even these
compendiums thought tedious. The interval between decade and
decade now will be as much as that between century and century then.
History will have to employ a sort of Bramah press in her compositions,
and its application will compress into mere films the loose and pulpy
textures submitted to it by each age. Let human vanity think what it
will, many events and many names which seem imperishable will speedily
die out of remembrance; many lights in the firmament, destined
(as we deem) to shine 'like the stars for ever and ever,' will hereafter
be missing from the catalogue of the historic astronomer."

"But, at all events," said the other, "though there are thousands of
facts which will be virtually forgotten, it will be at all times easy
to ascertain (if a sufficiently strong motive exist) the real character
of past, events by a reference to the documents preserved by the press.
The press,--the press it is which will preserve us from the doubts of
the past."

"I doubt that. Has there been any lack of historic controversy respecting
a thousand facts which have transpired since the press was in full
activity? You forget, that, in the first place, neither the press, nor
any thing else, can preserve any original documents. Time will not be
inactive in the future more than in the past; it will have no more
respect for printed books than for manuscripts. An immense mass of print
is every year silently perishing by mere decay. The original documents
to which you refer will, eighteen hundred years hence, have almost all
perished; few will be preserved except in copies, and how many disputes
that alone will cause, it is hard to say; but we may form some guess
from the experience of the past. Of thousands of these documents, again,
no importance having been attached to them, and no one having imagined
that any importance would ever be attached to them, no copies will
have been taken, and there will be here again the usual field for
conjectures. This is a common trick of time;--silently destroying what
a present age thinks may as well be left to his maw. It is not even
discovered that valuable documents are lost, till something turns
up to make mankind wish they may be found. But neither is this the
sole nor the chief source of future historic doubts. Do not flatter
yourself too much on the wonders which the press can work, amongst
which one unquestionably is, that it will bury at least as much
as it will preserve. Sev