And thus a new set of judges, that might
usefully have modified the narrow views of the old ones, fall by mere
_inertia_ into the humble character of echoes and sounding-boards to swell
the uproar of the original mob.
In this way is thrown away the opportunity, not only of applying
corrections to false national tastes, but oftentimes even to the unfair
accidents of _luck_ that befall books. For it is well known to all
who watch literature with vigilance, that books and authors have their
fortunes, which travel upon a far different scale of proportions from
those that measure their merits. Not even the caprice or the folly of the
reading public is required to account for this. Very often, indeed, the
whole difference between an extensive circulation for one book, and none
at all for another of about equal merit, belongs to no particular
blindness in men, but to the simple fact, that the one _has_, whilst
the other has _not_, been brought effectually under the eyes of the
public. By far the greater part of books are lost, not because they are
rejected, but because they are never introduced. In any proper sense of
the word, very few books are published. Technically they are published;
which means, that for six or ten times they are _advertised_, but they are
not made known to _attentive_ ears, or to ears _prepared_ for attention.
And amongst the causes which account for this difference in the fortune of
books, although there are many, we may reckon, as foremost, _personal_
accidents of position in the authors.
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