And my creed in the
exercise of that profession is, that literature cannot be too
faithful to the people in return--cannot too ardently advocate the
cause of their advancement, happiness, and prosperity. I have
heard it sometimes said--and what is worse, as expressing something
more cold-blooded, I have sometimes seen it written--that
literature has suffered by this change, that it has degenerated by
being made cheaper. I have not found that to be the case: nor do
I believe that you have made the discovery either. But let a good
book in these "bad" times be made accessible,--even upon an
abstruse and difficult subject, so that it be one of legitimate
interest to mankind,--and my life on it, it shall be extensively
bought, read, and well considered.
Why do I say this? Because I believe there are in Birmingham at
this moment many working men infinitely better versed in
Shakespeare and in Milton than the average of fine gentlemen in the
days of bought-and-sold dedications and dear books. I ask anyone
to consider for himself who, at this time, gives the greatest
relative encouragement to the dissemination of such useful
publications as "Macaulay's History," "Layard's Researches,"
"Tennyson's Poems," "The Duke of Wellington's published
Despatches," or the minutest truths (if any truth can be called
minute) discovered by the genius of a Herschel or a Faraday? It is
with all these things as with the great music of Mendelssohn, or a
lecture upon art--if we had the good fortune to listen to one to-
morrow--by my distinguished friend the President of the Royal
Academy.
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