Page:History of Delaware County (1856).djvu/414

 890 HISTORY OP into England, and^Wales, and finally returned homcbeibre the end of the second year. The first publication of Mr. Hcadley, was a translation from the German, which appeared anonymously in 1844. The suc- ceeding year, 1845, he published letters from Italy, Holland, <^Alps and the Ehine." In 1846, Napoleon and his Mar- shals,'^ and The Sacred Mountains.'' These books at once attained a wide circulation, and acquired a popularity for their author seldom equalled. A distinguished reviewer thus com- ments : The advent of a popular book, is about as evident, from certain attending signs, as the appearance of a comet among the steady and familiar bodies of the solar system. On the occurrence of the heavenly phenomenon, astronomers are busy in the investigation of its appearance and laws ; the learned professor wheels out his long telescope, and gazes the livelong night at the misty thing he has espied in one of the constella- tions. His acurate pupil turns to his books, to determine the element of its orbit, and whether it is Enckle's or Halley's ; men stand in crowds watching its flight from star to star — journals of science, and heralds of news, spread authentic infor- mation of its progress, rate of velocity, and time of disap- pearance ; and he who had not seen the celestial wonder, would know that it had actually appeared. It was somewhat so with the terrestial phenomenon. As soon as it is fairly ' out' in the shape of letters from abroad, a romance, tragedy, a volume of poetry, or biography of warriors, literary circles are busy in the discussion of its merits, according to the established rules of criticism. Reviews, journals, magazines, quarterlies, and penny papers, are filled with extracts and comments. Circu- lating libraries of ^ choice reading,' circulate with new velocity — there is a buzz in the saloons of Washington or Saratoga at the issue of ^ Napoleon and his Marshals.' The bookseller, reduced to his ' last copy,' '■ assures his eager customers ^ that a