HERE is a sea below the sea," said a distinguished American man of letters to me not long ago. He meant the reading world on the surface of society is as nothing when compared with the reading world beneath the surface. The success of every cheap and well-chosen series proves the truth of this, and the hungry ocean of readers still cries for more. Good books are at present borrowed, begged, and, too often, wearily waited for by those who cannot afford to buy them. Messrs. GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, in "Routledge's World Library," purpose to issue such books at 3d. apiece in paper covers, and in cloth 6d. Each volume-not too large for the pocket, not too small for the shelf— will consist of 160 pp. royal 16m0, printed in good clear type on clear white paper. The Editor will keep his eye on famous writers, ancient and modern, dealing with stirring, profitable, instructive, and recreative_subjects, Biographies, Travels, chapters on Social Science, Political Economy, History, Fiction, Poetry, and the Drama. : His objects are to place within everyone's reach what everyone ought to know to circulate the works of great writers, or portions of books which should be familiar in our mouths as household words; to provide persons of small leisure with select matter which they will peruse with eagerness, and rise from without feeling that they have wasted their time. To give such variety that everyone who takes in the series for a year, at a cost of a few shillings, will have on his shelf 52 volumes, differing in all but this, that the world will not willingly let any one of them die. To make the price of each volume so low that none need borrow it, everyone being tempted to buy it, and nobody to steal it ! I believe that, with a wide extension of the franchise, the time has arrived for the best books to be offered to a large class hitherto almost untouched by such literature. I am not one of those who "wish to rob the poor man of his beer," but I cannot help thinking that should this fly-leaf flutter down upon the frugal board at the right time, there may be many who would be willing to substitute a glass of water for a glass of beer once a week, in order to secure a Life of Nelson, Garibaldi, De Foe's Plague of London, Scott's Marmion, or Goethe's Faust. Such a sacrifice would leave the body not one whit the poorer, and the mind richer for ever. The books about to be offered to the million are the best-those "with "Do the out which no gentleman's library is complete. WALTER CRANE designs the cover-for the best art is worthy to adorn the best literature. people care for either?" You might as well ask, "Do the people care for turtle soup?" The answer is, "Of course they do when they can get it." There is no greater mistake than to try to write and publish down to the people. Give the people something to work up to. TENNYSON says, "We needs must love the highest when we see it," Place the highest within everyone's reach, and then there will be something for everyone to work up to. As I looked down the other day, from the upper deck of a large Atlantic steamer, at the crowd of steerage passengers, and marked how most of them were huddled together hour after hour doing nothing, others crowding round the bar where beer was being doled out, and just a few reading some greasy tract or newspaper, I thought, "O for a stock of cheap books such as will be issued in Routledge's World Library'! No emigrant ship should be without a selection of them. As I sometimes steam out of London and notice the miles of neat small streets, and think of those thousands of bread-winners hurrying home nightly to growing-up families, I feel inclined to say, "Why should not each of you once a week bring home a threepenny book in his pocket? You would have to save but a halfpenny a day to do it." When I think of the long, gossiping, yawning, gambling hours of grooms, valets, coachmen, and cabmen; the railway stations, conveniently provided with bookstalls, and crowded morning and evening with workmen's trains the winter evenings in thousands of villages, wayside cottages, and scattered hamlets-the brief, but not always well-spent leisure of Factory hands in the north-the armies of commercial and uncommercial travellers with spare half hours-the shop assistants-the city offices with their hangers-on-the Board Schools-the village librariesthe Army and Navy-the barrack or the dockyard-again the vision of "Routledge's World Library" rises before me, and say, "This, if not a complete cure for indolence and vice, may at least prove a powerful counter-charm." Such, indeed, are but glimpses into the sea below the sea: its waters are at present unexplored-we seem to sound and sound and find their depth fathomless. "Routledge's World Library" will heave the lea once more ! "Syllables govern the world."-John Selden.: 3d. each, or 6d. Cloth, Routledge's World Library, Edited by the Rev. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A. GOETHE'S FAUST. LIFE OF NELSON. GOLDSMITH'S PLAYS AND POEMS. MEMOIRS OF BARON TRENCK. WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY Of Selborne. BÖDLE! LIFE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTO DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE. BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS AND NESTS. THE MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY. LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKSPEARE. IBRARY 4 MAR87 THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. THE SPECTATOR (Choice Selections). LIVINGSTONE'S TRAVELS. COMIC POETS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. MRS. RUNDELL'S COOKERY-SWEETS. HENRY WARD BEECHER IN THE PULPIT. ESSAY-GEMS OF EMERSON. LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. OLD BALLADS. PET. By Rev. H. R. HAWEIS, M.A. SELECT POEMS. THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM. GEMS OF BYRON. 1 I THINK it was George III. who thanked Walter Scott for the vast amount of pleasure and comfort he had derived in seasons of great mental and bodily depression from the perusal of "The Waverley Novels." When Garrick died Dr. Johnson wrote: "His death eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and diminished the world's stock of harmless amusement." Charles Dickens is certainly one of those who has given an enormous amount of harmless pleasure to the world, and thus laid every section of the reading public under special obligations. We owe him much. His sane and healthy eye for the foibles and peculiarities of poor humanity, have never tempted him to be cynical or made him forget the inherent loveableness and worth of most human beings, however disguised by selfishness or soured by circumstance. The kindly influences of happier times and places, of true hearts and genial smiles and natural tears, are ever employed to soften the rugged and callous, and call forth in them the |