bantling which they seemed to embrace with so much
affection, was registered on the back--"_Records of a School_." I did
not find that a single ray of intelligence had been extracted from
either of the two after being subjected to the press. As soon as the
volumes had passed through the operation of yielding up all the little
sense they contained, they plunged into the intense fog, and
disappeared for ever.

We next approached the verge of a gulf, which appeared to be
bottomless; and there was dreadful noise, like the war of the
elements, and forked flames shooting up from the abyss, which reminded
me of the crater of Vesuvius. "You have now reached the ancient limits
of hell," said the demon, "and you behold beneath your feet the
original chaos on which my domains are founded. But within a few years
we have been obliged to build a yet deeper division beyond the gulf,
to contain a class of books that were unknown in former times." "Pray,
what class can be found," I asked, "worse than those which I have
already seen, and for which it appears hell was not bad enough?" "They
are American re-prints of English publications," replied he, "and they
are generally works of such a despicable character, that they would
have found their way here without being republished; but even where
the original work was good, it is so degenerated by the form under
which it re-appears in America, that its merit is entirely lost, and
it is only fit for the seventh and lowest division of hell."

I now perceived a bridge spanning over the gulf, with an arch that
seemed as lofty as the firmament. We hastily passed over, and found
that the farthest extremity of the bridge was closed by a gate, over
which was written three words. "They are the names of the three furies
who reign over this division," said my guide. I of course did not
contradict him; but the words looked very much like some I had seen
before; and the more I examined them, the more difficult was it to
convince myself that the inscription was not the same thing as the
sign over a certain publishing house in Philadelphia.

"These," said the Devil, "are called the three furies of the hell of
books; not from the mischief they do there to the works about them,
but for the unspeakable wrong they did to the same works upon the
earth, by re-printing them in their hideous brown paper editions." As
soon as they beheld me, they rushed towards me with such piteous
accents and heart-moving entr