ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. 2

To revive the memory of estimable authors, or of estimable books, is a pursuit to which a man of leisure may devote himself under the certainty that he can neither want materials to proceed with, not miss the reward of commendation. It is by the extensive circulation of biographical dictionaries, and the re-productive agency of the press, that the fame of authors and their works is chiefly perpetuated. General biographers, however, relying too much on the intelligence and tact of their precursors, are frequently the dupes of tradition; and the press, like other descriptions of machinery, requi…