The invention of the paper-machine was concurrent with the invention of the printing-machine. Without the paper-machine, the material of books, and newspapers, and journals, could never have been supplied with any reference to cheapness. Chemistry, too, has converted the coarsest rags, and the dirtiest cotton-wool, into fine pulp. The material of which this book is formed existed a few month ago, perhaps, in the shape of a tattered frock, whose shreds, exposed for years to the sun and wind, covered the sturdy loins of the shepherd watching his sheep on the plains of Hungary;—or it might have formed part of the coarse blue shirt of the Italian sailor, on board some little trading-vessel of the Mediterranean;—or it might have pertained to the once tidy camicia of the neat straw-plaiter of Tuscany, who, on the eve of some festival, when her head was intent upon gay things, condemned the garment to the stracci-vendolo (rag-merchant) of Leghorn;—or it might have constituted the coarse covering of the flock-bed of the farmer of Saxony, or once looked bright in the damask table-cloth of the burgher of Hamburgh;—or, lastly, it might have been swept, new and unworn, out of the vast collection of the shreds and patches, the fustian and buckram, of a London tailor; or might have accompanied every revolution of a fashionable coat in the shape of lining—having travelled from St. James's to St. Giles's, from Bond Street to Monmouth Street, from Rag Fair to the Dublin Liberty, till man disowned the vesture, and the kennel-sweeper claimed its miserable remains. In each or all of these forms, and in hundreds more which it would be useless to describe, this sheet of paper a short time since might have existed. No matter, now, what the colour of the rag—how oily the cotton—what filth it has gathered and harboured through all its transmutation—the scientific paper-maker can produce out of these filthy materials one of the most beautiful productions of manufacture. But he has a difficulty in obtaining even these coarse materials. The advance of a people in civilisation has not only a tendency to make the supply of rags abundant, but, at the same time, to increase the demand for rags. The use of machinery in manufactures renders clothing cheap; the cheapness of clothing causes its consumption to increase, not only in the proportion of an increasing population, but by the scale of individual expenditure; the stock of rags is therefore increasing in the same ratio that our looms produce more linen and cotton cloth. But then the increase of knowledge runs in a parallel line with this increase of comforts; and the increase of knowledge requires an increase of books. The principle of publishing books and tracts, to be read by thousands instead of tens and hundreds, has already caused a large addition to the demand for printing-paper. Science made paper cheap in spite of taxation. The government has worked against science to keep books dear.
We cannot pass over the mechanical and other scientific improvements in typography, which preceded and accompanied the great epoch of cheapness of the last quarter of a century, without more particularly noticing the revival, for so it may be called, of the art of woodcutting. In the 'Penny Magazine' of 1836, the editor says that no expense or labour has been spared to attain every improvement of which the art of woodcutting is susceptible—that the engravings of 305 numbers have cost 12,000l. (about 40l. a number)—that many difficulties have been overcome in adapting the character of the engravings to the rapid movements of the printing-machine—and that the art, in connexion with the cheapest form of printing, has been carried further than at one time was thought to be possible. This was written in 1836. Let any one look at a common book with woodcuts, printed thirty years ago, and he will understand what difficulties had to be overcome before 'The Penny Magazine' could present successful copies of works of art. This 'Penny Magazine,' which some even now affect to sneer at, produced a revolution in popular art throughout the world. It created similar works, to which it supplied stereotype casts, in Germany, France, Holland, Livonia (in Russian and German), Bohemia (in Sclavonic), Italy, Ionian Islands (in Modern Greek), Sweden, Norway, Spanish America, the Brazils, the United States. It raised up imitators on every side, and directed the union of art and letters into new channels. It was the forerunner of 'Punch,' and of 'The Illustrated London News.' A great art-critic of 1836 proclaimed, with oracular solemnity, "As there is no royal road to mathematics, so we say, once for all, there is no Penny Magazine road to the Fine Arts—the cultivation of the Fine Arts must be carried on by a comparatively small and gifted few, under the patronage of men of wealth and leisure." Many eminent designers—amongst whom are the honoured names of Harvey, Cruikshank, Doyle, Leech, Tenniel, Anelay, Gilbert—have gone the "Penny Magazine road," and found it quite as sure a highway to distinction, and far more pleasant, than the old by-way of patronage, so weary to the gifted few. It is wonderful how long and how tenaciously, both in literature and art, men clung to that idol Patronage. They are gone—the Chesterfields who kept Johnson seven years waiting in outward rooms,—and the Mansfields who grudged Wilkie thirty guineas for 'The Village Politicians:'—
"Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim."
[30] Miss Martineau's 'History of the Peace,' vol. i. p. 580.
[31] 'Address of the Committee,' June 1, 1843.
CHAPTER V.
London Catalogue, 1816-1851—Annual Catalogues, 1828-1853—Classes of Books, 1816-1861—Periodicals, 1831, 1853—Aggregate amount of Book-trade—Collections and Libraries—International Copyright—Readers in the United States—Irish National School-books.
'The London Catalogue of Books published in Great Britain, 1816 to 1851,' furnishes, in its alphabetical list, with "sizes, prices, and publishers' names," that insight into the character and extent of the literature of a generation which we cannot derive from any other source. We have already given some of the calculations of past periods. Let us endeavour to trace what the commerce of books has been in our own time.