume in England . It is announced as a story which sold ten thousand copies in one day- at New York . The cover is of burning crimson , imprinted wifch a white school-girl , and , on the fly-leaf , criticism is anticipated

    by the remark , coolly and loftily written , that " This entrancing story will be read by the ruddy light of every Christmas fireside throughout the kingdom ; " or , " No mother should allow her daughter to reach a marriageable ago without reading this romance . " Our last specimen , it should be observed , relates to a story by an English writer , and

    was published by himself . When comic publications- — imitations of Punch - — were in rogue , many a block of boxwood was cut with very few impressions taken from it . Consequently , the thing was thrown into the market . It turns up on the railway stall . You find a portrait of Sir Peteb Laueie doing duty as the ruined banker in a tale of City life .

    The trade in second-hand woodcuts is considerable , the use made of them being abominable . It is not two years since a great manufacturer of cheap publications was accustomed to take a monthly expedition to Paris , where he bought the old blocks at the offices of illustrated periodicals , and returning , employed his clerks to ' write up to them , ' which was done with much educational flourish and infinite deception . Having been used in England , the wood engravings -were next exported to America , and we have

    lately encountered them in this third form , illustrating a third , class of literature . * The same building has figured as a Rock Temple in India , the Interior of a Tomb in , Egypt , and the Approach to the Napoleon Shrine in Paris . We have met with the same figure as Zaidee , as the heroine of a , Spanish , story , and as the daughter of He & odias ; and we should not be surprised to behold its fourth appearance as a Princess of Oude . The present is the season for such manufactures . They have an open market . They glow upon the stalls . But the woodcuts are not so bad as the letterpress they

    illustrate . This is often got up with the most pernicioua facility , the writers themselves ridiculing the publishers who issue their cold-pressed verbiage as the ' educational feature' of some deplorably illiterate miscellany . Fortunately , an exposure that was effected "by one or two of our contemporaries a year or \ two ago broke up some of the merchant princedoms of penny and twopenny literature ; but the imposture has been transformed into the shilling volume suape 3 and thrives in . fancy covers . Half these fancy covers represent only so much nonsense , puffed off by praises which were never written except by the nonsense-dealers themselves .

    Congratulations. Two Or Three Old Notion...

    CONGRATULATIONS . Two or three old notions there are , connected with the richer and poorer classes , which are unaccountable . "With reference to flie poorer classes , it is an established maxim that they drink to excess , beat their wives , and neglect their children ; that small class excepted which comes under ' charitable institution' care . With reference to the richer classes , the received -way of writing at them is to deplore the fate of daughters married heartlessly to coronets , and to furnish forth a story with illustrations of the platitude that wealth does not bring happiness . "We have always wondered Ixow a universally intoxicated working class produces , regularly , such immeasurable results of industry ; how half a dozen magistrates can dispose of all the cases of outrage occurring in a depraved population of three millions ; and how every trade iu the three kingdoms is fully supplied with apprentices by children-neglecting fathers . Assuming that half the villany practised is concealed , that artizans and labourers aro frequently inebriated when they are not fined for it * that numbers of children grow into criminals through the inattention of their parents , vre must nevertheless believe that there ia an

    immense power of sober and self-denying application at work , or else England would not be what it is . ¥ e will loavo that topic at present . The point more immediately suggested by tho aspectB of tho Beason is—the immenso num .-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13091856/page/14/