'Surely not, since I was ignorant, till a few minutes ago, that such individuals were in existence.'
'Mrs Archibald! I of course cannot, as a gentleman, refuse to credit those assertions; but I take leave to tell you that I by no means admire the memory of the wives of the Scottish clergy! Come, my dear. Our friend will be surprised to hear of the hospitable reception obtained for us by his letter of introduction; although perhaps Mrs Archibald'—and here Mr Smith wheeled round as he reached the door, and fixed his eye upon the culprit—'although perhaps Mrs Archibald is not disposed to admit having received Mr ——'s letter at all!'
'Oh, that is my brother-in-law!' cried Mrs Archibald: 'do you come from him? How is my dear sister? Pray, sit down!' A few words sufficed to clear the whole imbroglio; and the true Mr Archibald making his appearance immediately after, threw still more light upon the subject by explaining that a namesake of his, a clergyman, lived in the street at the opposite angle of the Place. They learnt afterwards from this gentleman, that on seeing the letter of introduction, he perceived at once it was not intended for him, and went to call on Mr Smith to explain the mistake. The Fates, however, were determined that the contre-temps should run its course, for Mrs Archibald had taken down the wrong number!
In another room the party found a cheerful fire, and the much-desiderated tea; and before separating that night, Mr Archibald placed collateral evidence of a highly-satisfactory nature upon the table that Mr Smith's original conjecture was correct, and that he was indeed no minister—but a Wine-merchant.
[JOTTINGS ON BOOKS AND LITERATURE.]
'The history of books,' it has often been said, 'is as curious and instructive as that of men: it is therein that we have to seek for the moral life of a people.' This remark has very much the character of a truism, and more especially at the present period. The ever-circling course of time brings phenomena in literature as well as astronomy: from the no-book era the world passed into the too-many-book era; from that of reading nothing but what pleased a few, to that in which everybody read what they pleased; from that of being punished for reading, to that in which the punishment was for not reading. Nodier says, 'Printed books have existed but little more than four hundred years, and yet, in certain countries, they have already accumulated to such a degree as to peril the old equilibrium of the globe. Civilisation has reached the most unexpected of its periods—the Age of Paper.'
We have had the Golden Age, and the Age of Brass, and of Iron; but the Age of Paper!—was such a wonder ever dreamt of by philosophy? What does it bode? Is it synonymous with flimsy age? Do the centuries degenerate? According to M. Victor Hugo they do not. In his reception-speech made to the Académie in 1840, he declared, 'Nothing has degenerated; France is always the torch of nations. The epoch is great—great by its science, its eloquence, its industry, great by its poetry and its art. At the present hour, there is but one enlightened and living literature in the whole universe—and it is the literature of France.' It is not easy to account for differences of opinion, but only three short years earlier—namely, in 1837—Monsieur Guizot affirmed, in addressing another learned academy, 'The true and disinterested worship of science has worn itself out among us; we seek for noise or for profit, for a prompt satisfaction of self-love, or for a material advantage.'
Contrast this with the period when pen, ink, and fingers did the work now done by type and power-presses—the no-book era. Not the least noteworthy among patient transcribers were the Benedictines. 'Their rule assigned an eminent rank among monastic virtues to the guardianship and multiplication of valuable manuscripts. It taught the copyist of a holy book to think of himself as at once a pupil and a teacher—as a missionary while seated at his desk—using each finger as a tongue—inflicting on the Spirit of Evil a deadly wound at each successive line—and as baffling, with the pen, the dread enemy who smiles at the impotent hostility of every other weapon grasped by the hand of mortal man. In each Benedictine monastery a chamber was set apart for the discharge of this sacred office. In this Scriptorium some of the monks plied their pens assiduously, and in profound silence, to produce faultless transcripts of the best originals. To others was committed the care of revising the text of such works as were then held in the highest esteem. Charlemagne himself assigned to the Benedictine Alcuin the high office of preparing, from the various sources within his reach, a perfect Codex of the Holy Scriptures. For what remains to us of Pliny, Sallust, and Macrobius, and for the orations against Verres, we are indebted to their literary zeal.'
We read of Claude Estiennot, who was procurator of the Benedictines at Rome during the papacy of Innocent XI., that 'within eleven years he had collected and transcribed forty-five bulky folios, at the various libraries of his society in the several dioceses of France, adding to them, says Dom le Cerf, "réflexions très sensées et judicieuses"—"very sensible and judicious reflections."' Forty-five volumes in eleven years! Perhaps this was a commendable result in the eighth century, but the old-fashioned hand-press in the village of Dumdrudge would beat it now-a-days, barring probably the 'judicious reflections.' We have before us a statement of the books and pamphlets printed in France in fifteen years—1830-1845—including reprints, but omitting periodicals, the number was 5862 annually, or a total of 87,930. Estimating each work as two volumes and a-half, they amount to 220,000; and reckoning 1200 copies of each work (a moderate calculation), the grand total is 264,000,000 of volumes.