"Fashionable novels," it seems, like other fashionable folk, have not
measured their outgoings by their incomes. They are obliged to go abroad to retrench. The publisher of them has just been de- tected, says the Quarterly, in exporting thirty thousand of them at eightpence a volume, on condition of eaportation. This is the end of a brilliant career • a small place in the Colonies, or worse still, forced service beyond sea — the commutation of felony. Having figured away here for some time, and done all possible mischief, the pain of being taken from whence they came—that is, the rag-shop—is remitted, on condition of never showing their title- pages in this country. The roués only go to Boulogne, but the his- tory of them goes God knows where, at Sd. per volume—absolutely transported for the remaining term of their existence. Mr. COL- BURN'S notions of a circulating library are .pretty large—his books are read round the globe. He publishes by MERCATOR'S chart; and thinks to civilize the world from Kamtchatka to New Zea- land, by the force of "fashionable novels !" It is a new missionary scheme. How large a consignment is to be sent to Sid- ney, we are not informed ; but what with the gentlemen for fourteen years, and the "fashionable novels" for life, surely we shall at last produce some impression on the Blue Moun- tains. The new colonies are said to be sadly in want of fe- male population : a Quaker a short time since sent a ship-load of ladies to the Antipodes; and here is Mr. COLBURN, in pure charity, furnishing our ex-countrymen with bales of heroines at eightpence a piece. A back-wood settler, or gentleman-convict on Emu Plains, may by the outlay of a few shillings retransport himself into his old London society. With a wheelbarrow of "fashionable novels," he may keep his sheep in perfect bliss, and launder from pasture to pasture, as happy as a Mahomedan in Paradise.
Previous page
