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    Untitled Article

    We must seek this refuge and rest , next to the steadfastness of religious faith , in the literature of our country . To us there is nothing- more refreshing and delightful than to call to mind the immense mass of enjoyment derived from this source , in this country . We do not mean amongst those who live and move conspicuousl y in the light and business of literature , —amongst the professedly literary themselves , —but in a thousand refined and happy families , in town and country , to whom it is a familiar aliment , a part of their daily recreation ; families , perhaps , engaged in business , or enabled , by a sufficiency of pecuniary means and a wise contentedness , to make their existence like a clear

    stream , that goes wandering on through pleasant scenes * but scenes always retired , full of a profound quiet , equally distant from the stern necessities and the seductive dissipations of life . To these , —and they make an important portion of the population of England , —the enjoyment of books is , perhaps , even more than they are themselves aware , one of their most regular and requisite

    enjoyments . When the business of the day is over , how many men does the evening hour find comfortably seated in their easy chairs , reading to themselves , or to some fair friend , or happy group ! In how many pleasant homes , while the ladies are seated at their morning

    employments , or amusements , or whatever they may please to call them , does some glad creature read aloud , in a voice full of music , and marked by the sweetest emotions of a young pure heart , a lay © f our mighty bards , or a story of one of our most cunning interweavers of the truth of nature with the splendour of fiction , or follow the wonderful recitals of our travellers , naturalists , and

    philosophical spirits , into every region of earth or mind ! Publishers may tell us , ' poetry don ' t sell ; critics may cry ' poetry is a drug , ' thereby making it so with the frivolous and unreflecting , who are the multitude , —but we will venture to say , that at no period were there ever more books read by that part of our population , most qualified to draw delight and good from reading ; and when we enter mechanics' libraries , and see them filled with

    simple , quiet , earnest men , and find such men now sitti ng on stiles in the country , deeply sunk into the very marrow and spirit of a well-handled volume , where we vised to meet theia ii \ riotous and reckless mischief , we are proud and happy to look forward to that wide and formerly waste field , over which literature is extending its triumphs , and to see the beneficent consequences that will follow to the whole community .

    We are told again , that the quest after an honourable name in literature is now a hopeless one ; that the way is beset with thousands of pretenders , who push aside , or tread down , modest merit ; that education is now so far extended , and so many minds made capable of putting themselves on paper , that what once would have gained au immortality , will now scarcel y constitute a

    Untitled Article

    The Writing * and Genius of Caroline Bowie ** 3 OT

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 337, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/25/