Send it to Bucklersbury, there 't will, well."
Time is the best critic, and the better for his intolerance of any inferiority. And fortunate for literature that he is thus choice and exacting. Books, like character, are works of time, and must run the gauntlet of criticism to gain enduring celebrity. The best books may sometimes wait for their half century, or longer, for appreciative readers—create their readers; the few ready to appreciate these at their issue being the most enlightened of their time, and they diffuse the light to their circle of readers. The torch of truth thus transmitted sheds its light over hemispheres,—the globe at last.
"Hail! native language, that with sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavoring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips
Half unpronounced slide through my infant lips,
Driving dull silence from the portal door
Where he had mutely sat two years before—
Here I salute thee, and thy pardon ask
That now I use thee in my latter task.