it is further supposed that readers only get a superficial and desultory knowledge of the things they study, and that, although their knowledge covers many fields, they 10 become nothing better than smatterers in any.

We think these conclusions are hardly sustained by the large array of facts relating to them. We doubt whether the market for good books was ever any better than it is now. We have no statistics on the subject, 15 but our impression is that, through the universal diffusion of periodical literature, and the knowledge of books conveyed and advertised by it, the book-trade has been rather helped than harmed. It has multiplied readers, and excited curiosity and interest touching all literature. 20 There are hundreds of good books which would never reach the world but for the introduction and commendation of the periodical; and books are purchased now more intelligently than they ever were before. The librarians will tell us, too, that they find no falling off in 25 their labors; and we doubt whether our scholars would be willing to confess that they are less studious than formerly. Science was never more active in its investigations than now; discovery was never pushed more efficiently and enthusiastically; and thought and specu- 30 lation were never more busy concerning all the great subjects that affect the race.

No, the facts do not sustain the conclusions of those who decry the periodical; and when we consider how legitimately and necessarily it has grown out of the 35 changes which progress has introduced, we shall conclude that they cannot do so. The daily newspaper, in its present splendid estate, is a child of the telegraph and the rail-car. As soon as it became possible for a man to sit at his breakfast-table and read of all the im- 40 portant events which took place in the whole world the day before, a want was born which only the daily paper

could supply. If a man absorbed in business and practical affairs has time only to read the intelligence thus furnished, and the comments upon it and the discus- 45 sions growing out of it, of course his reading stops there; but what an incalculable advantage in his business affairs has this hasty survey given him! If he has more time than this, and has a love of science, the periodical brings to him every week or month the latest 50 investigations and their results, and enables him to keep pace with his time. If the work of the various active scientists of the day were only embodied in elaborate books, he could never see and could never read one of them. In the periodical all the scientific men of the 55 world meet. They learn there just what each man is doing, and are constant inspirers and correctors of each other, while all the interested world studies them and keeps even-headed with them. A ten-days' run from Liverpool brings to this country an installment of the 60 scientific labor of all Europe, and there is no possible form in which this can be gathered up and scattered except that of the periodical. In truth, we do not know of any class of men who would be more disastrously affected by a suspension of periodical literature 65 than those who have particularly decried it-the scholars and the scientists.

Within the last twenty years not only have the means of communication been incalculably increased, but the domain of knowledge has been very greatly enlarged; "0 and the fact is patent that periodical literature has been developed in the same proportion. It has grown out of the new necessities, and must ultimately arrange itself by certain laws. At present it is in a degree of confu sion; but at last the daily paper will announce facts; 75 the scientific journal will describe discoveries and processes; the weekly paper will be the medium of popular

discussion; the magazine and review will furnish the theatre of the thinker and the literary artist; and the book, sifting all-facts, processes, thoughts, and artistic 0 fabrics and crystallizations of thought-will record all that is worthy of preservation to enter permanently into the life and literature of the world. This is the tendency at the present time, although the aim may not be intelligent and definite or the end clearly seen. Each class 85 of periodicals has its office in evolving from the crude facts of the every-day history of politics, religion, morals, society, and science those philosophic conclusions and artistic creations that make up the solid literature of the country; and this office will be better defined as the 90 years go by.

We do not see that it is anything against the maga zine that it has become the medium by which books of an ephemeral nature find their way to the public. The novel, almost universally, makes its first appearance as 95 a serial. MacDonald, Collins, Reade, George Eliot, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Whitney, Trollope-in fact, all the principal novelists-send their productions to the public through the magazines; and it is certainly better to distribute. the interest of these through the year than to devour 100 them en masse. They come to the public in this way in their cheapest form, and find ten readers where in the book-form they would find one. They are read, too, as serials, mingled with a wider and more valuable range of literature, as they always should be read. Anything 105 is good which prevents literary condiments from being adopted as literary food.

If the fact still remains that there are multitudes who will read absolutely nothing but periodical literature, where is the harm? This is a busy world, and the 110 great multitude cannot purchase large libraries. Ten or fifteen dollars' worth of periodicals places every work

ing family in direct relations with the great sources of current intelligence and thought, and illuminates their home-life as no other such expenditure can do. The 115 masses have neither the money to buy books nor the leisure to read them. The periodical becomes, then, the democratic form of literature. It is the intellectual food of the people. It stands in the very front rank of the agents of civilization, and in its way, directly and 120 indirectly, is training up a generation of book-readers. It is the pioneer: the book will come later. In the mean time, it becomes all those who provide periodicals for the people to take note of the fact that their work has been proved to be a good one by the growing de- 125 mand for a higher style of excellence in the materials they furnish. The day of trash and padding is past or rapidly passing. The popular magazine of to-day is such a magazine as the world never saw before, and the popular magazine of America is demonstrably better 130 than any popular magazine in the world. We are naturally more familiar with this class of periodical literature than any other, and we make the statement without qualification or reservation. That it is truly educating its readers is proved by the constant demand for its own 135 improvement.

21. DONALD G. MITCHELL,

1822

DONALD GRANT MITCHELL, a popular American author, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1822. After having graduated at Yale College in 1841, he traveled in Europe for some time, and then studied law in New York. In 1847 he began his literary career by publishing Fresh Gleanings; or, A New Sheaf from the Old Fields of Continental Europe, which appeared under the author's pseudonym, "Ik Marvel." While visiting Europe in 1848, he wrote The Battle Summer, which appeared the next year. In the following year (1850) he issued anonymously The Lorgnette, a satirical work. The Reveries of a Bachelor, by Ik Marvel, one of Mitchell's best works, appeared also in 1850, and in 1851 his Dream-Life followed.

In 1850, Mitchell became United States consul at Venice, but in 1855 he returned to this country, and located on a farm near New Haven, which he named Edgewood, and which has been his residence ever since. Hearth and Home, a New York weekly, was established in 1869, and for several years thereafter Mitchell was ore of its editors. He has won a reputation also as a Jublic lecturer.

Mitchell's works, in addition to those before named, are-Fudge Doings, My Farm at Edgewood, Wet Days at Edgewood, Seven Stories, with Basement and Attic; Doctor Johns, Rural Studies, and Pictures at Edgewood.