George Haven Putnam

“ The richest literature of antiquity, he goes on to say, is that of Greece, and it was also in Greece that the art of writing made the most rapid advances. The teaching of the priests, whether given through the oracles or not, was purely oral, so that the Greeks did not come into possession of any body of sacred scriptures such as formed the original literature of other peoples. On the other hand, the ardent nature, inquiring and active intellect, and brilliant imagination of the Greeks, gave an early and rapid development to the arts, to poetry, and to speculative philosophy. ”

“ For America the literary connection with and inspiration from Great Britain was in every way a natural one. In changing their skies, the Americans could not change their mother-tongue, and in the literature of England, prior to 1776, they continued to claim full ownership and inheritance. The peculiar condition for Rome was its acceptance, as the foundations of its intellectual life, of the literature of a conquered people, with which people its own kinship was remote, and whose language was entirely distinct. ”

“ The Greek brings to us as the corner-stone of his literature and of his beliefs, the typical epics, the Iliads and the Odyssey; poems of action and prowess, commemorating the great deeds of the ancestors, and describing the days when men were heroes, and heroes were fit companions and worthy antagonists for the gods themselves. ”

“ An author who was voluminous and who had not been able to secure a publisher, might even, as the wags suggested, find it convenient to be burned upon a pile of his own manuscripts. It is evident that in these earlier days of publishing it was no easier than at present for authors or publishers to calculate with accuracy the extent of the public interest in their productions, while it is also probable that then as now an author would rather pay for the making of an abundant supply than incur the dreadful risk of not having enough copies to meet the immediate demand. ”

“ The peculiar relation borne to the earlier intellectual development of Rome by the literature of a foreign people has never been fully paralleled in later history. The use of Greek in Italy as the language of learning and of literature, was, as said, very similar to the general acceptance of Latin by the scholars of mediæval Europe as the only tongue worthy of employment for literary purposes. But I can find no other instance in which the literature of one people ever became so completely and so exclusively the authority for and the inspiration of the first literary life of another. ”

“ As long as men could carry their libraries in their heads, and when they desired to entertain themselves with a work of literature, needed only to think it to themselves (or even to recite it to themselves) instead of being under the necessity of reading it to themselves, they could hardly have the feeling that comes to the modern reader (if he be a conscientious person) of an indebtedness to the author, an indebtedness which is in large part connected with the actual use of the copy of the work. ”

“ Literature—that is, mental conceptions in literary form—had been known for many centuries before [3] the literary idea, and any individual ownership in the form in which such idea was expressed, had been thought out and defined. Literary property—that is, an ownership, on the part of the producer, in a definite expression of literary ideas—dates, nevertheless, from a comparatively early period, and, in one sense, may be said to have existed from the time in which the first “poet” (maker or creator) received his first compensation from a grateful public or an appreciative patron. ”

“ In reading these pithy words of wise counsel of the shrewd and kindly old Egyptian, one naturally recalls the proverbs ascribed to King Solomon, the sayings of Confucius, and certain of the utterances of Socrates. I do not mean that Ptah-Hotep, on the strength of the fragmentary utterances that have come down to us, is to be ranked with these great teachers, but that it is interesting to note how early in literature favor was found for the form of expressing opinions, or of giving counsel in the form of maxims or proverbs. ”

“ The writers who were perhaps the most characteristic of the academic circle of Alexandria, were, however, the so-called “grammarians,” who rendered to their own generation and to posterity the invaluable service of preparing authoritative editions of the great writers of the past. It is to these Alexandrian editions that we are indebted for the larger portion of the works of the Greek writers which have been preserved, while the fact of the existence of many works of which the texts have been lost is known only through the references to their titles made by Alexandrian commentators. ”

“ The bearing of this state of things upon the development of real Roman literature and upon any possibility of compensation for the writers of such literature, is obvious. Why should a Roman publisher or theatrical manager pay for the right to publish or to perform a drama by a native writer, when he could secure, for the small cost of a translation or adaptation, a more spirited and satisfactory piece of work from the Attic quarry? ”

“ A still further consideration to be borne in mind in connection with the slow development of Roman literature, is the attitude of Roman writers to their work. Many of those whose names are best known to us would have felt themselves lowered to be classed as authors. They were statesmen, advocates, men about town, or, if you will, simple citizens, who gave some of their leisure hours to literary pursuits. To the Greek author, whether poet, philosopher, or historian, literature was an avocation, an honored and honorable profession. ”

“ It will be noted that I take pains to speak of “authors” and “public,” rather than of “writers” and “readers,” because it is evident that there were literary productions in advance, and probably very far in advance, of the discovery or evolution of written characters, and also that long after the use of script by authors, the greater portion of the public in all ancient lands received their literature, not through their eyes, but through their ears,—not by reading the text, but by listening to reciters, story-tellers, and “rhapsodists.” ”

“ He found at Rome a literary circle of growing importance. It was the beginning of the Augustan age, and literature was the fashion with the court circles of the new Empire, and therefore with the society leaders who took the court fashions for their model. Through the kindness of Virgil, the young poet was introduced to Mæcenas, the wealthy statesman whose princely patronage of literature has become proverbial. ”

“ What is known as the religion of Confucius, comprises in substance the old-time national or popular faith freshly interpreted into the thought and language of the later generation, and shaped into a practical system of morals as a guide for the action of the state and for the daily life of the individual citizen. ”

“ His chief business was that of banking, in which he became very wealthy. It is not so difficult to be a Mæcenas among publishers if one is only a Mæcenas to begin with. It is probable from the little that can be learned concerning the expenses of book-making and the possibilities of book-selling, that the publishing interests of Atticus brought him (as far at least as money is concerned) deficiencies instead of profits, but he doubtless considered that he was, nevertheless, a gainer by literature when he had taken into account at its full value the friendship of Cicero. ”

“ It was evident that by the close of the first century the machinery for the making and the distribution of books was sufficiently well organized to secure for authors the opportunity of a world-wide influence. It seems probable, however, that the works which at this date obtained for themselves the widest circulation and influence were not those of living writers, but were still the classics which Greece had originated, but which were so largely given to the world through Rome. ”

“ A magnificent manuscript of this Gothic version of the Gospels, a manuscript known, on account of its beautiful silver text, as the codex argenteus, and which dates from the sixth century, is now preserved in the library of the University of Upsala in Sweden, one of the earliest homes of the Gothic peoples. The wide circulation of these Gothic Scriptures had a great influence in bringing the Gothic tribes into the Christian fold, and exercised, therefore, an important effect on the history of Europe. ”

“ Cicero speaks warmly both of the excellent literary judgment and of the warm liberality of his publishing friend, and it seems certain that Atticus took an important part in furthering the development of [187] Latin literature, and in organizing the publishing machinery which was thereafter to make it possible for Latin writers to secure some remuneration for their labors. He seems, in fact, in every way to have been a model publisher, and to have well deserved the honor of being the first of his guild whose name has been preserved in the history of Latin literature. ”

“ The fact that papyrus rather than parchment was the material adopted by authors during the fruitful period of Latin literature, had of course an important bearing in the continued existence of their works, for papyrus was an extremely perishable substance. Damp, worms, moths, mice, were all deadly enemies of papyrus rolls, but even if, through persistent watchfulness, these were guarded against, the mere handling of the rolls, even by the most careful readers, brought them rapidly to destruction. ”

“ The making, that is to say the duplication and publishing of books, had come to be a trade, and a trade of considerable importance, but the men who first engaged in it appear to have had little professional or literary standard, and not to have realized that profits could be secured from quality of work as well as from quantity, and that for a publisher a reputation for accurate and trustworthy editions could itself be made valuable capital. ”

“ Rawlinson adds that, while “intellectually the Egyptians must take rank among the foremost nations of remote antiquity, they cannot compare with the great European races whose rise was later, the Greeks and Romans.... Egypt may in some particulars have stimulated Greek thought, directing it in new lines, and giving it a basis to work upon; but otherwise it cannot be said that the world owes much of its intellectual progress to this people, about whose literary productions there is always something that is weak and childish.” ”

“ I judge further that the poet in naming the attractive things of this world which he would not demand as his reward, while, of course, speaking with a certain hyperbole of phrase, is at the same time making a kind of undercurrent of suggestion that fruitful hillsides, or even great provinces, would not, in fact, be a disproportioned reward for talents and services like his. ”

“ Confucius was evidently neither a visionary dreamer nor a poet, nor did he undertake to establish any priestly or theological authority for his teaching. He gives the impression of having been an exceptionally clear-headed and capable thinker, who devoted himself, somewhat as Socrates did a century later, to studying out the problems affecting the life of the state and of the individual. ”

“ It is only when we reach the Augustan age of Roman literature that we find, in the works of such authors as Cicero, Martial, Horace, Catullus, and a few others, a sufficient number of references upon which to base some theory at least as to the nature of the relations of the authors with their publishers, and also as to the publishing and bookselling methods of the time. ”

“ In Rome, as in Athens, the men who first interested themselves in publishing undertakings, or at least in the publishing of higher class literature, were men who combined with literary tastes the control of sufficient means to pay the preparation of the editions. ”

“ The labor, however, of placing the literary production in the hands of the reader and of collecting from these the compensation for the authors, required an intermediary,—some one to create the machinery for distribution and collection, and usually also to assume the risk and investment required. Literary property could, therefore, come into an assured existence only after, or simultaneously with, the evolution of the publisher. ”