THE GREEN BOOK
Is a Canterbury speculation in the periodical line, which exhibits more knowledge of old books than of the probable demand for new ones. The price is threepence, and a number is to appear at inter- vals of three mouths; so that it is a sort of miniature Quarterly. The professed origin of the undertaking is the old story of manu- scripts rescued fern a shop. They were discovered bound up in green vellum ; whence the title of the work,— the vellum, by the by, smacking of some old black-letter-lover, connected perhaps with the Cathedral. A notion which the contents of the faseiculus seem to support ; for they consist of "old odd ends " picked up in an extensive course of reading amongst authors many of whose names are rarely mentioned, and whose works are still more rarely opened. The " romance of real life," in bygone periods, appears to be the staple commodity of the Green Book, for of thirteen articles fire or six are extraordinary stories; the remainder consisting of anec- dotes, scraps of information, and miscellaneous gleanings. The reading furnkhed by the whole is of a quaint and amusing kind, but mere fitting to excite attention if appearing in a volume than in parts,—though in that case the collector might reap more of fame than of profit. But the GreenBook has an interest beyond its contents : it is a straw showing which way the wind blows—a project embodying a literary recluse's idea of Cheap Literature.
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