Fifty years ago . RALPH WALDO EMEESON ipo FIFTY YEARS AGO ^ difficult to imagine. At last there was a revolt: thepublic would stand this kind of stuff no longer. Downdropped the circulation of the novels. Instead of 2,000copies subscribed, the dismayed publisher now read 50,and the whole host of novelists vanished like a swarmof midges. At the same time poetry went down LOKD BYBON Tlie drop in poetry was even more terrible than thatof novels. Suddenly, and without any warning, thepeople of Great Britain left off reading poetry. To besure, they had been flooded with a prodigious quantityo
Fifty years ago . RALPH WALDO EMEESON ipo FIFTY YEARS AGO ^ difficult to imagine. At last there was a revolt: thepublic would stand this kind of stuff no longer. Downdropped the circulation of the novels. Instead of 2,000copies subscribed, the dismayed publisher now read 50,and the whole host of novelists vanished like a swarmof midges. At the same time poetry went down LOKD BYBON Tlie drop in poetry was even more terrible than thatof novels. Suddenly, and without any warning, thepeople of Great Britain left off reading poetry. To besure, they had been flooded with a prodigious quantityof trash. One anonymous popular poet, whose namewill never now be recovered, received 100/. for his lastpoem from a publisher who thought, no doubt, that the WITH THE WITS 191 boom was going to last. Of this popular poets workhe sold exactly fifty copies. Another, a humorous bard,who also received a large sum for his immortal poem,showed in the unhappy publishers books no more thaneighteen copies sold. This was too ridiculous, and from
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