Phenix Gazette

Swift says, the most accomplished way of mean lords—learn their titles, and then brag of their acquaintance. It is so at present. The most industrious student, even if he had the inclination, has not the power, to peruse a tenth of the item; and as for the general reader, he sees Alps on Alps before him, with no prospect of even reaching, much less climbing them. But when it is so ungenteel, and so unfashionable, not to be able to converse on literary subjects! "O! it would be killing to be asked what I tho't of a book, and to say—I haven't read it!" To obviate this distressing difficulty, reviews are very generally read and patronized by our literary fashionables, who thus get hold of the titles of books, and a general outline of their contents, and "then brag of their acquaintance"—a cheap and expeditious way to acquire a reputation for literary attainments. Our newspapers, too, are great helps to the fashionable literati. A critique of some new publication is patched up, without the work ever being read; and those who glance over the review are mightily pleased with the thought that they have made a new acquaintance in so short a time, and with so little trouble. Our New York friends are famous hands for a newspaper review. They will mangle and tear a poor author to pieces, before he has been twenty-four hours in existence, with as much ease as they would eat their breakfasts; or, if they should happen to be "in the vein that day," they will literally hide him with the laurels which they throw upon his head. Their readers must be vastly edified, and wonderfully learned.