many months cheerfully fulfilled, some of his friend's No one, I suppose, will accuse me of deifying literary engagements. The Literary Fund also lent Obstinacy, or even mere brute Will; nor of depreciatassistance. It is gratifying to note these instances ing Intellect. But we have had too many dithyrambs of sympathy, but more important to mark the in honour of mere Intelligence; and the older I grow, warning which Mr Reach's case holds out to young the clearer I see that Intellect is not the highest faculty literary aspirants of the dangers of over-application. in man, although the most brilliant. Knowledge, after MR ALBERT SMITH (born at Chertsey in 1816) is all, is not the greatest thing in life; it is not the 'bebest known for his illustrated lectures or amusing all and the end-all here.' Life is not Science. The monologues in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in light of Intellect is truly a precious light; but its which he describes a visit to Constantinople, the aim and end is simply to shine. The moral nature of ascent of Mont Blanc, and a trip to China in 1858-9. man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual Of these tours he has also published accounts. Mr nature. I know they cannot be divorced-that without Smith studied medicine both in London and Paris, intelligence we should be brutes-but it is the tendency but began early to write for the magazines, and of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence threw off numerous tales and sketches-as The to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of Adventures of Mr Ledbury, The Scattergood Family, character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingChristopher Tadpole, The Pottleton Legacy, several ness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in dramatic pieces, &c. His lectures-somewhat in the style of Mathews's 'At Home,' but with the addition of very fine scenery-have been amazingly successful: Mont Blanc' was repeated above a thousand times, and almost invariably to crowded houses.

G. H. LEWES.

MR GEORGE HENRY LEWES, a writer certainly of extraordinary talent and variety of acquirements, but most eminent as a philosophical essayist and critic, has written two novels-Ranthorpe, 1847, and Rose, Blanche, and Violet, 1848. In the former, he traces the moral influence of genius on its possessor, and though there is little artistic power evinced in the plot of the tale, it is a suggestive and able work. In his second novel, which is longer and much more skilfully constructed, Mr Lewes aims chiefly at the delineation of character. His three sisters, Rose, Blanche, and Violet, are typical of different classes of character-the gay, the gentle, and the decided; and as each of the ladies forms an attachment, we have other characters and contrasts, with various complicated incidents and love-passages. The author, however, is more of a moral teacher than a story-teller, and he sets himself resolutely to demolish what he considers popular fallacies, and to satirise the follies and delusions prevalent in society. Here is one of his ethical positions.

the world.

And in the following we have a sound, healthy doctrine which has also received the support of Thackeray:

[Real Men of Genius resolute Workers.]

There is, in the present day, an overplus of raving about genius, and its prescriptive rights of vagabondage, its irresponsibility, and its insubordination to all the laws of common sense. Common sense is so prosaic! Yet it appears from the history of art that the real men of genius did not rave about anything of the kind. They were resolute workers, not idle dreamers. They knew that their genius was not a frenzy, not a supernatural thing at all, but simply the colossal proportions of faculties which, in a lesser degree, the meanest of mankind shared with them. They knew that whatever it was, it would not enable them to accomplish with success the things they undertook, unless they devoted their whole energies to the task.

Would Michael Angelo have built St Peter's, sculptured the Moses, and made the walls of the Vatican sacred with the presence of his gigantic pencil, had he awaited inspiration while his works were in progress? Would Rubens have dazzled all the galleries of Europe, had he allowed his brush to hesitate? would Beethoven and Mozart have poured out their souls into such abundant melodies? would Goethe have written the sixty volumes of his works-had they not often, very often, sat down like drudges to an unwilling task, and found themselves

[Superiority of the Moral over the Intellectual Nature speedily engrossed with that to which they were so

of Man.]

averse?

'Use the pen,' says a thoughtful and subtle author, Strength of Will is the quality most needing cultiva-'there is no magic in it; but it keeps the mind from tion in mankind. Will is the central force which gives staggering about.' This is an aphorism which should strength and greatness to character. We overestimate be printed in letters of gold over the studio door of the value of Talent, because it dazzles us; and we are every artist. Use the pen or the brush; do not pause, apt to underrate the importance of Will, because its do not trifle, have no misgivings; but keep your mind works are less shining. Talent gracefully adorns life; from staggering about by fixing it resolutely on the but it is Will which carries us victoriously through the matter before you, and then all that you can do you will struggle. Intellect is the torch which lights us on our do: inspiration will not enable you to do more. Write way; Will the strong arm which rough-hews the path or paint: act, do not hesitate. If what you have written for us. The clever, weak man sees all the obstacles on or painted should turn out imperfect, you can correct it, his path; the very torch he carries, being brighter than and the correction will be more efficient than that that of most men, enables him, perhaps, to see that the correction which takes place in the shifting thoughts of path before him may be directest, the best-yet it also hesitation. You will learn from your failures infinitely enables him to see the crooked turnings by which he more than from the vague wandering reflections of a may, as he fancies, reach the goal without encountering mind loosened from its moorings; because the failure is difficulties. If, indeed, Intellect were a sun, instead of absolute, it is precise, it stands bodily before you, your a torch-if it irradiated every corner and crevice-then eyes and judgment cannot be juggled with, you know would man see how, in spite of every obstacle, the direct whether a certain verse is harmonious, whether the path was the only safe one, and he would cut his way rhyme is there or not there; but in the other case you through by manful labour. But constituted as we are, not only can juggle with yourself, but do so, the very it is the clever, weak men who stumble most-the indeterminateness of your thoughts makes you do so; strong men who are most virtuous and happy. In this as long as the idea is not positively clothed in its artistic world, there cannot be virtue without strong Will; the form, it is impossible accurately to say what it will be. weak'know the right, and yet the wrong pursue.' The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your

admirable, and it is pleasant to see so healthy and snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting wise a book-for so it may be termed-in its sixth sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that edition within twelve months. The same author flew before the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of has still further commemorated his beloved Berk- the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall. shire in The Scouring of the White Horse, or the On a heap of those soft shavings a rough gray shepherdLong Vacation Ramble of a London Clerk, 1858. In dog had made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with this work the country games, traditions, and anti- his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling quarian associations of Berkshire are described. his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden mantel-piece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing:

the gentleman, and to hide her shame. The account of her wanderings and her meditated suicide, is related with affecting minuteness and true pathos. Hetty is comforted by the gentle Methodist enthusiast, Dinah Morris, who at last becomes the wife of Adam Bede. The other characters in the novel are all distinct, well-defined individuals. The vicar of the parish, Mr Irvine, the old bachelor schoolmaster, Bartle Massey, and Mr and Mrs Poyser of the Hall Farm, are striking, lifelike portraits. Mrs Poyser is an original, rich in proverbial philosophy, good sense, and amusing volubility. The following is a discussion on matrimony, the interlocutors being the schoolmaster, the gardener, and Mr and Mrs Poyser:

[Dialogue on Matrimony.]

'What!' said Bartle, with an air of disgust. 'Was there a woman concerned? Then I give you up, Adam.' 'But it's a woman you'n spoke well on, Bartle,' said Mr Poyser. Come, now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha' been a bad invention if they'd all been like Dinah.'

I meant her voice, man-I meant her voice, that was all,' said Bartle. I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears. As for other things, I daresay she's like the rest o' the womenthinks two and two 'll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.'

Ay, ay!' said Mrs Poyser; 'one 'ud think, an' hear some folk talk, as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can see through a barn-door, they can. Perhaps that's the reason they can see so little o' this side on 't.' Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter, and winked at Adam, as much as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.

Ah !' said Bartle sneeringly, 'the women are quick enough-they're quick enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows 'em himself.'

'Like enough,' said Mrs Poyser; for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun 'em, an' they can only catch 'em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man's getting 's tongue ready; an' when he out wi' his speech at last, there's little broth to be made on't. It's your dead chicks take the longest hatchin'. Howiver, I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.'

'Match!' said Bartle; 'ay, as vinegar matches one's teeth. If a man says a word, his wife'll match it with a contradiction; if he's a mind for hot meat, his wife'll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs, she'll match him with whimpering. She's such a match as the horsefly is to th' horse she's got the right venom to sting him with the right venom to sting him with.'

'Yes,' said Mrs Poyser, 'I know what the men likea poor soft, as 'ud simper at 'em like the pictur o' the sun, whether they did right or wrong, an' say thank you for a kick, an' pretend she didna know which end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly: he wants to make sure o' one fool as 'll tell him he's wise. But there's some men can do wi'out that-they think so much o' themselves a'ready-an' that's how it is there's old bachelors.'

'You're out there, Craig,' said Bartle dryly; 'you're out there. You judge o' your garden-stuff on a better plan than that; you pick the things for what they can excel in-for what they can excel in. You don't value your peas for their roots, or your carrots for their flowers. Now that's the way you should choose women: their cleverness 'll never come to much-never come to much; but they make excellent simpletons, ripe and strong flavoured.'

'What dost say to that?' said Mr Poyser, throwing himself back and looking merrily at his wife.

6

'Say!' answered Mrs Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her eye; why, I say as some folk's tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside.'

[Family Likeness.]

Nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. by bone and muscle, and divides us by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every movement.

our own, uttering the thoughts we despise; we see eyes We hear a voice with the very cadence of ah! so like our mother's-averted from us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with bitterness long years ago. The father, to whom we owe the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the our best heritage-the mechanical instinct, the keen modelling hand-galls us, and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence.

In closing these extracts from the novelists, we may note some results brought out by Professor Masson in his work on British Novelists, 1859. Since the death of Sir Walter Scott, the annual compared with what it was when he was in the number of British novels has been quadrupled, as middle of his Waverley series, having risen from twenty-six a year, or a new novel every fortnight, to about one hundred a year, or two new novels nearly every week. In all, there have been about 3000 novels, making about 7000 separate volumes, produced in these islands, since the publication of Waverley in 1814.

HISTORIANS.

SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON.

At the close of the French revolutionary war, countless multitudes were drawn from every part of Europe to Paris to witness the meeting of the allied sovereigns in 1814. Among them was 'one young man who had watched with intense interest the progress of the war from his earliest years, and who, having hurried from his paternal roof in Edinburgh on the first cessation of hostilities, then conceived the first idea of narrating its events, and amidst its wonders inhaled that ardent spirit, that deep enthusiasm which, sustaining him through fifteen subsequent years of travel and study, and fifteen more of composition, has at length realised itself in the present history.' The work thus 'Well,' said Mr Craig, willing to conciliate Mrs characteristically referred to by its author, Mr, Poyser, and setting a high value on his own compli- now SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, is The History of ments, I like a cleverish woman-a woman o' sperrit-Europe, from the Commencement of the French a managing woman.' Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons, ten

'Come, Craig,' said Mr Poyser jocosely, 'you mun get married pretty quick, else you'll be set down for an old bachelor; an' you see what the women 'ull think on you.'

volumes, 1839-42, and which has since, in various forms, gone through nine editions. As a vast storehouse of facts and details relating to the most important and memorable period in modern history, this work is valuable. The ardour and enthusiasm of the author bore him bravely over the wide and intricate fields he had to traverse. His narrative is generally animated, and his account of battles, and sieges, and great civil events, related with spirit and picturesque effect. Having visited

Sir Archibald Alison.

scarcity and dearness of provisions; but, of course, a variety of other elements entered into the formation of that great convulsion. Some of the features of the Revolution are well drawn by Alison. The small number of persons who perpetrated the atrocities in Paris, and the apathy of the great body of the citizens he thus describes:

[The French Revolutionary Assassins.]

The small number of those who perpetrated these murders in the French capital under the eyes of the legislature, is one of the most instructive facts in the history of revolutions. Marat had long before said, that with 200 assassins at a louis a day, he would govern France, and cause 300,000 heads to fall; and the events of the 2d September seemed to justify the opinion. The number of those actually engaged in the massacres did not exceed 300; and twice as many more witnessed and encouraged their proceedings; yet this handful of men governed Paris and France, with a despotism which three hundred thousand armed warriors afterwards strove in vain to effect. The immense majority of the well-disposed citizens, divided in opinion, irresolute in conduct, and dispersed in different quarters, were incapable of arresting a band of assassins, engaged in the most atrocious cruelties of which modern Europe has yet afforded an example-an important warning to the strenuous and the good in every succeeding age, to combine for defence the moment that the aspiring and the desperate have begun to agitate the public mind, and never to trust that mere smallness of numbers can be relied on for preventing reckless ambition from destroying irresolute virtue. It is not less worthy of observation, that these atrocious massacres took place in the heart of a city where above 50,000 men were enrolled in the National Guard, and had arms in their hands; a force specifically destined to prevent insurrectionary movements, and support, under all changes, the majesty of the law. They were so divided in opinion, and the revolutionists composed so large a part of their number, that nothing whatever was done by them, either on the 10th August, when the king was dethroned, or the 2d September, when the prisoners were massacred. This puts in a forcible point of view the weakness of such a force, which, being composed of citizens, is distracted by their feelings, and actuated by their passions. In ordinary times, it may exhibit an imposing array, and be adequate to the repression of the smaller disorders; but it is paralysed by the events which throw society into convulsions, and generally fails at the decisive moment when its aid is most required.

Another specimen of the author's style of summary and reflection may be given:

[The Reign of Terror.]

most of the localities described, many interesting minute touches and graphic illustrations have been added by the historian from personal observation, or the statements of eye-witnesses on the spot; and he appears to have been diligent and conscientious in consulting written authorities. The defects of the work are, however, considerable. The style is often careless, turgid, and obscure; and the high Tory prejudices of the author, with certain opinions on the Currency question-the influence of which he greatly exaggerates-render him often a tedious as well as unsafe guide. His moral reflections and deductions are mostly superfluous, and quite unworthy of the author of the narrative portions of the history. In a few instances he has been accused by his own Conservative friends of extracting Thus terminated the Reign of Terror, a period fraught military details from questionable sources, and with greater political instruction than any of equal forming rash judgments on questions of strategy. duration which has existed since the beginning of the Thus he maintains that in the great campaign of world. In no former period had the efforts of the 1815, Napoleon surprised, out-manoeuvred, and people so completely triumphed, or the higher orders out-generaled' both Wellington and Blucher-a been so thoroughly crushed by the lower. The throne position which does not seem well supported, but had been overturned, the altar destroyed: the ariswhich at least evinces the historian's determination tocracy levelled with the dust, the nobles were in exile, to think for himself, and not to sacrifice his convic- the clergy in captivity, the gentry in affliction. tions to party. In describing the causes which led merciless sword had waved over the state, destroying to the French Revolution, he also enumerates fairly alike the dignity of rank, the splendour of talent, and the enormous wrongs and oppressions under which the graces of beauty. All that excelled the labouring the people laboured; but with singular incon- classes in situation, fortune, or acquirement, had been sistency he adds, that the immediate source of the removed; they had triumphed over their oppressors, convulsion was the spirit of innovation which over- seized their possessions, and risen into their stations. spread France. Carlyle more correctly assigns And what was the consequence? The establishment famine as the 'immediate' cause-the unprecedented of a more cruel and revolting tyranny than any which

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