Even after a license has been obtained to publish a manuscript, its publication is still a dangerous speculation; because it frequently happens, that when the book is printed, and partly circulated, some great man, even more fastidious than the censors, discovers a dubious passage, and the book is prohibited. There are four difficulties, therefore, which an author must resolve to face, before he sits down to prepare his manuscript:--the probability that he may be refused a license; the probability that, before being licensed, his manuscript may be mutilated--a probability that, I am told, amounts almost to a certainty, unless the work be upon one of the exact sciences; the probability that, after the work be published, some caprice may forbid its sale; and the certainty, that if the work be a talented work, the author of it, whether obtaining his license or no, will be looked upon with suspicion; and, if in Government employment, will almost certainly lose his appointment.
These are sad drawbacks upon literary exertion. But there is yet another: men are afraid to read, as well as to write; and the sale of a work is therefore insecure. Book-sellers do not care to venture upon the publication without some guarantee; the consequence of which is, that almost every book published in Spain, is published by subscription, or in numbers, or both in numbers and by subscription; by either of which modes the risk is lessened. What should we say in England of bills posted about the streets, announcing a new novel to be published by subscription, and in numbers? Yet I saw an announcement of this kind, of a novel to be called El Dissimulador--the Dissembler. But the greater number of books at present published in Spain, are translations from French and English, adapted, of course, to the Spanish censorship. I noticed the following announcements, by bills posted on the walls:--“Universal History,” from the French, in numbers: “the History of Spain,” a new edition, in numbers: “the History of Spanish America,” an original work, in numbers. This manuscript I should think must have been sadly carved. The following were announced by subscription:--“Selections from French and English Literature;” “Church History;” “Chateaubriand’s Holy Land;” “the History of the Administration of Lord North,” a singular enough choice; “the History of the English Regicides;” “the Works of Fenelon;” a new edition of “Gil Blas;” “Evelina;” and while I was in Madrid, proposals were circulated for publishing by subscription, and in numbers, the whole prose works of Sir Walter Scott. I heard of one voluminous, and rather important work, about to be published by a society called “the Academy of History,” viz., all “the inscriptions in Greek and Latin, now extant, throughout Spain.” The Arabic inscriptions are not included in the work, these being already collected and printed.