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Show Literary degradation. Mr. Bayard Bay-ard Taylor, in a recent lecture, said that the last fifteen years had been a trying period lo our literature. In 18ti0 tho number of people who bought and road books was larger than at this day, and this be explained ex-plained by the war. Then alter the war camo a reaction, but the reaction is only now bringing to tho surface literary tastes worthy of the oeonle. During the interim, or for the last ten years, the popular biste has been fed on a species of lileraturo which finds its highest form in tho writings of Bret Uni te, where humor is mixed with noble sentiments; its next, iu tho works of Mark Twain, and its lowest form in the writings of newspaper news-paper scribblers all over, tho land, who find something equally funny in the transit of Venus and the upsetting upset-ting of a cart, and who (urn muiiier, prayer and death into obscene and low jest. Their injury, said the lecturer, lec-turer, is in exact proportion to ibcir success, ami their vile paragrap h beget be-get a habit that ia to thu niinu what loafing around a grog-shop is to the morals. |