tive genius; and it is hard to say what they cost a public writer in the end. He had better leave proprietorships to better tradesmen. If he could insure success, it would be a different matter, but he is the last person in the world that is likely to escape failure. The records of the bankruptcy courts declare this only too sadly. It is well enough for authors to burst out into a chorus of lamentation, in the strain of sic vos non vobis; but the sic vobis non vobis never hurts so much as when a literary man becomes publisher and proprietor. In these days of excessive literary competition, the proprietor is generally the party entitled to complain that he labors for others' profit. Thousands of pounds are expended annually upon publications which bring the proprietor no profit, if they do not entail upon him heavy loss. Let literary men think of this before they endeavor to "better themselves" by becoming proprietors. They would be wise to keep clear altogether of financial speculations, and possess themselves in tranquillity of mind.

such an income, are in reality rich, and | ay make a very respectable appearance in y part of the world. When they are in onstant difficulty-when they cannot conive to live tidily in apartments-cannot suport the respectability of life on the first oor, it is impossible not to wonder how it is at so much money produces such poor relts. There are scores of men in London of hom every one says that they "ought not to e in trouble"-and yet they constantly are trouble. The shadow of the bailiff is eterally darkening their doors. Many people ould contrive to live comfortably and repectably on half their income and never ave a bill unpaid. A bank clerk with £250 year lives more decently than a public riter on £600, and leaves some money beind him at his decease, whilst the chances re fifty to one that the author dies insolvent. It is the misfortune of literary men that hey are desperately bad arithmeticians. hey are not clever at £: s: d. We believe hem to be as honest as their neighbors, but hey are certainly more careless. The man- But it was of the want of method in the er in which their income is expended is management of household affairs that we ften a marvel to themselves. The dislike to principally designed to speak. Literary men, andle accounts is so strong in many of our as we have said, manage these things badly: prethren as almost to resemble a disease. they often determine to keep their accounts They cannot keep their household accounts with the most praiseworthy regularity, and or three weeks together; and yet many of to economize with the utmost self-denial; hem rush into business, with the vague idea but they seldom contrive to keep these lauf making their fortunes. Literary men are dable resolutions. Their hell of poverty and Imost always unfortunate when they attempt | tribulation is paved with the most frugal ino do business on their own accounts. They tentions. They would often do better if they annot balance their pocket-books; how then were more fortunate in their wives; but litan they balance the books of a "concern?" erary men sometimes make very strange allis soon as a literary man attempts to con- ances, and have little good housewifery help ert himself into a man of business, he pre- at home to balance their own irregularities, ares for himself a prospective place in the There are some very charming exceptions, azette. If he ceases altogether to be a lit- we know, to this rule; and even the gentle, rary man, it is just possible that he may be thrifty, kind wife and good mother, Mrs. ome a tolerable man of business; but the Shandon, could not keep her husband out of ame pen will rarely write articles and square the Fleet Prison. But authors are men of im ccounts. There appears to the uninitiat-pulse-of ardent, hasty temperament; and something very charming in proprietorip. To write in one's own paper-to edit ne's own magazine-how much pleasanter net the profits of one's own works than to eceive pay from others! Some, perhaps, ave found it so; but a large majority of hose who have been dazzled by visions of roprietorship have been rudely awakened to e delusion by discovering that the cares of roprietorship diminish if they do not wholdestroy their powers of contributorship,

the enthusiasm of the moment often deter mines the future tenor of their domestic lives We cannot now trace the many causes which combine to render the married state of lite rary men less productive of the common fruit of order and regularity than in other socia cases; but the experience of such of ou readers as are acquainted with the class o which we are now writing, will confirm th opinion we express, when we say, that the alliances of literary men are often calculated

red to take their proper social posihe world. If they are not, we may that the cause resides not in the prorhich they follow, but in something rsonal to themselves. A man of genmanners and moral habits will not less esteemed by society for being cholar and a man of talent. People look askance at him or his wife behey have got his books on their or be less glad to see his daughters houses because they read his articles eviews. The case we believe to be the reverse. There are many men ve their position in society entirely connection with literature-whose acnce is sought-who are feasted and 1 by the great-solely because they rary men. It is not the profession shonors the man; it is the man that dishonors the profession. lthough there are many things besides rovidence and irregularity of literary ich tend to bring the profession into te, they are rather evil practices grafton it than vices necessarily inherent in stitution. It is not to be denied that re is debased by the literary practices ny of its professors, that very disble things are done in its name, at its dignity would be more amply. ledged by the world if its own prowere more jealous of it. A few It is possible, moreover, that we may e things have been glanced at by Mr. sometimes leap too hastily to the conclusion ray; and, however humiliating the con- that a public writer is belying his own opinwe fear it must be confessed that the ions because he writes in a journal whose which he has illustrated in his story general politics are opposed to his own. In purely the exaggerations of romance. these days there is such a confusion of parfirst place, it is alleged that men write ties-the lines of demarkation are so indishey do not think-that the press is es- tinct, that except upon one or two leading y venal, because accident rather than questions, it is hard for a man to determine ion often determines, if not precisely to what particular political section he bee shall write, the vehicle which shall longs, and almost impossible for him to take his writings along the public road. up a public journal, in which he will not find will be seen relates almost entirely to much to excite his approbation, and much to for the periodical press; and a ques- call for positive dissent. It does not follow y arise as to whether it be less dishon- that because a man is a free-trader by confor a writer than for a speaker to ad-viction, he approves of everything said by a cause which he believes to be a bad Mr. Cobden on the subject of our naval and hether a man may not as honorably military establishments-or that because he e his own convictions in a newspaper approves, as a whole, of the domestic adcourt at law. Soldiers fight on the ministration of the present Government, he side, knowing it to be the wrong side is eager to support the foreign policy of Lord fighting is a very honorable profession. Palmerston. There is no such thing now-a

ions but those of the journal which prints them, and says the best that can be said on the side that employs him, because he is hired to do so. He may further argue, that politics being matters of opinion, he cannot be so certainly wrong as those who distort matters of fact, and contend not against speculative but against demonstrable truth-belying not that which they merely conjecture, but that which they positively know. We do not much like this comparative style of arguing a grave question, though we may perceive that if the self-negation of which we speak be discreditable to one profession it must be discreditable to another. Literature it may be said is higher than the law, and it is an evil thing to profane it by the trickeries which are the very life of legal practice. If literature itself be higher than law, why do not the professors of the latter, as a class, rank below the professors of the former? We do not deny that when men gainsay their opinions-when they write or speak for hire what they do not believe to be true, they discredit the profession to which they belong, and they discredit themselves. The practice of one profession is not to be defended by any reference to the practice of another. It is only when we come to consider the comparative respectability of different professions that these things should be taken into account.

seen that undue prominence is given to notices of books published by some particular firm. This may either arise from some direct proprietary connection between the publisher and the journal, (there is less, we believe, of this than there formerly was,) or some less palpable relation existing between the publisher of the book and the editor of the journal. The works of other and less influential publishers may not perhaps be treated to

are published could not be noticed at all.

now shows that there is no such thing as party. And it would be impossible to d the morning papers one after another thout a profound conviction that if public iters only delivered their opinions in jourIs of whose views they entirely approve, ere would be no public writing at all. If a man being a free-trader by conviction, ites protectionist articles for pay, he does hat is discreditable to himself and discredible to his profession. But he may honora-smashing" articles, but they are submitted y and conscientiously write in a protection- to the more painful and more destructive disjournal. Some of our conservative journals cipline of neglect, and are either damned with ve recently taken the most liberal views of faint praise or passed over with total silence. reign politics, and recognised the rights of That books should be noticed very hastily e people less grudgingly than others which and very superficially is, in many cases, a -e called "liberal.' There are scores of matter of necessity. If they were not so cial questions treated indifferently by jour-treated, the greater number of books that ls of all shades of opinion. The newsapers of the present day address themselves the consideration of a much wider range topics than those of the last generation. hey employ more writers; and there is innitely more scope for independent writing. I will seldom happen in these days that a olitical writer will not be able, like that eminent publicist" Mr. Arthur Pendennis, without wounding his paper, conscienously to speak his own mind." It will eldom happen that he will be called upon o sacrifice a profitable connection "for concience' sake." He must be very unfortunate, deed, if he cannot find employment for his en, without violating his principles, in the ournal with which circumstances have conected him. There are very few modern stances of political writers prostituting hemselves for hire. A few there may be ho have, conveniently for themselves, no pinions at all, and are ready to take the hilling from whatever quarter it may be ofered. But we incline to the opinion that ur political writers, as a body, are honest, s they undeniably are able; and that they re no more venal, because they are paid, han the judge who is paid for administering ustice, or the priest who is paid for preachng the gospel and visiting the sick.

There is more real honesty of opinion, we believe, in the political than in the critical lepartments of the periodical press. The nfluence of Paternoster Row is more or less ominant in the greater number of newspaper offices. There are few critical journals which could exist without the publishers' advertisements. Publishers must be propiiated, or the journals will starve: hence the general laudatory tone of the periodical criti

We gladly avow our belief-a belief based on no very limited experience-that the literary profession contains many honorable members, who would on no account express any other opinion of a book than that which they conscientiously entertain. They may dwell more emphatically upon the merits than the defects of a work submitted to them for criticism; but in this they may only carry out their ideas of the true vocation of the critic. Still the fact remains, that very much of our periodical criticism is written very heedlessly, very ignorantly, with no sense at all of the responsibilities of the judicial functions assumed, and an evident reference to anything in the world, rather than the merits of the book. Of still less worth is the great mass of our musical and theatrical criticism. We have little space to dwell upon this department of our subject; but it cannot be passed over without a few words of comment. There are many men in London in receipt of good salaries as musical and theatrical critics, and in this, as in every other class, there are honest and competent professors. But there is no department of literature so lightly undertaken-none upon which so much discredit is thrown by the lax morality which distinguishes it. A foregone determination to write up one theatre and to write down another, often accompanies a man when he starts on his musical and dramatic campaign at the commencement of the season. Since the "Rival Operas" have been running their ruinous careers in London, a violent partisanship has been discernible in the criticisms of the newspaper press. How the services of this or that paper have been engaged to do the brigand work is no secret with the ini

it assuredly does not indicate a very refined state of the moral sense. We allude to the "gentish" character of much of our recent light literature. If there were nothing else to be said in favor of Mr. Thackeray's writings, it would be impossible not to acknowledge that, at all events, he writes like a

gentleman. There are many "popular

s a liberal grant of stalls and boxes paper editors and critics. Disguise oceedings as we may, it will still aprough the disguise, that, directly or ly, these criticisms are bought. Again, nection which in many cases exists the theatrical critics and the theaa fertile source of the perversion and sion of critical truth. Many of the writers" of whom the same cannot be saidic critics of the London press are whose minds appear to be eternally running Ives dramatic authors. One has just on ballet-girls and bailiffs-whose talk is of t out a piece at one house-another casinos and green-rooms, and who seldom iece coming out, or in the manager's or never touch upon good society without at another. A third has had a play ridiculing it. These writers are very great 1 at one of the theatres, or has had a upon the history of bill transactions, and have with a manager, or is connected with a world of facetiousness wherewith to illusctor or actress who has. In the eyes trate the sufferings of an accommodating acinitiated, there are few musical and cepter left in the lurch by a slippery friend. cal criticisms which have not their There is no kind of "doing" and "bilking" histories written upon the face of with which they do not betray a familiar acTo the uninitiated this one thing is quaintance. The agonies of gentlemen purapparent--that the criticism is not sued by inexorable creditors, and the shifts uished by the highest possible tone. and expedients of those who have less honorality of the acted piece is seldom or esty than wit-the escapades of some, and touched upon, and no efforts are made the dilemmas of other embarrassed individare for the public a more wholesome uals are portrayed with an unmistakable ss offensive kind of dramatic perform- gusto, and with a minuteness of detail which han those which, adapted from the looks very like truth. These sketches of , form the bulk of our "new pieces" society, which are not without cleverness of a es of which the interest generally cen- kind, betray so close an acquaintance with some amorous intrigue, the gulled the peculiarities of gentlemen who live" on or deluded husband being uniformly re- the loose," that, justly or unjustly, people ted as an object of ridicule and contempt. leap to the conclusion, that the sketchers re has been something, too, in the gene- themselves indulge in a loose way of lifee of very much of our recent light lite- that they are more at home in taverns and which certainly has done little to ele-eating-houses than at the dinner-tables of rene popular opinion of the literary pro- spectable families; that respectable families . We think that some abatement of indeed, who pay their bills, keep early hours, gue is now perceptible,. and we are and go to church, are objects of ridicule and ly thankful for the same. We do not aversion to them; that they greatly prefer of the loathsome literature of Hollywell Greenwich to Clapham, and ballet-girls to -of the dreadful corruption which is young ladies; and think a dance at a casino holesale to the poor, and which taints a more rational termination of the day than inds more surely than rotten meat and a gathering for family prayer. Justly or unfish taints their bodies. We pray justly, they leap to the conclusion, that men hat the efforts now being made by who turn so grave a matter as debt into jest, nd energetic men to counteract the and find an endless source of facetiousness in influence of these conduits of pollu- dishonored bills, sit rather loosely to their y the frequent issue of cheap and at- own liabilities, and despise the moral obligae publications, appealing to the sym- tions which bind the rest of mankind. s of the people, may be crowned with Heaven knows, that with the best possible s. What we speak of here is a less intentions, it is often hard for a man to meet ious kind of literature; but one which his liabilities; that debts often accumulate in ot less certainly bring the literary pro- spite of strenuous efforts to keep them down; into disrepute. If it be less offenIf it be less offen- that literary men, like others, have losses and disappointments are over-sanguine in their

finda ingross into