Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/270

234 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND C AS SELL : "LITERATURE FOR THE PEOPLE." " J"E have already seen, in our short sketches of the Bells, the Cookes, the Donaldsons, and the Constables, some endeavour neither faint nor alto- gether unsuccessful, yet not more than a trial venture, for education was still a monopoly of rank and riches to render books the property and the birthright of the people. In our present chapter, however, we come to a new phase in the history of bookselling. The schoolmaster, as Brougham said, was abroad ; the repressive taxes on knowledge either were, or were about to be, removed ; learning, or a smattering of learning, was within the reach of most. The battle of future progress was to be fought out with the pen, just as the triumphs of early civilization had been achieved with the lance and with the sword. The public writer henceforth was to occupy the preacher's pulpit, and his congregation, far above the limits of any St. Peter's or St. Paul's, was to be told only by millions. Books were to be no longer the curious luxuries of the rich man's library, or the hoarded and