Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/67

 to love it. It is partly in consequence of this that works, not only of acknowledged but genuine excellence, such as those I have been careful to select, are, though so universally praised, so little read. The poor student attempts them, but, failing—from many causes, no doubt, but also sometimes from the fact of their not being there—to find those unrivaled beauties which he has been led to expect in every sentence, he stops short, where he would otherwise have gone on. He says to himself, "I have been deceived," or "I must be a born fool"; whereas he is wrong in both suppositions. I am convinced that the want of popularity of Walter Scott among the rising generation is partly due to this extravagant laudation; and I am much mistaken if another great author, more recently deceased, will not in a few years be added to the ranks of those who are more praised than read from the same cause.

The habit of mere adhesion to received opinion in any matter is most mischievous, for it strikes at the root of independence of thought; and in literature it tends to make the public taste mechanical. It is very seldom that what is called the verdict of posterity (absurdly enough, for are not we posterity?) is ever reversed; but it has chanced to happen in a certain case quite lately. The production of "The Iron Chest" upon the stage has once more brought into fashion "Caleb Williams." Now, that is a work, though by no means belonging to the same rank as those to which I have referred, which has a fine old crusted reputation. Time has hallowed it. The great world of readers (who have never read it) used to echo the remark of Bias and Company, that this and that modern work of fiction reminded them—though at an immense distance, of course—of Godwin's masterpiece. I remember Le Fanu's "Uncle Silas," for example (from some similarity, more fanciful perhaps than real, in the isolation of its hero), being thus compared with it. Now, "Caleb Williams" is founded on a very fine conception—one that could only have occurred, perhaps, to a man of genius; the first part of it is well worked out, but toward the middle it grows feeble, and it ends in tediousness and drivel; whereas "Uncle Silas" is good and strong from first to last. Le Fanu has never been so popular as, in my humble judgment, he deserves to be, but of course modern readers were better acquainted with him than with Godwin. Yet nine out of ten were always heard repeating this cuckoo cry about the latter's superiority, until "The Iron Chest" came out, and fashion induced them to read him for themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion.

I remember, in my own case, that, from that mere reverence for authority which I hope I share with my neighbors, I used to speak of "Headlong Hall" and "Crotchet Castle"—both great favorites of our forefathers—with much respect, until one wet day in the country I found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered;