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IT is equally true of books as of their authors, that one generation passeth away and another cometh. Whoever has lived long enough to compare one race of men with that which has preceded it, will have observed a change, not only in the tastes and habitudes of common life, but in the fashion of their studies, and their course of general reading. Books influence manners; and manners, in return, influence the taste for books.

Books make a silent and gradual, but a sure change in our ideas and opinions; and as new authors are continually taking possession of the public mind, and old ones falling into disuse, new associations insensibly take place, and shed their influence unperceived over our taste, our

VOL. I.

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manners.

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Fenelon

manners, and our morals. If, for instance,
the parent of the last age would put
into the hands of his child, and the parent of
the present day would give him Berquin; each
with a view of impressing the same general
sentiments of piety and benevolence: yet their
offspring will be pupils of a different school,
and their moral ideas will have some shades of
difference. This new infusion of taste and
moral sentiment acts in its turn upon the relish
for books; and thus the fame of writers is
exposed to continual fluctuation. Nor does
this remark apply only to those ephemeral pub-
cations, which, either from the nature of the
subject or the mediocrity of its execution, live
their day, and are then buried in oblivion; but
to books that have been the favourites of the
public, and the very glass by which its noble
youth did dress themselves.' Books that were
in every one's hands, and that have contri-
buted to form our relish for literature itself;
these are laid aside, as philosophy opens new
veins of thought, or fashion and caprice di-
rect the taste of the public into a different
channel. It is true, indeed, that a work of
the first excellence cannot perish. It will
continue to be respected as a classic: but it will

no

no longer be the book which every one who reads is expected to be acquainted with, to which allusions are often made, and readily understood in conversation; it loses the precious privilege of occupying the minds of youth in short, it is withdrawn from the parlour-window, and laid upon the shelf in honourable repose. It ceases to be current coin, but is preserved like a medal in the cabinets of the curious.

This revolution the Spectators, with the other sets of papers by the same hands, appear to the Editor to have undergone. When those were young who now are old, no books were so popular, particularly with the female sex. They were the favourite volumes in a young lady's horary; and probably the very first that, after the Bible, she would have thought of purchasing. Sir Roger de Coverley and the other characters of the club were familiar in our mouths as household names;' and every little circumstance related of them remained indelibly, engraven on our memories. From the papers of Addison we imbibed our first relish for wit; from his criticisms we formed our first standard of taste; and from his delineations we drew our first ideas of manners.

It