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Untitled Article
sophjc in the remark . Many persons who are accustomed to take in the M& g # * j n % s ofttife ^ dntii , ietfftted by their JihMy fextenoV , vHll not have anything to say to the Repository , because they imagine , that if it "were the child of any important person , it would of a surety be better
dressed . It is not invited out , because it is not fit eompany for its neighbours . I db not mean td assert that its intrinsic value is thereby lessened , but that its power of utility is thereby much circumscribed . There are two parties most essential to books of all kinds—persons to write them , and persons to redd them . Without the latter , the time of
the former would be entirely thrown away . Therefore , it is highly essential , that all reasonable pains should be taken to tempt the readers . Had the poems of Byron been published in the facsimile of his handwriting , I question whether he would have found many readers ; and everi thus a Had print and coarse paper are frequently fatal to the lucubrations of genius . It is true , that real genius will no more be deterred by the difficulties of reading , than by the difficulties of writing ; but * unfortunately , for one reader of genius—whom nothing could prevent from reading- —there are fifty without genius , who require to be coaxed
to read . This gear should be attended to . There is another point . One shilling and sixpence is a most unfortunate price as regards the mechanism of distribution amongst the public . Magazines are purchased to a great extent by circulating libraries , and let out to persons at threepence and fourpence each for reading . For one person who purchases there are a score who hire . Those who hire are willing : to pay tHre * epence for the use of a recent half-crowri book , but hot so for that
of eighteenpence ; and those who kite at threepence only to read once , will not buy at eighteen pence btily to read once * It is too dear for the purposes of the reader , and not dear enough for the purposes of the librarian . It seems to me , then , that it would be desirable to elevate the Repository to the dignity of the Magazines , arid to combine beauty with with
litilfty , —^ refinement sense , —to malce ; it d popular work , advocating the true interests bf the people ; at the sdme time that it seeks in ail ways to humanize them , and elevate their perceptions of reflneirietit , if possible , to the staiidiirtl bf elder Greece , in ; all that relates td physical as well as mental excellence ;—to create , in short , a more widely-extended public than that word has ever yet signified in En £ - laiid , — -to awaken the sense of beauty , which lies dormaiit in the noble
Saxon race , —to give to literary men , atid to artists , both painters and ^ ctfljrtors , a career for glory such as they have never yet contemplated , eVen in their most high aiid palmy state .- —to set forth in & thaiiher , ifiot ib fee hiisuiiderstobd , the incontrovertible fact , thai a free rind educated nation presents the only fait field for that patronage , which nieri of talent have been too much accustomed fruitlessly to seek , in jplayftig trie part of sycophants to the great ones of the earth . I remain , Sir , very truly yours ,
Jtirtiijs ftisDivrvus . November $ , 1 & 32 . The notion that the Repository is a sedtariah publication , has , ifcs apprehend , got possession of the minds of many who will not , $ 6 ettaify M btiir correspondent , disabuse themselves of it , or be
Untitled Article
794 Junius Redivivus on the
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 794, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/2/
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