it had impressed its own image on the surface of human
literature, and had been reflected on its course as the stars on a
steam. But, alas! on investigation, it was found as vain to expect
that the gleam of starlight would still remain mirrored in the water
when the clouds had veiled the stars themselves, as that the bright
characters of the Bible would remain reflected in the books of man
when had been erased from the Book of God. On inspection it was
found that every text, every phrase which had been quoted, not only
in the books of devotion and theology, but in those of poetry and
fiction, had been remorselessly expunged. Never before had I had any
adequate idea of the extent to which the Bible had moulded the
intellectual and moral life of the last eighteen centuries, nor how
intimately it had interfused itself with habits of thought and modes
of expression; nor how naturally and extensively its comprehensive
imagery and language had been introduced into human writings, and most
of all where there had been most of genius. A vast portion of
literature became instantly worthless, and was transformed into so
much waste-paper. It was almost impossible to look into any book
of any merit, and read ten pages together, without coming to some
provoking erasures and mutilations, some "hiatus valde deflendi,"
which made whole passages perfectly unintelligible. Many of the
sweetest passages of Shakspeare were converted into unmeaning nonsense,
from the absence of those words which his own all but divine genius
had appropriated from a still diviner source. As to Milton, he was
nearly ruined, as might naturally be supposed. Walter Scott's novels
were filled with perpetual lacunae. I hoped it might be otherwise
with the philosophers, and so it was; but even here it was curious
to see what strange ravages the visitation had wrought. Some of the
most beautiful and comprehensive of Bacon's Aphorisms were reduced
to enigmatical nonsense.

Those who held large stocks of books knew not what to do. Ruin stared
them in the face; their value fell seventy or eighty per cent. All
branches of theology, in particular, were a drug. One fellow said,
that he should not so much have minded if the miracle had sponged out
what was human as well as what was divine, for in that case he would
at least have had so many thousand volumes of fair blank paper, which
was as much as many of them were worth before. A wag answered, that
it was not usual, in de