[Footnote 1: See Blackwood's Magazine, Sept. 1853, art. "Scotland since the Union."]
Looking to Ireland, we find a similar state of things. Seventy years since, that country was able to insist upon and to establish its claim for an independent government, and, by aid of the measures then adopted, was rapidly advancing. From that period to the close of the century the demand for books for Ireland was so great as to warrant the republication of a large portion of those produced in England. The _kingdom_ of Ireland of that day gave to the world such men as Burke and Grattan, Moore and Edgeworth, Curran, Sheridan, and Wellington. Centralization, however, demanded that Ireland should become a province of England, and from that time famines and pestilences have been of frequent occurrence, and the whole population is now being expelled to make room for the "slow and unimpressible" Saxon race. Under these circumstances, it is matter of small surprise that Ireland not only produces no books, but that she furnishes no market for those produced by others. Half a century of international copyright has almost annihilated both the producers and the consumers of books.
Passing towards England we may for a moment look to Wales, and then, if we desire to find the effects of centralization and its consequent absenteeism, in neglected schools, ignorant teachers, decaying and decayed churches, and drunken clergymen with immoral flocks, our object will be accomplished by studying the pages of the "Edinburgh Review" [2] In such a state of things as is there described there can be little tendency to the development of intellect, and little of either ability or inclination to reward the authors of books. In my next, I will look to England herself.
[Footnote 2: April, 1853, art. "The Church in the Mountains."]
Arrived in England, we find there everywhere the same tendency towards centralization. Of the 200,000 small landed proprietors of the days of Adam Smith but few remain, and of even those the number is gradually diminishing. Great landed estates have everywhere absentees for owners, agents for managers, and day laborers for workmen. The small landowner was a resident, and had a personal interest in the details of the neighborhood, not now felt by either the owner or the laborer. This state of things existed to a considerable extent five-and-thirty years ago, but it has since grown with great rapidity. At that time Great Britain could exhibit to the world perhaps as large a body of men and women of letters, with world-wide reputation, as ever before existed in any country or nation, as will be seen from the following list:--