THE LITERARY EXAMINER. and Mr W. Aldis Wright, Librarian of Trinity College. sole object is to discover and give in pleasant volumes on In truth there is no rivalry in an invidious sense of delightful pages uncumbered with notes the best attainable RECENT SHAKESPEARE LITERATURE. the word between these two editions, though they are text; and this assuredly we have from him. He prefixes both to be completed in eight library volumes, of which general information to the whole work, and a particular We left the sketch of the course of labour upon Shake- one last week issued a third, and the other has this week account of its literary history to each play, and he adds speare's works at the edition of Johnson and Steevens, issued a fourth. Neither between these two chiefs of the what notes are necessary to acknowledge adopted readings, revised and augmented by Isaac Reed, which appeared new editions, nor between them and the concurrent cheaper state remaining doubts, or point to readings which though (each time in twenty-one volumes) in 1803, again in 1813, editions is there the shadow of a hostile competition. Of not adopted may be right. The work will be closed also and again in 1821, on the last occasion edited by James the new editions before us every one has its distinctive with a copious glossary. But mainly and almost solely it Boswell, with help of the collections made for a new edition character, for there are dozens of classes of buyers for whom is, in the best form yet attained, the text of Shakespeare; by Malone, who bequeathed them to him. These three Shakespeare may be edited, and he may be edited with the library Shakespeare for all who can afford it and who editions, nominally the fifth, sixth, and seventh of Johnson special reference to a dozen distinct wants. Thus we have look to the poet for direct enjoyment of his genius, not for and Steevens, include the corrections and illustrations of seen how Mr Nimmo, of Edinburgh, gives to the man of an independent literary study of his text. The Cambridge various commentators, and are commonly known as the smallest means, the handsomest and most satisfactory edi- Shakespeare is, on the other hand, above all things a first, second, and third variorum editions. Among the tion of Shakespeare that has ever yet been sold for five student's Shakespeare. Its text is not the best, because annotators were Bennet Langton, Thomas Warton, Dr Percy, shillings. For other readers, Mr John B. Marsh, of Man- it is based designedly upon the principle of holding fast by editor of the 'Reliques,' Dr Burney, Collins, the poet, chester, has compiled the Reference Shakespeare, a the words of the first folio and the quartos wherever those Sir William Blackstone, and men, known or unknown; Memorial edition of Shakespeare's Plays, containing 11,600 words will read with any sort of decent sense. The bolder some of the unknown being suspected to be pseudonyms references (4). This is a neatly printed and not costly critical faculty it is left for the reader himself to exercise under which Steevens printed the suggestions he did not volume of Shakespeare so ingeniously contrived, without any by help of the foot notes to each page, which give in the care to suppress, but was unwilling to acknowledge. These disfigurement of the pages, and so indexed, that the reader clearest and succinctest way a report of all variations in variorum editions have supplied the text to by far the may turn rapidly and easily to the whole series of scattered the early text and noteworthy conjectural readings of the greater number of the various publishers' reprints of passages in which the poet speaks of any notable topic, as later editors. There is no other edition of Shakespeare Shakespeare's works. Thus we have at the present time an War, Wives, Women, Wooing, Words, and so forth. To that gives the student such complete information of this edition of Shakespeare in one handsome octavo volume (1), enable this to be done the editor has gone through much sort, and gives it too so as to be readable at a moment's for five shillings, an edition, not of the Plays only, but of the pleasant and willing toil. This is the one great feature of glance, without troubling him to wade for it through even Plays and Poems-the complete works-and here the text the edition. Text has been less cared for, but chiefly Mr a line of verbiage. Mr Dyce gives us the best results of is the usual one of Johnson, Steevens, and Reed, but with Charles Knight's text, which approaches very near to that work. Messrs Clark and Wright clear the path and make a few amendments. There are prefixed to this edition a of the old folio, has been the one followed. The only new very straight the way for any man who wishes to work pleasant biographical sketch by Mrs Cowden Clarke, and reading in the volume, said to have been adopted from a out his own results by help of all the variations of old texts an alphabetical index to all the characters in Shakespeare's conjecture of the Rev. G. B. Babier, is a bad one. In and hints of previous interpreters whereof a knowledge is Plays. Appended to it is a tolerably full glossary. We Henry V., Part III., Act V., sc. 6, for "the raven rook'd essential to his purpose. It will be understood, therefore, believe this to be, comparing price and quality, the cheapest "her on the chimney's top " is read "the raven roop'd her," that the Cambridge editors, justly true to their principle edition of the poet that this year of Shakespeare publica- (i.e. cried hoarsely). But that is no matter. A nicely in keeping their text faithful to any form that is not indistions, or any previous year, has produced. It may be worth printed cheap double-columned edition, with a text that putable error or absolute nonsense in the old copy, have noting, as we pass, that Thomas Bowdler's attempt at a hugs closely the coast line of the folio is ingeniously fitted resisted temptation, and are entitled to credit for adherence modern polite Family edition of Shakespeare first appeared with the ready means of raising a whole covey of quota- to a system that was undoubtedly the one best fitted to in 1807, in four volumes, containing only twenty plays. tions from the great poet upon any leading subject of men's their peculiar purpose. If we wished, then, to read and The more complete edition, in ten volumes, appeared in thoughts. That is the specialty for which this volume enjoy a play of Shakespeare's we would take down one of 1818, and has since gone through about a dozen reprints. stands alone, may be preferred by some as their one Mr Dyce's volumes; if we wished to study its text we In many respects Bowdler's fastidiousness was ridiculous, edition, and used again by many as an auxiliary copy. would take down a volume of the Cambridge Shakespeare. and his form of text is being superseded by the Family text Quite in a place of their own stand again the handsome of an admirable Illustrated Shakespeare, edited by Mr and editions of Shakespeare in four volumes and in one volume says the editor, "so far from being a reprint of the Mr Dyce's new edition of his text of Shakespeare is, Mrs Cowden Clarke (2), of which more hereafter. of which the text has been furnished by Mr and Mrs edition which appeared in 1857, that it exhibits a text In 1826 an edition of Shakespeare in ten volumes, with Cowden Clarke (5). These differ only in typography."altered and amended from beginning to end." In his sixty plates, was edited by the late Mr Samuel Weller Both give the same text, the best text of Shakespeare former edition Mr Dyce indicated in notes many good Singer, and printed by the uncle of the present Mr Whit-that the best use of the editor's brains can procure after corrections made by critical conjecture, but was influenced tingham. Mr Singer's edition, revised by its editor and examination and careful testing of every suggestion upon by the wholesome reaction against over-boldness led by enriched with a Biographical Sketch of Shakespeare, and every disputed passage. The editors, Mr and Mrs Cowden Johnson and Malone, and, although not so blindly true to Critical Essays on the plays by Mr William Watkiss Lloyd, Clarke, are well known not only as diligent students of the first folios as Mr Knight was in the outset of his career as was published by Messrs Bell and Daldy in 1856. Shakespeare's text, which they edited for America in Shakespeare editor, he had more dread than he now has of The reaction against the license taken with the text by 1860, but as refined critics of his poetry. Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton, which dated from John- taken for granted, before examination (but we shall cheap form of the exact reprint of the first folio (especially It may be departure from it. Mr Booth's issue in a convenient and son's declaration in favour of the first folio that "they who proceed presently to examine it), that the taste and when the reprints of the first quartos of single plays are "had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read study of these editors would give a text clear of almost all added, as they must be added), will henceforth lighten many "it right than we who read it only by imagination," the stupidities into which a prosaic editor is apt to fall. an editor's conscience with assurance and knowledge that found its utmost expression in the eight-volumed Pictorial They abjure notes and all critical appendages. They have the original point of departure for every correction of the Shakespeare, commenced in 1838 by Mr Charles Knight, done their work critically, but wish its result to be a text is made familiar to the careful student; and Mr Dyce and of which a revised second edition was commenced in simple printing of the truest and most enjoyable text their 1842. Mr Knight made the first folio the foundation of best discrimination can produce. Except, therefore, the old text with its multifarious errors forms a more valuable expresses his present belief, that "an exact reprint of the his text, pointing out deviations from the text of the Preface, the Chronological title of Shakespeare's life, and "contribution to literature than a semi-corrected text, quartos, and in case of variation considered himself not a full and admirable glossary which includes not a few "which, purged here and there of the grossest blunders, at liberty to make up a text by selection, but accepting-original suggestions, we have the text and nothing but the "continues still, almost in every page, to offend against apart from obvious misprint-the later publication as an text of Shakespeare's plays and poems. And this we "sense and metre." The old just dread of wandering too authoritative correction of the previous one. An edition may have, either contained within a single very handsome far astray from the first record, is removed by the wide of Shakespeare, with introductory matter by Barry Corn- and even luxurious twelve-shilling volume, or yet more diffusion of such an exact reprint, which every indepenwall, in three large volumes, adorned with plates, chiefly luxuriously spread over four handsome volumes, which dent student of literature should place on his shelves side character sketches by Kenny Meadows, appeared in 1839, have the recommendation to a considerable section of the by side with the text of the modern editor on whose and was contemporary with the completion of Mr public that, although library Shakespeares and very hand-knowledge, taste, and judgment he has most reliance. And Charles Knight's first Pictorial edition. Partly contem- some books, the dearest of them will cost only half as much assuredly if knowledge, taste, and judgment are to be porary with Mr Knight's second or library edition as a library edition of the Cambridge or of Dyce's Shake-used freely in the editing of Shakespeare's text, there is in twelve volumes, commenced in 1842, was the library speare. no editor on whom we are so ready to rely as a reedition of Shakespeare in eight volumes, commenced Perfectly distinct sections of the public are again espe- fined classical scholar of proved taste, who adds to his by Mr J. Payne Collier in 1841, of which a second cially addressed by the three illustrated editions of Shake- wider culture that apt knowledge of Italian literature edition was published in 1853 and a revised edition, in speare which have begun to be issued in parts. That edited which is indispensable to a true understanding of our own six volumes, in 1858. Meanwhile, Mr Phelps, the actor, by Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke, who are theoretically no writers in the days of Elizabeth and James. Mr Dyce had published in 1851 an illustrated and annotated two- friends to a Bowdlerized text, is a concession to the require- now, after a long life devoted largely to the successful volume edition of Shakespeare, revised from the old text; ments of families sure to be made with reverent regard for study not only of Shakespeare but of the whole poetical and Mr J. O. Halliwell from a text in four volumes octavo, Shakespeare's poetry, and with as little as may be of undue literature of this country in and before Shakespeare's time, published also in 1851, had proceeded in 1853 to the com- squeamishness. Our purpose is in these comments to put brings all the trained powers of his intellect to the selecmencement of a sixty-guinea edition of Shakespeare in Shakespeare work to actual test, and in due time we shall tion or suggestion of those amendments in the original fifteen volumes folio, the text newly collated from the not omit to exemplify the dexterous handling of the text early editions, with illustrations and wood engravings by by Mr and Mrs Clarke, by comparisons with the rough adoption. He has prepared himself for critical perception corrupt text of Shakespeare which he judges to be worth Mr F. W. Fairholt, archæological notes, and the original mauling of Bowdler. The reissue, in cheaper form, of of the genius of Shakespeare by editing, besides Skelton novels and tales on which the plays are founded. Of this Mr Staunton's Shakespeare (6), with Mr Gilbert's bold and others, the dramatic works of Greene, Peele, Marlowe, costly edition ten volumes have appeared, only 150 copies and effective fancy pictures, differs again essentially from Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Shirley, and Middleton. being printed, and all the engravings destroyed after pub- the issue by the same publishers of a new and revised Our faith in his judgment was only strengthened by his own edition of Charles Knight's Pictorial Shakespeare, which distrust of it, shown in the complete absence of all rashness lication. Nearly contemporary with the second edition of Mr will be completed in eight volumes of thirty-two monthly in his first edition of Shakespeare's text; then the best Collier's Shakespeare, a work injured greatly by the free half-crown parts. Here the pictures are designed, not for extant, for it kept the pages clear of bad corrections, and acceptance of light that was not light from Mr Collier's artistic effect, but for instructive elucidation of the text, named such only to condemn them in the notes appended most unpoetical "M.S corrector" of the "Perkins folio," with transcripts of scenery, illustrations of costume, repre- to each play, while the good conjectures, when not allowed was Mr Dyce's first edition of Shakespeare, now recast. sentations to the eye of any objects mentioned in the text to supersede in the text the authority of the old book, were And this was immediately followed by the valuable edition that are no longer familiar. We have compared the first cited honourably in the notes, the proposer of each being of Shakespeare in three volumes, of which Mr Staunton part of this new edition with the corresponding pages of named. Thus in the Tempest Mr Dyce, in 1857, read with collated and annotated the text, and to which Mr John its predecessor, and find that the new work, which is the old folio, "Now would I give a thousand furlongs of Gilbert furnished pictures. For some years past notable printed on the finest paper, will be larger and handsomer," sea for an acre of barren ground,-long heath, brown editions of Shakespeare have appeared in pairs, with a that it contains many new pictures and woodcut ornaments furze, anything," and cited in a note Hanmer's correcrivalry more or less friendly. At the present time Mr to the pages, and that Mr Knight is, like his neighbours, tion, which he now admits into the text, "ling, heath, Dyce's new edition of his Shakespeare, with its revised bringing the fruits of experience and mature reflection to text, has for apparent rival the Cambridge Shakespeare (3), revision of his early text. We shall take future occasion edited by two Trinity men, Mr W. G. Clark, the Cam- to examine its text somewhat minutely. bridge Public Orator, a scholar to whose liberality of thought we have had some occasion to bear testimony, Dyce's new edition. They differ essentially. Mr Dyce's (1) Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo. (2) Cassell and Co. (3) Macmillan and Co. We come now to the Cambridge Shakespeare and to Mr (4) Manchester: John Heywood. London: Simpkin, Marshall, broom, furze, anything." The editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare, who, as we have said, do not depart from the first copy except to correct the most obvious and indis putable blunders, hold still by the "long heath" and "brown furze." Prospero's "provision in mine art" is now, according at least to modern use of the prefix, altered to "prevision; the Cambridge Shakespeare, following still the old text, holds to "provision." These comments arising out of only the first two scenes | a living thing was in sight, nor a sound to break the awful gloom of of the first play on which the volumes open, show how that dull road, circling half-way round the Devil's Punch Bowl, the important question of right text presses upon an editor except the distant grating of the gibbet's chain, or the sudden winging of some startled bird. The frightful hollow dived with a of Shakespeare in almost every page. Having fairly sudden plunge into the earth. Scooped like a cauldron out of the wild and barren ground, its depth looked awful, its wide expanse forming a monstrous circle, as if all the armies of the world had met together and dug it out as a huge pit in which to bury their dead. Mr Holl's book, however, is livelier reading than the Disputed Inheritance (3), in which Mr Thomas Hood, the younger, relates the history of a law-suit and its complications of smuggling and forgery, bigamy and murder, assigned to the reign of George the Second; and what shall we say of Skating on Thin Ice (4), with its eighteenthcentury version of the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, Mr Dyce now admits Hanmer's correction, which reads entered now upon this part of the discussion, we propose And thy father Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir This can be read into sense, but certainly not into such FIFTY NEW NOVELS. Every week, during the publishing season, some five or six new novels are issued in London, and the total of each year can hardly be less than a couple of hundred. It must week into which we have to squeeze our comments on be clear to every one that, in the dozen or more columns a current literature, it is not possible for us to give very much attention to that part of it which, if now-a-days it stand in need of very constant and very searching criticism, could not be fairly dealt with unless it monopolized all our space. To-day, however, we purpose putting together, with as much compression as possible, some of the notes including in the list two or three books of rather older date, and omitting from it many that are too worthless to be named at all, as well as a few that must be reserved for At sea, according to the folio, the ministers for the purpose that we have been accumulating during the last few months, A rotten carcase of a butt, not rigg'd as mother and son? wickedness supplies the chief interest of far too many. Let us hope that the plot of that novel is unique. But Mr Ralph Neville's Lloyd Pennant, a Tale of the West (5), is above the average. It gives some good sketches of Irish life at the time of the Rebellion. But its hero, the son of a convicted murderer, is thrown among villains of all sorts, and the author's appreciation of Irish humour may be gathered from his story of the yeomanry officer whose men rode about the country on mares with their foals following them, and who therefore had to make this variation to the usual halting order, "Rear rank, take open order, run "back three paces, and give the foals suck." A very much better Irish tale, and one holding inter Rowe, after Dryden here read boat and had, Mr Dyce in mits both. The Cambridge editors read, as did Mr Dyce in 1857, boat and have. But at Prospero's words "Now I arise " following Miranda's Would I might But ever see that man. separate consideration. In this way we may be able to thus give a more accurate representation of the entire subject than could be done by scores of separate notices. An orderly examination of our novels is certainly well worth making. The fictitious literature of an age is always a good reflection of its characteristics. The Mr Dyce now removes from the text to the notes the oldest English novels were either short coarse tales, interpretation by a hypothetical stage direction, "Resumes written chiefly to satirize the vices of kings and subjects, "his robe," for which Mr Collier's MS. corrector is the only priests and laymen, or long romances, full of warlike citable authority; and lapsing into doubt again Mr Dyce enterprises and love-prompted adventures; and they were leaves the line as a riddle yet unread. The Cambridge editors popular as long as the good and bad results of feudalism admit into their text the suggestion of a stage direction, and monasticism were apparent in the nation. Then fol"Resumes his mantle." We share Mr Dyce's hesitation, lowed a time in which the excellent development of the and believe the text to be corrupt. What, for example, drama and of poetry, under such guides as Shakespeare and if we may hazard a conjecture of our own, what if the Spenser, drew off men's thoughts from prose fiction, save "Now I were misprinted for "Do not?" The old when they turned for amusement to the long pastoral written D would resemble an N, the number and form of romances written in imitation of Sidney's Arcadia. Next strokes in a written w might cause it to be read as no, came the long series of novels beginning with Aphra Behn's and the tall t, whether or not accidentally disjoined by and culminating in the prose epics of Fielding, a series for the copyist, might pass for an I. When Miranda, kept many modern tastes too clearly reflecting the indifferent from sight of man, hears of the noble Gonzalo, she is moved morality of England under the Stuarts and the Georges. the more strongly for her repressed womanly instincts, and No less clearly was the spirit of the times nearer our own, in the first stir of admiration for some other man than her looking back to the past for warning or example and father, with a forward gesture, perhaps, of impatient looking also with microscopic zeal into the present for longing, rises as she cries, Would I might correction and strengthening, illustrated in much later works, as Sir Walter Scott's and Miss Austin's. And it is the same with the fictitious literature of to-day. Dickens, The strength of her impulse would then be indicated in Thackeray, Kingsley, and George Eliot will give to posthe poetry by Prospero's But ever see that man! Do not arise : Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. novels, while distinctly belonging also to the fourth, for it is a teetotal novel, the teetotal novel we might say, is Mr Michael Banim's Town of the Cascades (6). Forty years ago the brothers Banim began to write their 'O'Hara Tales,' and this single-handed work of the survivor shows him to have lost none of his old skill. But to this book we have given full separate notice, and so we need not describe it here. Excellent sketches from the life also, although an entirely different sort of life, are contained, as we need Beppo, the Conscript (7), and Giulio Malatesta (8). Beppo hardly say, in Mr Adolphus Trollope's last Italian novels, is a Romagnole peasant youth, enrolled against his will in the national army, and thus separated from the nut-brown maiden of his choice. A simple, well-sustained plot leads him through all his little troubles to the happiness proper to novel-heroes, but not till a very bright and true insight into the every-day life of a Romagnole peasant has been given. Giulio Malatesta draws another picture, and not a less interesting one, from Italian life. Giulio is the son of a wealthy nobleman, kept out of his rightful position for a time by the wrong-doing of his father and an illegitimate brother and the defective working of Italian law. The history of his troubles enables Mr Trollope to make clear many social and political grievances on the other side of the Alps, and to encourage much honest sympathy for the people who suffer by them. Novels of this sort-Dr Sandwith's Hekim Bashi, of which we spoke separately the other day, is a good specimen of it, and Captain Meadows Taylor's Tara, a Mahratta Tale, of which we ought to have spoken separately before now, is another-are comparatively new in our literature; and they have solid worth as well as novelty to recommend them. In Tara (9) we have a well-constructed, welldescribed plot, but the whole story is told with the special and very commendable purpose of illustrating Indian life of our difficulties in the management of our Indian empire. The scene is laid two centuries ago, and it is therefore, in one sense, an historical novel, but its lessons are for to-day, and its sketches of character and social ways, as seen among a people that seems to be incapable of change, are as true of the present as of the past. terity the best insight into the moral and mental characteristics of our present generation. Nor, if they live long enough, will the minor novels be bad subjects for study: We suspect that a good actress would know how to enforce The fifty of average ability that we have here grouped this reading, and make it an indication of Miranda's un- together give a very fair insight, it is to be feared, into the quelled natural instinct flashing a bright spark of dramatic dispositions of the readers for whose amusement they have life and character through Prospero's narrative. At any been written. rate we think such a change better than the conjectural It is not possible to classify them very precisely. But resuming of the robe to account for the words "Now I they can easily be grouped under four main divisions and manners, and of giving some help towards the solution "arise," at a place where Prospero has no reason for rising historical novels; the novels designed to illustrate the and resuming his robe, but only tells Miranda to sit still present condition of other countries; social or domestic and hear his story out; and we hold, therefore, that Mr novels, based on the circumstances of modern English life; Dyce's sound critical taste in receding from his former and, growing out of the latter class, novels " with a puradoption of that stage direction, and leaving the passage pose," as they are called, that is, written to show up open to some further conjecture, is at any rate unques- some special abuse or preach some special doctrine. tionable. There is a very good example in the same scene of the discreet boldness of Mr Dyce's new text. According to the first folio Prospero says to Ariel, Go make thyself like, (to, 2nd folio), a nymph o' the sea: The Cambridge Shakespeare here follows the first folio exactly. Mr Dyce in 1857 tried to make verse of the corruption without altering the words of the text, thus Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject Now, however, he fearlessly strikes out the obviously redundant words, accepts the 'to' of the second folio, and reads, Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea: Compare again Mr Dyce's adoption of Steevens's reading of "Come unto these yellow sands," which he had adopted also in the 1857 edition, with the reading of the first folio which is retained by the Cambridge editors. CAMBRIDGE. Come unto these yellow sands, Courtsied when you have and kiss'd The wild waves whist: Foot it featly here and there; DYCE. Court'sied when you have and kiss'd The historical novels are fewest in number, and least But if it is well that we should understand the social decided in character. The best of them is Mr Arthur Locker's Sir Goodwin's Folly, or Story of the Year 1795 (1). should make yet closer study of our own. problems of other lands and times, it is well that we Here-as Mr Sir Goodwin Anerley, an old widower, has made money by Dickens's writings by themselves abundantly testify-the the Jamaica trade, and spends it in foolish love-making novelist has fair ground for his work, and the opportunity to Harriet Norland, a lady of fashion according to of thereby doing an immensity of gcod. Novel-writers Mr Locker's view of fashion two generations ago. A cleverly-told story gives opportunity for a description of tales and romances issued now-a-days profess to be reare not slow in perceiving this. Three quarters of the London life at the time of the French Revolution. There flections of modern society, prepared for the sake of are swindlers and simpletons, gamblers and gambling- bringing its faults and foibles into day-light, and helping house women, enough to satisfy the present taste for strong to a better state of things. Too many, alas, have practiwriting and coarse scenes; but there is also a good picture cally an opposite effect. The low taste for startling and of the social and political turmoil in England occasioned by unnatural circumstances, which low writers do their best the much greater turmoil on the continent, with just censure to beget among novel-readers, shows itself in a crowd of of the vices that it brought to the surface. In describing trashy books, and has encouraged even some respectable the character of The King's Mail (2), by Mr Henry Holl, writers to spice wholesome novels with unwholesome almost the same words might be used. Its central incident incidents. This cannot last very long. The bad novels is the robbery of a mail-coach, towards the end of the will have this one good effect at any rate, that they will last century; and card-sharpers, blacklegs, and highway in due time nauseate their readers and produce desire men are its heroes. Their playground, however, is not for a more healthy class of writing. But while they London, but the weald of Sussex; and Mr Holl is partial to last their character is worth noting. Three dozen novels dull and dismal sketches of the scenery congenial to their frolics. Instance this, of the approach to the Hind Head on social topics, published within the last few months, will give us a fair notion of the sort of fiction prepared for Hills, near Blackdown: the great body of circulating library readers. Speaking roughly, one dozen may be said to treat of simple, everyday life, and to make their interest lie chiefly in the delineation of character and the description of homely incidents; while another dozen or so deal in coarse, violent plots and feeble-forcible sensation writing, much tintamarre and little or no thought, kept within the boundary of decency and morality. The rest seek to amuse by giving distorted pictures of life, with vicious people for their All was dark and bare, without a tree or shrub to break the trackless waste. Turning at a sharp curve the road twisted to the right hand, and, rounding a huge hollow, bore away under the broken hills which shut it in as in a cave, while stunted bushes, tangled and wild with thorns, hung drooping over the peaceful gorge, fringing its dreadful steep with overhanging shrubs and briars. And there before hanging in the creaking chains, a mouldering corpse swayed with a dull, heavy motion in the wind, and some way further on a wooden within. cross was raised, on which was inscribed how a poor traveller had been found upon that spot, cruelly murdered by unknown men. Not The wild waves whist- And, sweet sprites, the burthen And, sweet sprites the burden him, standing blackly out against the sky, a gibbet was set up, while, bear. Burthen [dispersedly). Hark! hark! Bow-Wow. bear heroes and heroines, and with more or less of impurity, although left a widow very soon, persistently refuses to fever and brings the novel to a thoroughly dismal end. designed or accidental, for the gist of their reading. marry the man to whom she had once been untrue. The But dismal incidents and elaborate cross-purposes are the Conspicuous among the first dozen is Mr Anthony book is a plain, straightforward love story, free from delight of too many young lady novelists. Joan Carewe Trollope's Rachel Ray (10). Mr Trollope is not a minor violent twistings either of nature or of morality; and (33), by E. M. O. L., has a heroine who marries a man novelist; but Rachel Ray is a minor novel. It is just therefore one of a class not to be condemned, at any rate. whom she hates and who hates her, and then goes for such a medley of good-tempered, right-minded women, To that class belong Dutton Cook's Leo (20), Leo or "brief nutriment for her heart-need" from the man she half silly and more than half vulgar clergymen, and other Leonora being a heroine, with fine, dark, satiny cheeks, really likes-"such was the imperious, piteous cry of both people more or less commonplace and frivolous, as Mr and luminous, melting brown eyes, and Not an Angel (21), "hearts, neither of them knew how the summons came, Trollope delights to string together, and does with some of descriptive of a heroine very charming, but frail and" but they felt it, and did not stop to analyse the sensations his best and most natural touches when he takes least faulty, and very unlike an angel; as well as A Simple Woman" that had given it birth, in the voice in which it spoke." pains at his work. These opening sentences fairly repre- (22), by the author of the Nut-Brown Maids, in which Then there is Adrian L'Estrange, or Moulded out of sent its style and purport: special pains are taken to put difficulties in the way of a Faults (34), the history of a young man who runs from There are women who cannot grow alone as standard trees; for very proper love-affair. Mr Austin Graham's Terrible the cousin that makes love to him to make love to a little whom the support and warmth of some wall, some paling, some post, Woman (23) has, on the other hand, a self-willed and French girl whom he is only prevented from marrying by is absolutely necessary;—who, in their growth, will bend and incline passionate heroine, a seduction, and all sorts of attendant the treachery of his uncle and his cousin's father. The themselves towards some such prop for their life, creeping with their complications. tendrils along the ground till they reach it when the circumstances elder man effects a sham marriage with her and drives her of life have brought no such prop within their natural and immediate Miss Julia Kavanagh's Queen Mab (24) is also a simple mad; whereupon the young man vows he will marry no reach. Of most women it may be said that it would be well for love-story with a touch of the sensational, but a vastly one, and straightway weds his cousin. Forbidden Fruit them that they should marry-as, indeed, of most men also, seeing better book. Queen Mab's real name is Mary O'Flaherty, (35), again, has two married heroines, and two heroes to that man and wife will each lend the other strength, and yet in heiress to large wealth in England and Ireland. But she whom they are forbidden and therefore much-coveted fruit. lending lose none; but to the women of whom I now speak some is sent away, under a pretence that she is dead, by the One of the ladies is fortunate enough to become a widow, kind of marriage is quite indispensable, and by them some kind of marriage is always made, though the union is often unnatural. A scamps who take possession of her fortune, and she grows so that she can marry her admirer; but the correspondence woman in want of a wall against which to nail herself will swear to be a woman, "neither pretty nor beautiful, but some of the other couple is discovered, and they die of "broken conjugal obedience sometimes to her cook, sometimes to her grand-"thing beyond both." Of course she regains her estate, hearts." In the sensation-novelists' world, however, there child, sometimes to her lawyer. Any standing-corner, post, or stump and marries the man who had innocently bought them; are plenty of survivors of like character. In Miriam's strong enough to bear her weight, will suffice; but to some standing- but before this piece of material justice is done, Miss Sorrow (36), Mrs Mackenzie Daniel introduces us to a corner, post, or stump, she will find her way and attach herself, and there will she be married. Kavanagh is able to lead her through divers adven- so-called gentleman who, having one wife in secret, tries to Equally harmless in its plot and gentle in its satire is tures, and to build up three volumes of very good get possession of another; while in Catherine's Marriage the history of The Browns and the Smiths (11), as told by work of another lady novelist, of whom readers have inextricable confusion of adulteries and murders, so nasty story-telling. Hardly as much is to be said for the new (37), by-is it Mr or Miss?-Earnest Irving, we have an the authoress of Anne Dysart.' The Browns and the learnt to think highly. Smiths are the Montagues and Capulets of Goslingford, Fortunes (25) is a complication of improbable incidents have been heaped together. Somewhat better than this, Holme Lee's Annis Warleigh's and so senseless that one wonders how it could possibly theological differences being the ostensible, and private related in a not very attractive way, only redeemed by the certainly, is Mr C. J. Collins's Sackville Chase (38); but jealousies being the real, cause of dispute. The chronicle of their little squabbles, not great enough to hide the natural right feeling and pure thought that pervades this one, in its hero, Lord Sackville, in his youth gets rid of his infant goodness that one always finds in commonplace and common with all other of the clever authoress's production. sister to find her again as a light woman, in his riper years uninteresting people, if one only looks for it, makes a sentence. Mrs Grey's Good Society, or Contrasts of plagued by the knowledge that his son and heir, as bad a Three other ladies' novels may be disposed of in a drives his wife into a workhouse, and in his old age is pleasant and instructive narrative, and leaves the reader in Character (26), is an unsatisfactory description of what man as himself, has died of delirium tremens. are described until they marry, are started in life, and has a heroine "full of enthusiasm that kept boiling up and are But is not a kindly state of mind towards his fellows. Opposite the authoress conceives to be the fashionable world of the title of one of these novels, the last we have patience Neighbours (12) is another novel of the same class, telling London, but what we are glad indeed that it is not; Mrs to refer to, Altogether Wrong (39), with a brothel-keeper in alternate chapters the story of two families living on Brotherton's Respectable Sinners (27) is, let us hope, for its here and a heroine who runs away from her opposite sides of the road, but very near to one another in another misrepresentation of west-end and country-house husband to serve as wife to another man, a fitting one for heart. In each there are several children whose fortunes life; and Not Quite the Thing (28), by an unnamed lady, all? Away with such vile trash! ready to become the principals in other homely and good-bubbling over when left to herself and aimlessly, or like large a share she has had in the encouragement of this sort One cannot think kindly of Miss Braddon, seeing how natured novels. Heathside Farm (13), by the author of the ivy sending its tendrils hither and thither, with of fiction. Here, however, let it be acknowledged in a Emilia Wyndham,' might be one of them. It is for the nothing to elevate and uphold it by lending support," sentence that Eleanor's Victory (40), although full of most part a history of the ruffled course of love between and who therefore marries a nobleman who, having begun stupidly invented incident, is the cleanliest that she has Silias, its pretty little heroine, and the man of whom she is able to say, on the last page, "Harry Thornton of Heathside, by her rushing up to the place of execution and producing ungrammatical Mrs Henry Wood, the other great promoter life as a chimney-sweep, is only saved from the gallows yet published. In Trevlyn Hold (41), the last novel of "serious, middle-aged Mr Thornton is the dearest and best "of men." the confession of the man really guilty of the murder for of sensation literature, there is some cleverness brought in In Passages in the Life of an Old Maid (14) we have which he had been tried and condemned. These three aid of a good moral. By a higher tone of mind and some another story of quiet country life, with not much that is stories, poor as they are, are written with a certain moral religious purpose Mrs Wood parts herself widely from noticeable in it, and certainly with nothing blameworthy; constructed solely, as it seems, for the piling up of impropurpose; but some of the dozen novels next on our list Miss Braddon. and For Ever, a Story of English Country Life (15), by bable circumstances and the production of startling effects. novels published within a twelvemonth. From one prolific writer of this sort we have three a Clergyman, professes to be of the same class. Here, A few of them, it is true, are clever and, in a sense, artistic. Chapel (42) is the sequel to High Church' and 'No however, there is a strong admixture of mysteries and The Bar Sinister (29), by Mr Charles Allston Collins, one of Church,' novels which, by reaching the dignity of onemarvels, a string of sensation scenes, and at least one the cleverest, is the history of an illegitimate daughter, who volume library editions, show that their skilful writing murder to relieve the monotony of village existence; and there is a false charge of murder in Chesterford, and Somesitive and mysterious over the stain upon her birth, but as in them, kindly satire is employed in breaking down might marry a major out of hand if she were not over sen. and honest purpose have been duly appreciated. In this, of its People (16), which is really a collection of disjointed because of the sensitiveness passes through a crowd of theological prejudices, and showing the good that underlies tales, bound together and strung in proper order by means strange adventures before she can be made a happy wife. the differences of party. Slaves of the Ring (43) serves a of one long connecting story. Mr and Mrs Faulconbridge, This is the first novel of an airy, witty essayist, brother to different purpose, as its title sufficiently implies, its object (17), by Hamilton Aidé, is a better novel, with a better Mr Wilkie Collins, and if not his equal in story-telling, his being, contrary to the general object of novels, to show the plot, and much more successful attempt at character- superior in sense of the humorous and grace of fancy. At miseries likely to result from marriages hastily contracted, painting. Mrs Pendarves, the old housekeeper, is one of the minor people in the story. She has come to the con- strain to be pleasant, ingenious, and graphic; the descrip- the others from the same pen, appeared anonymously. present his story a little drags sometimes through over- and the lees of muddy sentiment. These novels, like all clusion that all servants now is either fools or prigs." tion, for example, of the deserted gardens of the Tuileries The title-page of A Woman's Ransom (44), however, tells "Do you call this done, Mary," she says to the housemaid, who ought to have been dusting a bedroom; "if so, elaborated; so it is with other incidental sketches. These This Woman's Ransom, as is natural in the first work to on a wet day is very good indeed, but is too much us that the author is Mr Frederick William Robinson. our ideas of done is different. I can't abide a woman are but hopeful faults in the luxuriant growth of genius. which he chooses to append his name, contains his most "with a smart gown and dirty under pettic't; no more! We look for excellent things from the mature genius of careful writing and diligent elaboration of circumstances. "can't abide dirt out o' sight, even on the floor. Puh! Mr Charles Collins. The Bar Sinister is less an achieve. Its material is drawn from the Divorce Court, and its "how the room do smell o' scents that Mrs Bailey's always ment than the evidence of growing power to achieve. whole tenour is sensational; but the moral is wholesome, "been a using. Open the window, do. How often have Grace of Glenholme (30), by Mr W. Platt, an ingenious and there is nothing in it offensive to good taste and right "I told you, Mary, always to leave the winders open when and amusing weaver of good tales, tells of a foundling who feeling. "the folks is gone. No one can tell what they leaves "behind them, and it's unpleasant for them as comes the river that she may have no incumbrance on contracting among sporting novels, is Charlie Thornhill, or the Dunce proves to be the lawful child of a noble lady, thrown into Wholesome and refined, also, although to be numbered "after." The author of this novel quotes Mr Wilkie Collins in support of a prefatory request that no reviewer a second time through the plot of a wicked lawyer covetous Clarke, who gives promise of excellence in his craft. a new marriage, adopted by a rich old maid, almost drowned of the Family (45), the work of a new novelist, Mr Charles will tell his secret--to wit, that the persons called Mr and of her fortune, but at last made happy by marrying the Charlie Thornhill is a younger son, treated by the elders of Mrs F. are brother and sister-but that secret with every proper heir of her patroness, and so retaining the wealth his family as a stupid fellow, not worth the pains of helpother involved in it is transparent to every reader from the without depriving him of it. Happy also is the ending of ing on in the world. first moment when the author begins to construct his plot Barbara's History (31), in which Miss Amelia B. Edwards by a life of honesty and industry, passed among the sportsBut he reverses the judgment, and Uncle Crotty's Relations (18), by Herbert Glyn, is also traces the career of a silly girl, who devotes herself to a men and black legs with whom he first finds himself in a cheerful little sketch of country life, into which an find before long that he has another "wife" living in the with, in making a fortune for himself. man twice as old as herself, and gets him to marry her; to contact, and the bankers and merchants whom he has to do ambitious and mean rascal of a lawyer's clerk, the least same house with her. Therefore she runs away to Rome well-sketched character of the book, weaves a melodramatic and earns her own living there, until she finds that she, Monomaniac (46), is also a novelist new to us, although The author of Shirley Hall Asylum, or the Memoirs of a thread less brilliant and of coarser texture than the true and not her rival, is the lawful wife, whereupon she the title-page of the book states that he has already web of the tale. Uncle Crotty is too subordinate a character returns to her home, and all her husband's little weak written a Dives and Lazarus,' a 'Weaver's Family,' and to give his name to the plot, and the great expectations of inheritance that end in a penny piece carefully wrapped natural to absurdity. Sir Victor's Choice (32), by Miss power and a freedom from straining after effect which is nesses are forgiven and forgotten. The plot is un- a Margaret Meadows.' With remarkable descriptive in paper do not make so large a figure in the story Annie Thomas, is quite as violent in its incidents. as, perhaps, it was first meant they should. More Sir also notable, he here gives seven separate histories of people wholly free from the admixture of bad melodrame, who loves, and is loved by, his pretty cousin; but she, to sorts of idiosyncrasy rather than madness, and the whole Victor Cleeve is a handsome and romantic young gentleman who have found their way into a madhouse from different and therefore better, is Lady Emily Ponsonby's Mary spite her father, tries to make him marry one of her friends, is strung together into one narrative, something after the Lindsay (19), the history of a young lady who is betrothed and at last induces him to choose for wife a strolling actress, fashion of Mr Warren's Diary of a Physician,' but with to a poor officer, but, during his absence in India, marries and when, after a great deal of misery, that wife goes out more ability. Miss Clairvaux, the eccentric heroine of a rich admirer, who regrets it immediately after, but does of the world to make room for her, herself dies of a Meadowleigh, a Tule of English Country Life (47), is also her duty in the position in which she finds herself, and, upon it. (10) Chapman and Hall. (11) Hurst and Blackett. (12) Bentley. (13) Newby. (14) Saunders, Otley, and Co. (15) Hurst and Blackett. (20) Smith, Elder, and Co. (26, 27) Hurst and Blackett. (21) Sampson Low, Son, and Co. (28) Chapman and Hall. (29) Smith, Elder, and Co. unjustly sent to a lunatic asylum because of harmless oddities, albeit mixed up with a vast amount of real kindness, which affords an opportunity for selfish relatives to get rid of her and take possession of her property. Both these novels are written, partly at any rate, for the purpose of illustrating abuses in the law of lunacy. Foremost among writers of "novels with a purpose, however, stands Mr Charles Reade, and his Hard Cash (48) also is chiefly an attack upon the lunacy laws as at present administered. Mr Reade has gathered his information from "a multitude of volumes, pamphlets, journals, "reports, blue books, manuscripts, narratives, letters, and "living people," and used it very skilfully in the recital of his "matter-of-fact romance." One-sided, of course, it is, but Mr Reade does call attention to a great many very real abuses, and the value of his work is certainly not lessened by the fact that he preaches his sermon through a very clever and very interesting novel. The Wife's Evidence (49), by Mr W. G. Wills, is written with a different but quite as decided an object. Its interest lies chiefly in two trials. In the first the hero is charged with embezzling a large sum of money, but acquitted on the evidence of his wife, showing that the had been misappropriated by her brother alone; in money the second, he is charged with murder, and although the wife could have conclusively proved his innocence, she is not allowed to appear in court, and a verdict of "guilty" is passed, chiefly on the mistaken testimony of his own son, a child of seven years old. In these ways Mr Wills seeks to show the wisdom of the common law rule, "that it "shall be lawful for the Court to summon before it the "wife of any bankrupt, and to examine her after she shall "have made the declaration to speak the truth," and the corresponding impolicy of the other rule, "that a wife is "not competent or compellable to give evidence for or "against her husband in any criminal proceeding." Peculiar, a Tale of the Great Transition (50), by Mr Epes Sargent, an American, edited by Mr William Howitt, is a novel "with a purpose," or rather with three purposes. Peculiar is a Mississippi slave, who runs away and becomes a prodigy of goodness; and the story of his life, suggested of course by Uncle Tom's Cabin,' enables the author to propound his views; first, as to the wickedness of slavery, especially such slavery as he here represents, secondly, as to the justice of the Federal cause, and thirdly, as to the immense importance of the new truths unfolded by spiritrappers, spirit-mediums, and other impostors as foolish and audacious. It is well that Mr Sargent has urged in his work opinions that few sane Englishmen could think of endorsing, as thus they will be deterred from recklessly accepting his more specious arguments about slavery and the party politics of the Northern and Southern States. Having got to the end of our sermon, let us follow it up with an appropriate hymn from the May number of Blackwood. HOW TO MAKE A NOVEL. A SENSATIONAL SONG. Try with me and mix What will make a Novel, All folks to transfix In house or hall or hovel. Put the caldron on, Set the bellows blowing; Toora-loora leddy; Throw into the pot What will boil and bubble; "Tisn't worth the trouble. Where's the use of study? Here's the 'Newgate Guide,' Tumble in beside Poison, gun, and sabre. These Police reports, Those Old Bailey trials, Horrors of all sorts, To match the Seven Vials. Toora-loora, &c. Down into a well, Lady, thrust your lover, Stepdamer, sure though slow, Rivals of your daughters, Bring us from below Styx and all its waters. Crime that knows no bounds, Will carry well the farce on. Now it's just in shape; But with fire and murder, Might help it on the further. Tame is Virtue's school; And always a Detective. (48) Sampson Low, Son, and Marston. Hate instead of love, Gloom instead of Gladness; Stir the broth about; Now the Novel's ready. Toora-loora leddy; appended. An American, Mr Hiram Corson, has edited Chaucer's 'Legende of Good Women' with copious notes explanatory of peculiarities of language as an easy text book for beginners in the study of early English literature. A translation by Mrs Bushby of Hans Christian Andersen's book of travel In Spain' is the travel book of the week. Mr George P. Marsh, the American writer upon the English Language and Literature, offers this week to the English public, under the name of 'Man and Nature,' a work of considerable extent, of which the object is "to vindi"cate the character and, approximately, the extent of the "changes produced by human action in the physical con"ditions of the globe we inhabit; to point out the dangers "of imprudence and the necessity of caution in all operations "which, on a large scale, interfere with the spontaneous "arrangements of the organic or the inorganic world; to "suggest the possibility and the importance of the restoraLITERATURE. The Works of William Shakespeare.' Edited by "tion of disturbed harmonies and the material improvement Public Orator in the University of Cambridge; and William Aldis "illustrate the doctrine, that man is, in both kind and William George Clark, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, and "of waste and exhausted regions; and, incidentally, to Wright, M.A., Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge. Volume IV. "degree, a power of a higher order than any of the (8vo, pp. xv, 658.) Macmillan and Co.-Chaucer's Legende of Goode Women.' Edited, with an Introduction, and Notes, Glossarial and other forms of animated life." Critical, by Hiram Corson. (Fcap. 8vo, pp. xxxviii, 145.) Philadel- Flowers,' by a Lady, describe exceedingly well the British phia: Frederick Leypoldt. London: Trübner and Co. BOOKS OF THE WEEK. The Notes on Wild wild flowers of each of the months. The Rev S. H. Parkes's little book on Window Gardens for the People' explains the plan, rules, and result of an effort made in and about Little Coram street, by promoting home culture of cheap and hardy flowers, to improve the home life of the Shakespeare's plays in succession, describes the plants menvery poor. Shakspere's Garden' is a book which, taking tioned in each. TRAVEL.-In Spain.' By Hans Christian Andersen, Author of 'The of Twenty-nine Maps, containing the most recent territorial changes EDUCATION. Middle Class Atlas of General Geography, in a Series a versity College, Durham. With a Memoir of his Life.' Edited by the length and breadth of the land, are very neat and very Bishop of Brechin. (Fcap. 8vo, pp. c, 287.) Saunders, Otley, and Co.-helpful to the right harmonizing of geographical knowledge. An Earnest Appeal to Evangelical Episcopalians in Three Letters to FINE ARTS THE PICTURES OF THE YEAR.-I. the Rev. Charles Bridges, M.A., Author of "An Exposition of the Volumes. Maxwell and Co.- Hester Kirton.' By the Author of A Opening of the Royal Academy. Volumes. (Post 8vo, pp. 289, 312, 292.) Macmillan and Co.-Marion.' contents, after which, with the fruits of their toil before MONTHLY AND WEEKLY.-'All the Year Round,' Once a Week,' and 'Chambers's Journal.' Things Be? By ?. (8vo. pp. 13.) Cousins, Helmet court, Strand.-glued to a "Derby Day" or a "Ramsgate Sands" by Mr (8vo, pp. 20.) Liverpool: Daily Post Office.-Thames and Medway much skill to so little purpose, draws upon his work the C. Hodgkinson, M.A., Head Master of King Edward's School, Louth; will point centuries hence in evidence that in the reign of (8vo, pp. 23.) Macmillan and Co. Remarks on the Tendency and An artist capable of doing some such thing is Mr Mil- man and Hall. The Gamekeeper's Museum. A Series of Letters to swallowed up alive in a morass of sketches for the book- the Duke of Cleveland; Author of A History of British Birds,' &c. and is too young to retire from his best work, sell out his The fourth volume of "The Cambridge Shakespeare," pew, entitled My Second Sermon, sequel to My First The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say "But he strikes me though! "Those are some of the pictures of what is past, Charley." "Cut away again," said the boy, "and give us a fortune-telling one; a future one." and that is labelled Charlie is My Darling. There is a attire, slowly advancing against the tide of guests who, small portrait of Harold, Son of the Dowager Countess of with the man carrying the crowning dish of the peacock, Winchilsea, also in green velvet; there are two little girls pass in to their feast. The antithesis to Dante is presented in red velvet, with a screen behind them, a basin of gold in a fashionable minstrel poet, gay in red attire, with a fish before them, and spring flowers in their hands; they rich foolscap on his head and costly guitar by his side, who "Well! There am I, continuing with father and holding to are labelled Leisure Hours, and there is Lillie, the Daughter looks as a superior on dingy Dante, with a face physically father, because father loves me and I love father. I can't so much of J. Noble, Esq., also, if we remember well, in velvet. like enough to point strongly the intellectual contrast. as read a book, because, if I had learned, father would have thought I was deserting him, and I should have lost my influence. I have Of course it is very interesting to know that Mr Millais is Admirable, too, is Mr Leighton's Orpheus and Eurydice, a not the influence I want to have, I cannot stop some dreadful things studying velvet; but if there is any other fact to be got out study as finely conceived as it is well painted; and we like I try to stop, but I go on in the hope and trust that the time will of all these trivial works, painted skilfully, with little his Golden Hours, showing a Venetian musician with his come. In the meanwhile I know that I am in some things a stay thought, we have failed to discover it. What we face to us at a harpsichord, over which leans towards him, to father, and that if I was not faithful to him he would-in want to see is the bright undoubted genius ripening showing us her massive back, an attentive lady of luxuriant into works largely designed for the best utterance of what proportions and in rich attire. revenge-like, or in disappointment, or both-go wild and bad." "Still in the hollow down by the flare." "Ha, ba! Fortune-telling not know the name!" cried the boy, seeming to be rather relieved by this default on the part of the hollow down by the flare. "Pupil-teacher." better, and you rise to be a master full of learning and respect. But "Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your taking it (which he never could be), that way of yours would be way is not ours, and that even if father could be got to forgive your darkened by our way. But I see too, Charley it can express. As the world goes, there is no man of There is a wonderfully elaborate piece of minute painting genius who cannot earn more money by stopping on his by Mr J. F. Lewis, the Court Yard of the House of the course to flatter with superior skill the weakness of the Coptic Patriarch, Cairo, where the paved floor and the multitude than by pressing upward steadily towards the all-reflecting surface of the fountain pool is mottled with "There seems to be the deuce-and-all in the hollow down by the highest mark of his ambition. But the nobler course is sunspots that pass through the overhanging foliage, a flare," said the boy, glancing from her eyes to the brazier, which had not a way of poverty, and has been usually chosen by the foliage alive with doves; as the pavement, too, is alive a grisly skeleton look on its long thin legs. nobler minds. We cannot believe that Mr Millais will be with doves, ducks, birds, a cat, dromedaries of the "There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from father, long content play his present part of Triton among he Arabs, who are to set off with the despatches that the at the school; and you get prizes; and you go on better and better; and you come to be a-what was it you called it when you told me minnows, when he sees how he is gained upon by younger Patriarch is writing, Arabs, idling slaves, one toying about that?" and apparently more earnest competitors, Mr H. S. Marks with a cut melon, and so forth. Mr Lewis exhibits or Mr E. Crowe, for example. Mr Crowe's picture of Dean also three smaller studies of Oriental life carefully Swift looking at a Lock of Stella's hair is painted with a elaborated. There is Sir Edwin Landseer, too, in force vigour of true feeling, ennobling its precision of detail, that with a bullfinch singing to a pair of squirrels as they sit makes it worth, as a work of art, all the five pictures this over their nuts, Piper and Nut-crackers. Those squirrels, year contributed by Mr Millais. Mr Crowe's other with their life-like nibbling noses and their fur that asks to picture of Luther posting his theses on the church-door of be stroked, will be the delight of every woman's eye. Wittenberg is a more difficult work, containing many We do not care much for the equestrian portrait of a lady figures, a work full of a fine earnestness, with evidence of with a slain deer and a royal footman in Windsor Park; a mind everywhere working through the eye that massed but for the remarkable picture entitled Man proposes God all its details. The manner of introducing Luther's family disposes, we claim exemption from the censure that will "Still as plain as plain can be, Liz?" asked the boy playfully. into a group is admirable. Mr Marks, too, is developing sometimes rise before the spirit of the work is felt. Two "Ah! Still. That is a great work to have cut you away from his sense of medieval humour, and his works every polar bears have found in the waste of thick-ribbed ice the father's life, and to have made a new and good beginning. So there am I, Charley, left alone with father, keeping him as straight as I year increase in value and importance. His picture bones of a brave Englishman. One tears with its paw can, watching for more influence than I have, and hoping that -Doctors differ-of the two physicians, one fat, furred, at the Union Jack still cleaving to a half-embedded spar, through some fortunate chance, or when be is ill, or when I don't and immovable, the other lean and eager, who while the other is lapping in its tongue and teeth for luxurious know what-I may turn him to wish to do better things." the nurse waits at the door discuss a case in the sick crunch a rib of the skeleton, whereof, as it lies in the cleft "You said you couldn't read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the hollow down by the flare, I think." man's antechamber, has humour in it that would have of ice, only a part of the rib-case is visible. It is very "I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my contented Molière. Another of his pictures on the text, easy to call this horrible, without feeling that it is so. want of learning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much "Say not to thy neighbour, Go and come again, and to- Bone is but bone, and to the hungry bear it matters little more, if I didn't know it to be a tie between me and father."morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee," repre- whether it be bone of man or bone of mutton. There Dickens's Our Mutual Friend.' sents in a medieval street a blind old piper with an empty is nothing ghastly in the aspect of a rib-bone, and wallet, and the little child that leads him, hungering be- seeing how long a man must lie in the cold north THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. tween bread and water. On one side of poverty is the before his flesh can waste to a dry skeleton, we The note of preparation for the resumption of active operations in churlish baker at his shop-door, framed as it were in a may accept Sir Edwin's emblem of arctic inhospitality Virginia has been sounded, orders having been given on the 8th inst. by wealth of loaves and with a full pouch at his side; on the with as much equanimity as a man's own disembodied General Grant to revoke all furloughs, to direct baggage to the rear, and sutlers to leave the army. Letters from Washington state that a other side bitter-faced women are drawing water at the well; spirit may feel, when he sees what becomes of the bones threefold advance on Richmond-namely, by Grant across the Rapidan, and there is a background of fat oxen drawing through that he had done with yesterday or centuries ago. Smith up the Peninsula, and Burnside via Goldsborough, North the street a heavy load of the grass that all flesh is. This Wantonly to depict mere ghastliness of death is bad in Carolina has been determined upon. We learn by a telegram received artist's other picture is of a desolate old widow in her cloak art, but a man's dry rib-bone is not more unsightly at New York on the 15th that General Grant had left Washington for of yellow frieze and her white wimple, with a little child than the bone of any of the lower animals, that the most and an immediate advance was expected. The following are general the army of the Potomac. The roads in Virginia were rapidly drying, asleep beside her in the House of Prayer, to illustrate the dainty lady can, with her own hands and without a items of war news: General Forrest's forces captured Fort Pillow, on prayer from the Litany, "That it may please Thee to shudder, scrape and pick. So let us protest in advance the Mississippi, by assault on the 12th. Four hundred out of the "defend, and provide for, the fatherless children and against all mock squeamishness over the very natural garrison of six hundred men are stated to have been killed. Telegrams "widows, and all that are desolate and oppressed." If behaviour of these two bears. state that the Confederates killed all the negroes and many white troops after the capture. It is reported that they are now moving on Mr Millais chooses to stand still, others do not; and he There are four pictures by Mr Stanfield; a charming Memphis. The repossession of Fort Pillow again closes the Mississippi. must either do more justice to his powers or see from time little pair called Peace and War; the Mew Stone, The Confederates took possession of the town of Paducah, and have to time several readjustments of the relative weight of Plymouth Sound a bold sea-beaten wedge of rock, and a bit evacuated it after removing large numbers of horses and other spoils. reputations in himself and his competitors. of the picturesque On the Hollands Diep near Willenstadt. Unfavourable rumours are current in New Orleans concerning the We must confess that on behalf of English art we look Mr Creswick is well represented by some beautiful cool Federal situation on the Red River. Two hundred Federals have been with envy at Tidemand's picture of An old Norwegian Duel, landscape, through which sheltered waters flow. Mr barricaded against an attack. The Federal Arkansas expedition is which occupies the centre place in the North room. If Roberts exhibits, besides a Flemish chapel interior, a broad still advancing towards Texas. It has had two successful skirmishes. we could but get from artists of our own three or four panorama of the Castle of St Angelo, and part of Rome, pictures in a year rich as this is in variety and contrast seen from the gardens of the Villa Barberini. Mr Hook's captured near Alexandria, Louisiana. The streets of Alexandria are ASSOCIATION OF FRENCH PROFESSORS.-An Association of the all who may need their services, masters of undoubted moral character of expression, with truth and poetry in every corner of chief studies this year are of the life of Cornish miners Professors of French established in England has been formed in it, and in the whole such unity! It is a picture of the Under the Sea. Mr Webster contributes two pictures. London, with the following very laudable objects: To improve the fray after a feast in the great, dim, smoky Scandina- One represents two men Playing at Draughts; the other is intercourse between the professors. To afford assistance to members of teaching of the French language in England. To promote friendly vian house-place, where one strong man lies on a bench a scene of young life in the village street before a peep- the association in time of need, and to act as a medium of communication fainting or dying under stroke of the axe, the other is show of the Battle of Waterloo. Mr Thomas Faed's picture between the professors of French and the principals of schools and led off by his Norse seaman-comrades with a broken head, Baith Faither and Mither tenderly represents the strong heads of families. The main object of the institution is to provide, for and children shriek in alarm; men threaten or counsel or rough hands of a rustic cobbler fitting home-made gloves and of guaranteed talents and attainments, as the admission to the look quietly on; crones look experienced, and fair young on the hands of his motherless daughter,-one little hand association is subjected to such conditions as may insure this object. girls-like her whose fresh rounded cheek gleams by the of the pleased child between the two great loving fists,- MUNIFICENCE OF A YACHTSMAN.-The late Mr F. R. Magenis, of sparks that rise from the wood fire like a poet's vision of in preparing her for the school to which several (un- the Royal Thames Yacht Club, has left the National Lifeboat Institu innocent peace amid the turmoil-show themselves bred to gloved) schoolfellows wait by his side to go with her. tion a legacy of 1,000l. He had previously been a munificent contrithe life about them, blossoms born to abide the pelting of Here we must break off the record for to-day, only ob- lifeboat and half that at Walmer, the other moiety having been given butor to its funds, and had defrayed the entire cost of the Tenby the northern storm. Turn from figure to figure, and serving that this year's Exhibition is, of course, well by the Royal Thames Yacht Club. These lifeboats have saved twentyfrom face to face in this picture, and everywhere sprinkled with Princes and Princesses of Wales, including four shipwrecked persons since they have been on their stations. there is life, action, and expression. The colouring looks a picture of the landing of the pair at Gravesend between THE CONCORDAT IN MEXICO.-"The clerical press," says the Indécold in the blaze of bright tints wherein English art a hot fire of red opera cloaks. pendance, "had spread a report that the Emperor Maximilian, during his stay at Rome, had signed a concordat with the Holy See. Our delights; but there is not a touch of commonplace. There Paris correspondent puts us on our guard against the assertions of the are touches in it of domestic poetry and feeling, but not ultramontane journals. The question was, he says, touched on between of the sort that leads an English R.A. to present to us this! "Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite the Pope, Cardinal Antonelli, and the Emperor of Mexico, but his year a study of his daughter making a kettle-holder of baby that never knew a motherMajesty replied that, before coming to any decision on a question on bright Berlin wool. Of the simple domestic mother and "Don't go saying I never knew a mother," interposed the boy, which the future welfare of his new country depended, he must first "for I knew a little sister that was sister and mother both." examine the situation, and maturely study the wants and wishes of his child picture, we have, however, this year a charming pair from Mr H. O'Neil, called Awake and Asleep (which, tears, as he put both his arms round her waist and so held her. The girl laughed delightedly, and her eyes filled with pleasant people." 1 THE WEATHER.-The bulletin of the Paris Observatory has the being a pair, are hung, one in the East, and the other in "There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work following remarks: "A heavy tempest raged on Saturday last in the the West room, at opposite poles of the Exhibition). A and locked us out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of Black Sea, where on the previous day we thought that the wind would mother, in blue, has on her lap and in her arms a child in window, sitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-stepe, sitting Agitation has reappeared in the Mediterranean; the its white night-dress, now just awake and now just fallen You are rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often obliged to to-day blowing heavily from the north-east. The sea is very rough at on the bank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. wind, which was yesterday very strong at Barcelona from the east, is asleep. They are very pretty studies. rest. Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, that port, as well as at Cette and at Toulon. The coasts of Italy are Mr Phillip exhibits, besides a portrait of Lord Dalhousie, sometimes we are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, still calm, but there is reason to fear that they will be also affected. a work of mark called La Gloria: a Spanish Wake. A but what is oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, The barometrical pressure has risen in the west, but remains strong in mother in black, with a tambourine beside her, mourns Charley?" the north of Europe, but clouds reappear, going from the west towards at the entrance of the little cell in which her dead child" that I snuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there." "I remember," said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, the east, and the winds, which are weak in the north and west of Europe, have a tendency to turn towards the west. The period of the lies in state, and she is being urged to rise and join with "Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of north-easterly winds, which generally prevail in the spring, appears to her tambourine the guitar-players, to whose music the that: sometimes it's dark, and we get among the gaslights, sitting be drawing towards an end." Does it?" GAFFER HEXAM'S CHILDREN. a become violent. peasantry who wake the dead are enjoying a gay dance. watching the people as they go along the street. At last, up comes father and takes us home. And home seems such a shelter after out THE DEATHS IN LONDON LAST WEEK were 1,384, an excess of Here there is the effect of a vivid contrast, and there are of doors And father pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at the 73 over the average. The deaths from bronchitis declined from 197 plenty of well-painted animated figures in good groups; fire, and has me to sit by him while he smokes his pipe long after and 173 in the two previous weeks to 136 last week; pneumonia but one cannot dream over their faces, as one may dream you are abed, and I notice that father's is a large hand but never a from 104 and 116 to 94. But both diseases are more fatal than is over faces in the Scandinavian picture. heavy one when it touches me, and that father's is a rough voice but usual at this time. Measles was fatal in 35 cases, scarlatina in 50 Mr F. Leighton exhibits a large picture of Dante in never an angry one when it speaks to me. So, I grow up, and little cases, diphtheria in 14, whooping-cough in 59, and typhus in 60. Two Exile, rigidly melancholy, book in hand, poor and sober of be put out as he may, never once strikes me." by little father trusts me, and make me his companion, and, let him men, one in the Westminster-bridge road, the other in Pancras Workhouse, died at the age of 97 years. |