"an odd one." This was as high a compliment as he ever paid a book;
those which he did not like he called sad books, and those which he
fancied he called odd ones.

The truth seems to be that through the diffusion of knowledge and the
multiplicity and cheapness of books people generally have reached the
point in intelligence where they feel warranted in asserting their
ability to judge for themselves. So the occupation of the critic, as
interpreted and practised of old, is gone.

Reverting to the practice of lamenting the degeneracy of humanity, I
should say that the fashion is by no means a new one. Search the
records of the ancients and you will find the same harping upon the one
string of present decay and former virtue. Herodotus, Sallust, Caesar,
Cicero, and Pliny take up and repeat the lugubrious tale in turn.

Upon earth there are three distinct classes of men: Those who
contemplate the past, those who contemplate the present, those who
contemplate the future. I am of those who believe that humanity
progresses, and it is my theory that the best works of the past have
survived and come down to us in these books which are our dearest
legacies, our proudest possessions, and our best-beloved companions.

XV

A BOOK THAT BRINGS SOLACE AND CHEER

One of my friends had a mania for Bunyan once upon a time, and,
although he has now abandoned that fad for the more fashionable passion
of Napoleonana, he still exhibits with evident pride the many editions
of the "Pilgrim's Progress" he gathered together years ago. I have
frequently besought him to give me one of his copies, which has a
curious frontispiece illustrating the dangers besetting the traveller
from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. This frontispiece,
which is prettily illuminated, occurs in Virtue's edition of the
"Pilgrim's Progress"; the book itself is not rare, but it is hardly
procurable in perfect condition, for the reason that the colored plate
is so pleasing to the eye that few have been able to resist the
temptation to make away with it.

For similar reasons it is seldom that we meet with a perfect edition of
Quarles' "Emblems"; indeed, an "Emblems" of early publication that does
not lack the title-page is a great rarity. In the "good old days," when
juvenile books were few, the works of Bunyan and of Quarles were vastly
popular with the little folk, and little fingers wrought sad havoc with
the title-pages and the pictures