THE VALUE OF POPULARITY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2004, 6 February 1890, Page 3

THE VALUE OF POPULARITY.

The death of Martin Farqubar Topper has led to some little discussion on the value-- of public opinion upon literary works. Tupper’s great work, Proverbial Philosophy reached to a million copies in Great Britain, and two millions of copies were sold in the United States, There were hundreds, probably thousands, of persons who believed the book to be second to the Bible; it was given to young people by well-meaning parents to read as the best thing with which they could present them, and it is said that one enthusiast read the whole book through sixty times, so that he learned it by heart. It has been said that the copies in the possession of young ladies used to open spontaneously at the chapter on “ Matrimony,” on which subject Tapper’s'advice was, probably as valuable a» most others. The extraordinary part ei the whole business is, that the book is a series of-the baldest platitudes, such as, “do not give to children corrupt teachers, who will corrupt .them,; ” “the feeding bottle and the wet “nurse are outrages on Nature,” and so on to any extent. This sort of thing seems to have just hit the* average intellect, and so the book.sold by millions, and was actually praised by men' who ought to have been good judges a, Jitßrary work. We may deduce Mpmj.yfcbe extensive sale of suck.,worksi J 'tuir.but highly moral and proper, that the ' possessors of the average intellect mean well, even if they do not always act well, ami this seems to- be the chief comfort derivable .from the wide , sale of those abominations of desolation^the goodygoodybooks. The best of the whole business is, that Tapper, believed himself to be ; a great genius to the very last: He never learned that he was laughed at, blit uttered’ his solemn platitudes to the-end with the utmost gravity. At\all events, if. he did not do much good, he cannot be/ said to have done much harm, , which is more than we should like to say about a book once almost as pdpular as Tapper's, namely, Napoleon, • the/Destined Monarch of the World.— -Hobart Mercury.