means unsurpassed by that of any writer of his time, but without any high degree of originality. Can there be any thing in the nature of a "classical " life at war with novelty per se? At all events, few fine scholars, such as Heber truly was, are original.

CCXXV

Original characters, so called, can only be critically praised as such, either when presenting qualities known in real life, but never before depicted (a combination nearly impossible), or when presenting qualities (moral or physical, or both) which, although unknown, or even known to be hypothetical, are so skilfully adapted to the circumstances which surround them, that our sense of fitness is not offended, and we find ourselves seeking a reason why those things might not have been, which we are still satisfied are not. The latter species of originality appertains to the loftier regions of the ideal.

CCXXVI

George Balcombe we are induced to regard, upon the whole, as the best American novel. There have been few books of its peculiar kind, we think, written in any country, much its superior. Its interest is intense from beginning to end. is evinced in every page of it. features are invention, vigor,

Talent of a lofty order Its most distinguishing almost audacity, of

thought, great variety of what the German critics term "intrigue," and exceeding ingenuity and finish in the adaptation of its component parts. Nothing is wanting to a complete whole, and nothing is out of place or out of time. Without being chargeable in the least degree with imitation, the novel bears a strong family resemblance to the Caleb Williams of Godwin. Thinking thus highly of George Balcombe, we still do not wish to be understood as ranking it with the more brilliant fictions of some of the living novelists of Great Britain. In regard to the authorship of the book, some little conversation has occurred and the matter is still considered a secret. But why so?-or, rather, how so? The mind of the chief personage of the story is the transcript of a mind familiar to us, an unintentional transcript, let us grant, but still one not to be mistaken. George Balcombe thinks, speaks, and acts as no person, we are convinced, but Judge Beverly Tucker ever precisely thought, spoke, or acted before.

K

Fifty Suggestions

I

is observable that, while among all nations the omni-color, white, has been received as

an emblem of the pure, the no-color, black, has by no means been generally admitted as sufficiently typical of impurity. There are blue devils as well as black; and when we think very ill of a woman and wish to blacken her character, we merely call her "a blue-stocking," and advise her to read, in Rabelais's Gargantua, the chapter de ce qui est signifié par les couleurs blanc et bleu. There is far more difference between these couleurs, in fact, than that which exists between simple black and white. Your "blue," when we come to talk of stockings, is black in íssimo, -nigrum nigrius nigro,-like the matter from which Raymond Lully first manufactured his alcohol.

II

I perceive, has been appointed Librarian
Athenæum. To him, the appointment

is advantageous in many respects. Especially, "Mon cousin, voici une belle occasion pour apprendre à lire!"

III

As far as I can understand the "loving our enemies," it implies the hating our friends.

IV

In commencing our dinners with gravy soup, no doubt we have taken a hint from Horace, who says,

Da si grave non est,

Quæ prima iratum ventrem placeverit esca.

V

Of much of our cottage architecture we may safely say, I think (admitting the good intention), that it would have been Gothic if it had not felt it its duty to be Dutch.

VI

James's multitudinous novels seem to be written upon the plan of "the songs of the Bard of Schiraz," in which, we are assured by Fadladeen," the same beautiful thought occurs again and again in every possible variety of phrase."

VII

Some of our foreign lions resemble the human brain in one very striking particular. They are without any sense themselves, and yet are the centres of sensation.

VIII

Mirabeau, I fancy, acquired his wonderful tact at foreseeing and meeting contingencies during his residence in the stronghold of If.

IX

Cottle's Reminiscences of Coleridge is just such a book as damns its perpetrator forever in the opinion of every gentleman who reads it. More and more every day do we moderns pavoneggiarsi about our Christianity; yet, so far as the spirit of Christianity is concerned, we are immeasurably behind the ancients. Mottoes and proverbs are the indices of national character; and the Anglo-Saxons are disgraced in having no proverbial equivalent to the De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Moreover, where, in all statutory Christendom, shall we find a law so Christian as the Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur of the Twelve Tables? The simple negative injunction of the Latin law and proverb-the injunction not to do ill to the dead-seems, at a first glance, scarcely susceptible of improvement in the delicate respect of its terms. I cannot help thinking, however, that the sentiment, if not the idea intended, is more forcibly conveyed in an apothegm by one of the old English moralists, James Puckle. By an ingenious figure of speech he contrives to imbue the negation of the Roman command with a spirit of active and positive beneficence. "When speaking of