Captain. And what will become of us then, your poor family? We shall fall into contempt and oblivion.
Author. Like many a poor fellow, already overwhelmed with the number of his family, I cannot help going on to increase it—“'Tis my vocation, Hal.”—Such of you as deserve oblivion—perhaps the whole of you—may be consigned to it. At any rate, you have been read in your day, which is more than can be said of some of your contemporaries, of less fortune and more merit. They cannot say but that you had the crown. It is always something to have engaged the public attention for seven years. Had I only written Waverley, I should have long since been, according to the established phrase, “the ingenious author of a novel much admired at the time.” I believe, on my soul, that the reputation of Waverley is sustained very much by the praises of those, who may be inclined to prefer that tale to its successors.
Captain. You are willing, then, to barter future reputation for present popularity?
Author. Meliora spero. Horace himself expected not to survive in all his works—I may hope to live in some of mine;—non omnis moriar. It is some consolation to reflect, that the best authors in all countries have been the most voluminous; and it has often happened, that those who have been best received in their own time, have also continued to be acceptable to posterity. I do not think so ill of the present generation, as to suppose that its present favour necessarily infers future condemnation.
Captain. Were all to act on such principles, the public would be inundated.
Author Once more, my dear son, beware of cant. You speak as if the public were obliged to read books merely because they are printed—your friends the booksellers would thank you to make the proposition good. The most serious grievance attending such inundations as you talk of, is, that they make rags dear. The multiplicity of publications does the present age no harm, and may greatly advantage that which is to succeed us.
Captain. I do not see how that is to happen.
Author. The complaints in the time of Elizabeth and James, of the alarming fertility of the press, were as loud as they are at present—yet look at the shore over which the inundation of that age flowed, and it resembles now the Rich Strand of the Faery Queen—
——“Besrrew'd all with rich array,
Of pearl and precious stones of great assay;
And all the gravel mix'd with golden ore.”
Believe me, that even in the most neglected works of the present age, the next may discover treasures.