226 C. F. Adams that the books would be selected by the clergyman of the church, and would "consist of books of divinity, and dry metaphysical writings ; whereas, should they be assured that histories and books of information would be procured," they would have felt very dif- ferently. And now, when the lists were submitted, " Deacon Hodges brought forward ' Essays on the Divine Authority for Infant Baptism,' 'Terms of Church Communion,' 'The Careful Watchman,' 'Age of Grace,' etc. ; Deacon Cook's collection was ' History of Martyrs,' ' Rights of Conscience,' ' Modern Pharisees,' ' Defence of Separates ; ' Mr. Woolworth exhibited ' Edwards against Chauncy,' 'History of Redemption,' 'Jennings's Views,' etc. ; Judge Hurlbut concurred in the same ; Dr. Rose exhibited ' Gay's Fables,' ' Pleasing Companion,' ' Turkish Spy,' while I," wrote Burroughs, "for the third time recommended ' Hume's His- tory,' 'Voltaire's Histories,' ' Rollin's Ancient History,' ' Plutarch's Lives,' etc." It would be difficult to mark more strikingly the development of a century, than by thus presenting Hume's History and Rollin as typical of what was deemed light and popular reading at one end of it, and the Sunday newspaper at the other. As I have already inti- mated, they were either giants in those days, or husks supplied milk for babes. Recurring, however, to present conditions, the popular demand for historical literature is undoubtedly vastly larger than it was a century ago ; nor is it by any means so clear as is usually assumed that the solid reading and thinking power of the com- munity has at all deteriorated. That yet remains to be proved. A century ago, it is to be borne in mind, there were no public libra- ries at all, and the private collections of books were comparatively few and small. It is safe, probably, to assume that there are a hundred, or even a thousand, readers now to one then. On this head nothing even approximating to what would be deemed con- clusive evidence is attainable ; but the fair assumption is that, while the light and ephemeral, knowledge-made-easy reading is a develop- ment of these latter years, it has in no way displaced the more sus- tained reading and severe thought of the earlier time. On the con- trary, that also has had its share of increase. Take Gibbon, for instance. A few years ago, an acute and popular English critic, in speaking of the newly edited Memoirs of Gibbon, used this lan- guage : — "All readers of the Decline and Fall — that is to say, all men and women of a sound education," etc. If Mr. Frederic Harrison was correct in his generalization in 1896, certainly more could not have been said in 1796; and, during the intervening hun- dred years, the class of those who have received "a sound educa-
