e
easy to tell the nature of a volume from its cover. And for this the
publishers are greatly to be thanked. An amateur, publishing for
himself, may every now and then insist upon dressing up the product of
his brains incongruously; but, for the most part, the booksellers of
to-day have a very excellent sense of what is fitting. The result is
that those who care about books can differentiate them at a glance. They
know what is the approved style and line for biography and history, for
poetry and fiction, for sermons, for gift-books, and so _ad infinitum_.
The 'Life' of So-and-so, and the 'Annals' of Such-and-such, are
unmistakeable; they have respectability written on every corner and
angle of them. The dull brown or the dull green is sufficiently obvious
to everyone. And so with poetry. You know minor verse directly you see
it. It has a _cachet_ concerning which there can be no possible error.
Happily, a Tennyson, a Browning, or a Swinburne is equally recognisable.
A novel, of course, bears its character on its face. The three-volume
form is notorious. But it scarcely matters what shape fiction may take.
It can be identified by instinct, whether it be in yellow boards or in
some more quiet habit. Sermons cannot be misapprehended; there is no
fear of their being taken on a railway journey instead of the latest
book of memoirs. As for gift-books, whether for boy or girl, adult or
juvenile, they have their destination marked upon them in all the
colours of the rainbow. Some complain of this, and call it vulgar. No
doubt it often is so. But a gift-book is produced for a definite
purpose, and the public would be surprised, and probably annoyed, if it
were not as gorgeous in gold and colours as it was expected to be. Gold
and colours are what are wanted, and the publishers do well to supply
them.

One thing, perhaps, is too little considered--that a book is, in most
cases, intended to be read and to be preserved. Certain books are not
issued for that purpose, but are deliberately manufactured to be thrown
away when read. The shilling novel, one may presume, is not designed for
a permanent existence. If it is, why is it so frequently brought out in
a paper cover, which either comes off altogether, or else curls up at
the edges in the most irritating fashion? It must be confessed that a
paper cover is an infliction, demanding the eventual destruction of the
book or its prompt rebinding in more durable style. But it is not
suf