A GLOOMY VIEW OF PRESENTDAY LITERATURE.

Evening Star, Issue 10901, 8 April 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

A GLOOMY VIEW OF PRESENTDAY LITERATURE.

*The lore of letters might have he*n expected acquired a taste for Hall Came were the thanei or a** the mining centres of the pits of chapds. ver na been so abundantly P«™»*™ literary nwiit read- the general aversge ct literary m «L«nsuKr as the monetary rewards of authorstn2A in equal proportion; but thU cause while it lowered the standard cf StaTTioo. inflamed the "tf*L**& JS by the agents like the prices of stock on the or the chances of a horse rec* and to who, by economising ha geni«s, Sight have been a master, «£■*«{ £ stores in «rofuse over-production. VVitn tne pS* of books came a •■*» *3JX Lries on work which !«>«<« «£"» rjjjtf left to the revision of P**»g; darkcritics of anthologists, and of log-rollers dare ened the face of letters, and upon thejlechne ofgenius soon followed the corruption of taste. Tre last outrage upon the language of Shakesp a« andVldhiwas a swarm of penodical Sts concocted of illiterate novelettes unmeaning statistics, American ™ d £ fontile.lnfczles; they were consumedl in pro-di-nous quantities by the lower orders, and, by ruinine the business of those who purveyeTsincere if not masterly compositions contributed more than any other cause to the debasement and final extinction e!Engush lett-ers.-From 'From the New Gibbon, in ' Blackwood's Magazine.'