ers and participators to
100. There is nothing noble or disinterested in this. The arrangement
has no pretension to either of these qualities; nor, when we come to the
great forces which influence the supply and demand of human wants,
whether in the higher or the humbler departments, will we find these
qualities in force, or indeed any other motive than common selfishness.
It is a sufficient vindication of the arrangement that it produced its
effect. If there were ten or twenty disappointed candidates, the
hundred were possessed of the treasures which none could have obtained
but for the restrictive arrangements. Scott used to say that the
Bannatyne Club was the only successful joint-stock company he ever
invested in--and the remark is the key-note of the motives which kept
alive the system that has done so much good to literature.

To understand the nature and services of these valuable institutions, it
is necessary to keep in view the limits within which alone they can be
legitimately worked. They will not serve for the propagation of standard
literature--of the books of established reputation, which are always
selling. These are merchandise, and must follow the law of trade like
other commodities, whether they exist in the form of copyright
monopolies, or are open to all speculators. No kind of co-operation will
bring the volumes into existence so cheaply as the outlay of trade
capital, which is expected to replace itself with a moderate profit
after a quick sale. The perfection of this process is seen in the
production and sale of that book which is ever the surest of a
market--the Bible; and when a printer requires the certain and
instantaneous return of his outlay, that is the shape in which he is
most secure of obtaining it.

On the other hand, the clubs will not avail for ushering into the world
the books of fresh ambitious authors. That paradise of the geniuses, in
which their progeny are to be launched full sail, where they are to
encounter no risks, and draw all the profits without discount or
percentage, as yet exists only in the imagination. It would not work
very satisfactorily to have a committee decreeing the issues, and the
remuneration to be paid to each aspirant--ten thousand copies of
Poppleton's Epic, and a cheque for a thousand pounds handed over out of
the common stock, to begin with--half the issue, and half the
remuneration for the Lyrics of Astyagus, as a less robust and manful
production, bu