this I assert that the true literary spirit is declining,
and that the pure enthusiasm of other days is passing away.

I emphatically deny that the actual literary artists in any line are
inferior to the men of the past, and never cease to contemn the
impudent talk of those who shake their heads and allude to the giants
who are supposed to have lived in some unspecified era of our history.
Lord Salisbury is greater than Dean Swift as a political writer; the
author of "John Inglesant" is a finer stylist than any man of the last
two centuries; as a writer of prose no man known in the world's
history can be compared to Mr. Ruskin; with Messrs. Froude, Gardiner,
Lecky, Trevelyan, Bishop Stubbs, and Mr. Freeman we can hold our own
against the historian of any date; the late Lord Tennyson and Mr.
Arnold have written poetry that must live. Then in science we have a
set of men who present the most momentous theories, the most
profoundly thrilling facts in language which is lucid and attractive
as that of a pretty fairy-tale. If we turn to our popular journals, we
find learning, humour, consummate skill in style from writers who do
not even sign their names. Day by day the stream of wit, logic,
artistic power flows on, and for all these literary wares there must
be a steady sale; and yet I am constrained to declare that literature
is declining. This may sound like juggling with words in the fashion
approved by Dr. Johnson when he was in his whimsical humour; but I am
serious, and my meaning will shortly appear. We have more readers and
fewer students. The person known as "the general reader" is nowadays
fond of literary dram-drinking--he wants small pleasant doses of a
stimulant that will act swiftly on his nerves; and, if he can get
nothing better, he will contentedly batten on the tiny paragraphs of
detached gossip which form the main delight of many fairly intelligent
people. Books are cheap and easily procured, and the circulating
library renders it almost unnecessary for any one to buy books at all.
In myriads of houses in town or country the weekly or monthly box of
books comes as regularly as the supplies of provisions; the contents
are devoured, the dram-drinkers crave for further stimulant, and one
book chases another out of memory. Literature is as good as and better
than ever it was in the fabulous palmy days, but it is not so precious
now; and a great work, so far from being treated as a priceless
possession and a c