success. particular branch, Croft, Sims, Knighton, Clarke, Merriman, Ramsbotham, and a troop of minor celebrities. They were one and all known to me, as they were, in fact, to the whole population of London. But to them I was an unknown cipher. How could I expect any important business to fall to my lot? Yet the sequel of this narrative will show that I was wrong in my misgivings, and that my more sagacious counsellor in Conduit Street was right in his prognostic of my Mrs. Wagner of Pall Mall was only the commencement of a list of engagements, some in and some out of town, and each case improving in importance and respectability. I had overheard, in the course of this increasing connexion, people, especially husbands and fathers, making remarks as to my age and youthful appearance. I was not descended from the consular family of the Barbati of Rome, and my cheeks were very smooth. I had, however, from the very commencement of my practice, taken care to assume the garb of a much older person, by adopting the dress I saw Sir Henry Halford, Dr. Latham, and other popular physicians wear, at which the sprightly M.D.s of the present day would laugh indeed. Yet was that style not only in fashion then, but positively expected in a practising physician. So I donned a square-cut coat of black cloth, a single-breasted black cloth waistcoat, descending low down, showing off the well-starched frill of an irreproachable white shirt, smalls with knee-buckles, black silk stockings, and buckles in shining black narrow pumps. I did not adopt the gold-headed cane as well, but wore powder and a broad-brimmed hat, which completed the dress. It certainly added age to my appearance, and I was not long in getting used to it, as I had done to the more theatrical transformation in the Levant, when I assumed the Turkish vestments; but, oh! how different, with the bother of buttons and buckles in the present instance! Fortunately, the dons in physic whom I had taken for models soon swerved from the stiff practice, to become more modernized in their views, and I was not long in following their steps by adopting the more ordinary day garb of all gentlemen." Dr. Granville had some of the Bonapartes for patients. This fact enables him to tell an episode in the life of Louis Napoleon. The Doctor was with the Count de Survilliers (Joseph), who had had a fit of apoplexy, and was about to repair to the Continent : "And now comes that episode in the life of the count which is entwined with an unpublished page of the 'Biographie de l'Empereur Napoléon III, a page which recalls a fact suppressed by order, as calculated to embarrass the readers in the choice of a right appellative to be affixed to the conduct about to be described. The principal state-rooms and adjoining cabins were retained on board the Batavier, a Dutch steamer, to convey the count and suite to Rotterdam, and thence by a Rhine boat to Carlsruhe. Passports had been procured from the Dutch, Baden, and Wurtemburg authorities, through whose states the party would have to pass or reside in. Sunday, July 26th, 1840, was the day on which we were to set off from the south side of the river, below London Bridge, and the whole party were conveyed to the vessel and embarked. On deck they were joined by Prince Louis, who had come to bid adieu to his uncle. A meeting had taken place the night before, during which the count had recalled to the prince's recollection the solemn promise he had given not to embark in any fresh plots which (he added) 'compromettaient l'honneur et le nom de la famille Bonaparte, et rendaient plus difficile la réhabilitation en France de telles de ces branches qui désireraient y rentrer.' On the present occasion we were standing on the quarter-deck in front of the state-room. The count, supported on one side by his secretary, whilst my hand was under his right arm on the other, stood facing Prince Louis, who seemed at the moment affected by the scene. Before him he beheld the eldest brother of the great founder of his dynasty, who had himself But filled two kingly thrones, now a wreck in health and prospects, having no country of his own to live in, about to quit one strange land to proceed to another equally strange to him, with but a faint hope of returning quite recovered-perhaps not at all! The prince must really have felt the precarious situation of a most excellent relative, from whom he was about to part perhaps for ever. the bell for visitors to leave the ship sounded, and the nephew and uncle separated-Joseph still holding the hand of Louis, repeating these words: Point de complots, entends-tu? Garde ton argent pour des meilleurs occasions! Quand la France voudra de nous, elle saura nous appeler. Soyez tranquille, mon oncle,' was the reply; Vous pouvez compter sur moi,' retreating one or two steps in the meanwhile.-Vrai?' cried the uncle, with tears in his eyes. Ma parole d'honneur, exclaimed the prince, with one hand on his heart, and he was gone. I hear those words ringing in my ears even now as I am writing a circumstance which I recorded in my note-book in the stateroom of the steamer, whither we immediately withdrew, my patient perfectly exhausted, as he himself declared." 6 The landing at Boulogne was at the above moment organized! For other incidents, we must refer our readers to the work itself. NEW FRENCH NOVELS. Aventures Extraordinaires d'un Homme et de Trois Femmes. Par le Prince J. Lubomirski. (Dentu.) La Vie à Deux. Par Louis Énault. (Hachette.) Mémoires d'un Décavé. Par Fervacques. * * Le Roman des Femmes qui ont aimé. Par Paris à tous les Diables. (Same publisher.) Rose. Par E. Cadol. (Dentu.) Mademoiselle de Cérignan. Par Maurice Sand. (Michel Lévy.) Finette. Par Gontran Borys. (Dentu.) La Vengeresse. Par Albert Delpit. (Same Rachel. Par Alfred Assollant. (Same publisher.) publisher.) La Chiffarde. Par Eugène Chavette. 2 vols. (Same publisher.) those which we noticed last winter. We have As a specimen of the system, let us quote a paragraph from the Paris-Journal of one day last week, puffing the re-issue of a book which had already appeared in detail in its columns, and which heads our list :-"The new volume of our friend and colleague, Prince Lubomirski, which will be published to-morrow by Dentu, will produce a real sensation in the literary world. The Prince, whose successes can no longer be numbered, has been able," and then follows a criticism in the same tone, which, by the way, precedes a paragraph in which the United States Minister is once called "Sir Elow Washburn," and once "Sir Gratio Washburn." Prince Lubomirski's book is, after all, only a collection of ridiculous stories, of which only one or two serious ones at the end of the volume-which are pictures of Russia-have the smallest interest or value. The clever author of 'Le Secret de la Confession,' M. Louis Énault, is not equal to himself in his new volume, which contains two very gloomy and uninteresting stories of "vie à deux," and in addition, under the title of 'La Race Maudite,' a dull review article on the gipsies. M. Belot, whose novel stands third upon our list, is a writer whose plays and novels have, during the last three years, met with extraordinary success. 'Le Testament de César Girodet,' 'Mademoiselle Giraud, ma Par Pierre Véron. Femme,' 'Le Parricide,' and 'La Femme de Feu,' are works of his which, on former occasions, we have noticed in terms which their ability deserved, although the last named was a book which decent people could not read. 'Hélène et Mathilde,' which is already in its ninth edition, although it has been out but a sive for being true. very short time, is a story all the more repulIt is well-we had almost said nobly-told, but the point open to question is whether it was right to tell it. It is laid in the year of the war,-the year in which, if we mistake not, it really occurred,although with actors of other names and other callings. The characters are six. A banker and his wife and daughter. A great painter with a charming wife much younger than himself. His favourite pupil. The pupil, married to the banker's daughter, has been, up to his marriage, the lover of his wife's mother. The painter's wife, at first suspected, afterwards, with her equally good husband's knowledge, allows suspicion to continue to rest on her, for her friend the banker's daughter's sake, but the story ends with a tragedy. Not a pleasant picture of life, but a true story, as we have already said. Le Chevalier de Keramour. Par Paul Féval. (Same publisher.) Fontaine aux Perles. (Same author and publisher.) Le Loup Blanc. (Same author and publisher.) Droit au But. Par Amédée Achard. (Michel Le Mari de Charlotte. Par Hector Malot. (Same publisher.) THE novels which have appeared during the last eight months in Paris are less corrupt in morality, but, at the same time, less clever, than the title of Les Délicats,' we pass on to a After mentioning two tolerable stories under book which is not a novel, but a collection of Paris notes, but which may be classed among books ought, if not to observe the probabilities, We now come to three of M. Paul Féval's impossible productions, in which master and servant, hailing from the far north-west of France, are always journeying by the great road to Paris, armed to the teeth, and killing ten men a-piece daily before breakfast. They are mere faint shadows of the Three Musketeers" of our youth. One of them positively opens with Mr. G. P. R. James's "Two horsemen." Here is a bit from Le Loup Blanc.' A servant asks his master why he wishes to see the regent. "Je veux le tuer !' Jude se reprocha de n'avoir point deviné une chose si naturelle. 'A la bonne heure!' dit-il, bien.' Et il reprit sa tranquillité habi the novels and stories, as one of which it is We can warmly advise our readers to peruse the two books which follow M. Houssaye's volumes upon our list, and which are collections of short stories and sketches. 'Le Bal du Diable,' which is illustrated with very pretty vignettes by Bestall and others, contains four stories, all of them good. Paris à tous les Diables' is a medley of sketches-some good, some bad-on every conceivable subject, most of them being thoroughly_readable. One story, called 'Le Capitaine Hartmann,' is about the Prussians, and consequently, of course, ridiculous; but one, entitled 'Le Courtier Dramatique,' on "leg-pieces" and the decline of the stage, and one, A bas l'Hippodrome,' on the military vanity of the French and its absurdity, are excellent indeed, we have read nothing better for a long time. We can also praise a story called 'Rose,' by M. Cadol, and 'Mademoiselle de Cérignan.' The latter is a gracefully written story, founded on the First Consul's campaign in Egypt. Finette' is a long story in a volume which contains also a shorter one, called 'Dans les Cendres.' We cannot give them much praise. Finette is a young lady who barks like a dog. Perhaps the story is meant for a burlesque of M. Amédée Achard's 'La Vipère,' the heroine of which is a young lady who coils herself up, and hisses like a snake. 'La Vengeresse,' which, like the first book upon our list, originally appeared in the Paris-Journal, is perhaps as ridiculous a novel as was ever written. Its English hero is called "Lord Willie Pérégode." Need we say more? "Rachel" is an actress who marries a "Felix," an unfair use of real M. Assollant's is, as a whole, not a good novel; but it contains one good sketch of character, that of the manager of a country theatre,-Père Froment. 'La Chiffarde' is a criminal novel," and not a good one. Such names. 666 M. Louis Ulbach, in his political novels, hardly observes the historical probabilities, for his hero, when a State prisoner under sentence of death, is left unwatched, and attended only by his gaoler's daughter-in fact, he enjoys confinement à la Bazaine. On the whole, however, his books are good, though he exposes himself to hostile criticism by venturing on ground which, in 'Scènes de la Vie Politique,' Balzac has made his own. M. Louis Ulbach's Preface to his Compagnons du Lion Dormant' is admirable in tone. He explains that he continues in his present work the Roman de la Bourgeoisie,' which he began in 'La Cocarde Blanche'; that, after having drawn the patriotic anguish of the bourgeois of 1814, he wishes to draw his hopes under the Government of the Restoration, and his triumph in July, 1830; that "as during the reign of Napoleon the Third the writer felt himself bound to tell the truth about Napoleon the First, so now, in writing of the alliance between the Liberals and the Bonapartists under the Restoration, he feels bound to do justice to the generous illusions and the worthy beliefs which caused an alliance as terrible in its consequences as, at the time, it seemed necessary and patriotic." There is a great deal more of this good sense in M. Louis Ulbach's Preface, but we repeat that he is too much on Balzac's ground to be fairly judged. When we speak of "improved morality," we must make an exception in the case of the books published by one firm, that of Sartorius. M. de Montépin's two which are on our list are, under the mask of high morality, immoral stories of his usual type. In 'Les Tragédies de Paris,' he bitterly attacks the immoral novels of the last century! This work is published by the firm Sartorius, and on the cover the publisher puffs other works, also published by him, as being so immoral, that their sale at railway stations has been forbidden by the censorship! We abstain from noticing the other new novels of this firm which are by less known authors, and stupid as well as indecent. While we are upon this unpleasant subject, we cannot but observe that never during the Empire did we see such books as Nocturnal Paris,' sold publicly by "highlyrespectable" booksellers in the best quarter of the town, although they bear no publisher's name. The two newest novels of the new, with which we conclude, are both above the average. M. Amédée Achard, author of 'La Vipère' and of 'Madame de Villerxel,' reviewed by us on former occasions, gives us his best book in Droit au But.' In its first few pages, a young lady, as usual, refuses the parti offered to her by her mother. But she substitutes for the young count an elderly stockjobber, to whom she proposes, and by whom she is accepted. Somewhat modern this! but the book is very clever, and one to be read with pleasure by those who are not averse to a perfectly brutal cynicism. In 'Le Mari de Charlotte,' M. Hector Malot, the author of the famous 'La Belle Madame Donis' and 'Un Mariage sous le Second Empire,' and the author, too, of the still better Clotilde Martory,' and of the admirable work of which the first volume is called 'Le Mariage de Juliette,' and the second 'Une Belle Mère,' reviewed by us in the early spring of this year,—gives us a novel a good deal below his usual mark, but still readable. As our readers may wish to know what are the chief novels likely to appear in Paris during the next six months, we may announce 'La Bande Cadet,' by M. Paul Féval, which is being more puffed than ever novel was before, and which will be, not another tiresome mediæval Breton story, but a modern romance. M. Amédée Achard is engaged on an historical novel, Cape et Épée, and M. Louis Ulbach is publishing as a feuilleton in Le Rappel, 'Les Cinq Doigts de Birouk.' MR. MILL'S POSTHUMOUS ESSAYS. Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism. By John Stuart Mill. (Longmans & Co.) THE "Autobiography" that appeared some little time ago revealed Mr. Mill in a light which to many was new and strange. They could not recognize in this creature of emotion and sensibility, who attributed so much power over human life and the most important affairs of men to imagination and feeling, the cold reasoner and skilled analyst they had alone supposed him to be. The "crisis" of Mr. Mill's early mental life of which the "Autobiography" tells, and which was only surmounted when, under the influence of Wordsworth's poetry and of his own reflections, he learned to recognize the reality of other spheres of experience than were disclosed by the "dry light" of thought, was the reaction against the one-sided training of his boyhood. His nature avenged itself for the over-cultivation of the purely cognitive and analytic elements in youth by the subsequent development of feeling and imagination in probably disproportionate force. fitted the education he received under his father may have been to train to their highest capacity his reasoning powers, the life of emotion for which his nature craved was chilled by it; and, thrown back on his own resources for the sympathy he needed, it is not surprising Mr. Mill became what we see him in the "Autobiography" and the Essays. It is idle to speculate what, under a more natural system of training, he might have become. But the lesson his life cannot fail to teach is the inability of the most sedulous intellectual training, if carried on at the expense of the other elements of our nature, to supply, or to enable its subject to supply for himself, a satisfactory philosophy of life. However Mr. Mill attained to no positive conclusions, such as his intellect could accept and work with, regarding the first principles of things. Having been shut off in early life from the exercise of feeling on real objects, he was driven to find satisfaction in those which were ideal. The necessity of harmonizing the real and the ideal was felt, but the task was beyond human power, and there only remained that he should be satisfied with that which was accessible, and which, whether or not it was real, might yet be capable of educating the whole nature of man in a manner that was impossible to a mind dominated by the "inveterate habit" of "precocious and premature analysis." Whether or not Mr. Mill, under healthier conditions, might have developed a philosophy of life which would have supplied positive answers to the "questionings of sense and outer things" from which it is impossible to escape, the estimate of his achievements in this direction will suffer in the general view from these last Essays. It is not, as some have averred, that they show him to have been capable of concealing the results at which he arrived from the fear of consequences. Whatever reticence there was in his treatment of religious subjects was due to his reluctance to disturb men's faith without being able to supply its place, or being sure that others would be able to receive the solutions that commended themselves to him, certainly from no unworthy fear of impairing his influence. It is strange, indeed, that any one should have suggested such a reason for Mr. Mill's silence regarding some of his views, since the volume before us, so far from being outrageously heretical, is, in many respects, an orthodox production. The results at which he arrives in his Essay on 'Theism' convey a decided protest against atheism, whether in its positive or negative form. It is not Mr. Mill's lack of first principles that will disturb the student of philosophy so much as the lack of firm foundations on which to build any principles, from which sprang the sceptical habit of mind that is unable to admit absolute conviction regarding any kind of speculative truth. The balance of probabilities is allowed to be in favour of Theism; there is much to be said, he shows, for the doctrine of the continued existence of the individual after death; we have no right to deny the possibility of a Revelation; and the only question is, whether it is supported by evidence sufficient to make it credible. When we recall the strong dogmatic utterances on the side of unbelief that have lately issued from other quarters, we cannot help feeling that the advocates of Supernaturalism owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Mill. There is nothing in these Essays of which we do not find traces in the previous writings of the author. This is specially true with regard to his somewhat doubtful theism; while the leaning towards a Manichæan theory of the universe is easily explained by the influence of his father. In the "Autobiography" he tells us that his father found it impossible not on intellectual, but chiefly on moral grounds to accept the idea that a world so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite power with perfect goodness d righteousness. "The Sabæan or Manichæan theory of a Good and an Evil Principle struggling against each other for the govern ment of the universe he would not have equally condemned; and I have heard him express surprise that no one revived it in our time." It is impossible to doubt that the younger Mill derived from the elder the tendency to interpret the conflicting experiences of life as a conflict of good and evil principles which is so strongly manifested in the Essay on 'Nature.' He repeatedly declares that the idea of an Omnipotent and All-benevolent Deity is contradicted by what we see on every side of us. No theory excites his indignation more than this; because he cannot believe that what in man would be monstrous and immoral can be just and right in God. Hence he inclines to accept the notion that while God was a Demiurgos, not the Creator of the universe but the arranger of the Kosmos, his power to fulfil His purposes was limited by the materials with which he had to work. It is in the Essay on 'Theism' that we find the most striking evidence of a want of speculative grasp and insight. Mr. Mill sometimes seems to forget that the necessity of working under conditions was incident to Creation, if there was Creation at all. "It is not too much to say " (he remarks) "that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by Design? Contrivance; the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity for contrivance the need of employing means-is a consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means, if, to attain his end, his mere word was sufficient?" That would depend, we should say, on what was wanted. If the means were the only possible mode of bringing about the end, because of the nature of that end itself, the use of means must be the only wise course. The abstract idea of Omnipotence which haunted Mr. Mill is an impossibility to thought: the Being he thus reasoned about was like the Hegelian Absolute, which is equally and at once all and nothing. If God can only be omnipotent by being able to do what is selfcontradictory, then He has never been deemed omnipotent, even by the theologians. They would answer that the Infinite works in and through the finite, and therefore, necessarily, under conditions as to His work, though He is Himself unconditioned. Mr. Mill's idea of Omnipotence precludes creation altogether; for how should the Infinite have any need of, or allow any room for, the finite? Of course the difficulties of the case are not answered by the exhibition of the fact; but it is strange Mr. Mill should not have seen that his arguments strike equally against every possible world, since none can be perfect as the Absolute Himself. It is still more strange that Mr. Mill should have reproduced in his own thoughts the idea of an Absolute such as he denounced in the German philosophers, and in Hamilton as an unthinkable bundle of contradictories. The result at which Mr. Mill arrives re garding the immortality of the soul is, that there is "a total absence of evidence on either side," though in this case the absence of evidence for the affirmative does not, as in other cases, "create a strong presumption in favour of the negative." It is, therefore, legitimate to allow the imagination to be influenced by contemplating the possibility of immortality, just as it may be allowed 66 to any one who believes in a Creator to improve his faculties by believing all the good he can of Him. The indulgence of hope with regard to the government of the universe and the destiny of man after death is, consequently, declared to be " philosophically defensible"; and the beneficial effect of such a hope is alleged to be "far from trifling." In addition, when we have once discarded the notion of divine omnipotence, we may regard the Creator as the ideally perfect character in whose likeness we should wish to form ourselves, and to whose supposed approbation we refer our actions." This realization of a lofty moral ideal in a Person is recognized as the great service rendered by Christianity to the human race; for "the Prophet of Nazareth" must be placed, even by those who have no belief in his inspiration, "in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast." And the mission of Christ is so far from having been exhausted in the view of Mr. Mill, that he says, 66 we may well conclude that the influences of religion on the character which will remain after rational criticism has done its utmost against the evidences of religion, are well worth preserving; and what we lack in direct strength as compared with those of a firmer belief, is more than compensated by the greater truth and rectitude of the morality they sanction." The remnants of the supernatural which Mr. Mill leaves to us being thus considerable, how does he reconcile their acceptance, even in the qualified form he gives them, with the cultivation of the Religion of Humanity, which in the Auguste Comte and Positivism,' the "Autobiography," and now again in the Essays, he treats as the higher religion of the two, and the highest the world is likely to attain to ? In his book called 'Comte and Positivism,' Mr. Mill maintains "that a religion may exist without belief in a God; and that a religion without a God may be, even to Christians, an instructive and profitable object of contemplation"; and denounces "as equally irrational and mean the conception of human nature as incapable of giving its love and devoting its existence to any object which cannot afford in exchange an eternity of personal enjoyment." There is no advance beyond these positions in the Essays. In them, as in the previous work, the "enthusiasm of humanity" is inculcated as capable of becoming powerful enough to regulate the "History" (he says, in the Essay on the Utility of Religion') "bears out the opinion that mankind can perfectly well do without the belief in a heaven." Indeed, the time may come when, "in a higher and, above all, a happier condition of human life, not annihilation, but immortality, may be the burdensome idea," and comfort may even be found in the thought that we shall not always be. Under the influence of the Religion of Humanity, working under its sanctions and realizing its ideals, we shall be satisfied with the present life, and desire no other. Obviously, then, to Mr. Mill the Religion of Humanity was more of a reality than the remnants of Supernaturalism which he retained. But as he still, in some sense, did hold the latter, what were their purpose and place beside the other? Mr. Mill would probably have answered that he regarded them as merely provisional-as useful in the mean time till the full force of the principles and sanctions entire life. 66 of the Religion of Humanity is felt, but as destined to cease to be held in the long run. The present time, he says, in the "Autobiography," is an age "of weak convictions," a critical rather than a constructive period. The old opinions in religion have, through being discredited, lost the greater part of their efficacy for good, while they are powerful enough to remain an obstacle to better opinions being formed. When the philosophic minds of the world (he says, elsewhere) can no longer believe its religion, or only with large modifications, "a transitional period commences of weak convictions, paralyzed intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot terminate until a renovation has been effected in the basis of their belief, leading to the evolution of some faith, whether religious or merely human, which they can really believe." While it is plain that for many years Mr. Mill regarded the Religion of Humanity as the "faith" of the future, the last evolution of the scientific intellect, it is difficult to reconcile some of his positions in the Essay on 'Theism' with this attitude. The half-hoping, halfdoubting acceptance of Supernaturalism, in the shape of a modified theism, was considered by him as capable of fortifying the Religion of Humanity till it was able to stand by itself. Thus his theism supplemented the motives derived from the "faith" which was destined to become the religion of the future. It must be concluded-though on that point we are without sure guidancethat Mr. Mill believed the establishment of the Religion of Humanity as the generally accepted faith of mankind would lead men to dispense altogether with belief in the Supernatural. It might remain to them a region for the exercise of speculative curiosity, but it would be no longer necessary as supplying rules and ideals to be a guide to life. - While it may be regretted that we have not the benefit of Mr. Mill's views on Theism, as modified or informed by the latest results of scientific research, it may be doubted if these would have made any essential change on his main positions. We have seen that his speculations were largely influenced by his individual circumstances; and that his intellectual theories may, to some extent, be accounted for by the special experiences of both his earlier and later years. His father he says, in the "Autobiography" -was wholly a product of the eighteenth century. His intellect was critical rather than constructive; and as the growing tendencies of the nineteenth century towards something positive, to take the place of what the negative influences of the previous century had removed, began to operate on the younger Mill, there was increasing divergence between his father and himself. While allowing full scope to the negative and critical, Mr. Mill came to see that a critical period could not be the final goal of history. Unchecked liberty of thought and unbounded freedom of individual action in all modes not hurtful to others were necessary and valuable; but they were only means to an end. That end must be a new social, religious, and political construction, which would again make possible an organic period," in which convictions regarding right and wrong, so firmly grounded in reason and so universally accepted as to require no periodical displacement and replacement like former creeds, would prevail everywhere and among all. The Essays before us prove that their author was convinced the only way by which this end was to be attained was through the Religion of Humanity. Unfortunately, he could neither obtain positive solutions of the wider problems and difficulties which have perplexed men in all ages, nor could he finally resolve to regard them as insoluble. The result was a conflict between what he wished to be and what alone he felt sure was—a collision between the real and the ideal, between the natural and the ethical, which was ever renewed and never terminated. "The burden, so heavy to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of thinking one doctrine true and the contrary doctrine morally beneficial," was never altogether lifted from Mr. Mill. Under more favourable circumstances it might have been otherwise; but as it is, he has left behind him the record of one more pureminded and true-hearted man to whom the reconciliation of thought and feeling, by reconciliation of thought and feeling, by the attainment of convictions regarding the satisfying reality of the objects that minister to both, was never realized. IF the narration, in a style wholly devoid of literary merit, of various unconnected episodes in the lives of impossibly vulgar people, diversified by old and not first-rate jokes, and a certain amount of invective against Papists and Dissenters, can be called a novel, then and Dissenters, can be called a novel, then may 'From the Plough to the Pulpit' lay claim to that title. It purports to relate the history of one Jonah Fishpond, who, being the son of a small country farmer, and brought up strictly as a Methodist, was sent first to a school patronized by members of that denomination, and conducted on the "mixed" principle; then took to preaching; then went to Cambridge, where, without any natural ability or adequate instruction, he was twenty-seventh wrangler (the author has an odd idea of the tripos); and, finally, took Orders, and obtained, at an unusually early age, a benefice in the Established Church. This change of religious views appears to be the author's one idea of a suitable catastrophe for a novel, as we find that, almost without exception, all the principal characters conform to it,-those who, like the hero, were Methodists becoming members of the Establishment, or Roman Catholics, Ritualists becoming Evangelicals, Churchmen Methodists, and so forth. Such being the case, and the story having moreover, as we have said, no redeeming qualities of wit, humour, or pathos, our readers will forgive us if we trouble them and ourselves no longer with Mr. Luke Wesley Church. Shadows Cast Before' is an inconclusive sort of book, and the weakness of the plot is not redeemed by any excellence in the descriptions of character. Beatrice, the heroine, is a wealthy young lady, with rather an uncomfortable home; and finding herself in the enjoy ment of a pleasant holiday in the Pyrenees, with the accompaniments of fine weather and good company, allows herself readily to turn to thoughts of love. Her first hero, an Indian general, is sufficiently war-worn, dark, and otherwise interesting, to take the fancy of a romantic young person so suitably disposed. Unfortunately, a mystery which involves his name and fortune, prevents him from declaring the passion which he entertains for his appre ciative young friend. The first two volumes are taken up with conversations between the lovers and intervals of hysteria on the part of the lady. In the third, we come to the plot. Beatrice has now united herself, by way of consolation, with an eligible young baronet, who has a fine place, with the impossible name of Vavasour, a Scotch gardener who has forgotten his own tongue and not acquired English, old armour, picture-galleries, and haunted rooms. In spite of all these luxuries, Beatrice is not happy. She has a bad dream, in which the haunted rooms are somehow mixed up with yew trees and a mysterious casket, and the murder of her husband by General Ponsonby. Nothing can remove the impression from her mind, and she pines away from that time, and renders herself and her husband miserable. Then comes the intermurder has already taken place, the late Hugh pretation of the dream. It seems that a real Vavasour having been killed by his elder is also a real casket, which contains a statebrother, father of General Ponsonby. There ment of the General's claims to the title and fortune of Sir Hugh. The catastrophe, however, is in no way connected with these mysteries; for, just as Ponsonby and the Baronet are about to come to an amicable arrangement of affairs, the latter gentleman is killed by a fall from his horse, and Beatrice and her infant receive a mortal shock from the intelligence. Such is the doleful end of "my poor Beatrice," who certainly receives hard measure; her worst fault, as far as we can gather, being that she is foolish and fanciful. The story is written in what may be called the patronizing style, with frequent parenthetic remarks in the first person, and is decorated with scraps of French, for the introduction of which life in a Pyrenean pension forms an opportunity. Mr. Farjeon opens his story in the style which was familiar to us in the old days of the Christmas numbers of Household Words. A little boy's reminiscences of his grandmother, who talked about a man who "had a knob on the top of his head, and was always eating his finger-nails," a stone image with a loose head, called a "monkey-man," a nurse who tells the child horrible stories, and a good-natured man known as "Snaggletooth," are well-known properties, and naturally prepare us for a story of which the scene is chiefly laid in a small grocer's shop somewhere east of Temple Bar. At the same time, we must admit that Mr. Farjeon is, to our mind, better than the style he has chosen for himself. For one thing, his writing is a good deal less slovenly than that which we are wont to find in stories of this school, not excepting those of the master of it. There are two characters in the book whom we feel we should really like to meet, the hero's mother (whom we are glad the author does not kill) and Josey West, the lame girl, eldest sister of a "theatrical family." In spite of certain commonplace touches, we can see and appreciate the sort of character which the author has intended to depict in these two. The story is ordinary enough, and we are not going even to give a sketch of it. Suffice it to say, that the "knob on the grandmother's friend's head is made, as might be expected, to come in useful in a far-fetched way in the third volume, and the "monkeyman in a way still more far-fetched; that the contretemps, such as they are in the story, never give us a moment's uneasiness as to the ultimate dispositions of the fortunes of the various persons; and that there is really little or nothing in the whole of the three volumes calling for criticism, either good or bad. The story is not uninteresting, not sensational; not moral, not immoral; and, perhaps, as times go, the absence of all these characteristics is some praise. There is a certain freshness and sparkle about Miss Macdonell's volume, which is due, in a considerable degree, to her choice of a period and place which are a little out of the beaten track of novelists. The love story, that of a simple-hearted young lady, and a stately naval lieutenant of the last century, is subordinate to a tale of peasant life in Sark, in the old days of high tariffs and systematic smuggling. This picturesque subject is graphically treated by our author, whose descriptive powers are employed with equal success on the coast scenery, with its changeful sea, and on the wild and sequestered life of the dwellers in that primitive region. The story opens with an account of a terrible night spent by the heroine in one of the caves among the cliffs, in which she has been cut off by the tide, and where she narrowly escapes death by drowning, to the imminent risk of lovers of a readable novel. It requires all our confidence in the necessary vitality of heroines at the commencement of their history to enable us to support with calmness the dangers of the night. It is not our purpose to reveal the intimate connexion of Miss Blunt's adventure with the escape of Jack Cartaret from the perils of a false accusation. The deliverance of that excellent young fisherman from the clutches of the revenue laws through the joint agency of the young lady and his dumb sister, who is an original and striking character, forms the main incident of the tale. The various parts in the episode are sustained by characters of much force and distinctness. The crafty and unscrupulous Maître Tom, the generous Renouf, and the easy-going, selfish Seigneur, are clever sketches, and our interest in the fortunes of our Sarquois friends is well sustained until Jack is honourably re-united to his proud old mother, and Frazer and the lady of his love attain the consummation desired by all right-minded young persons of their age. Miss Grant's book is written with the best possible intentions, and dedicated to the Duchess of Edinburgh. There is in it an ideal serf, who not only behaves in other respects like a hero of romance, but, like Long Job at the Falls of Niagara, replaces with his body a broken bridge across a swollen river, and so enables the lady of his love to trip in safety from one side to the other of what, but for him, would have been a yawning and impassable abyss. Also there is an English tutor, who, though verging on corpulency, is constant to an unreturned affection for a lady whose heart is given to a dead lover, on whose embalmed countenance she from time to time gazes through a glass-plate in his coffin-lid. So that there is much to interest and to excite, besides the descriptions of Russian people and Russian scenery, which form the groundwork of the romance, and constitute the chief reason for its existence. The touching story of Madame de la Tour is less known to English readers than it deserves to be. Even Mr. Knight, who seems to have thought, and with justice, that it was worth embodying in a novel, has, as far as we can discover, made no attempt to preserve the name of an heroic woman in either the 'Biographical Dictionary' or the 'History' which were produced under his auspices; and hence, not having at hand the authorities from whom he appears to have drawn the facts upon which the story is founded, nor Charlevoix, who also tells it, but whom he does not quote, we have no means of ascertaining exactly the amount of history which underlies the charming "historical novel" sketched out by him in the first place, and finished after his death by his daughter and grand-daughter. We know that the principal personages, Charles de la Tour, the Lieutenant-General of Acadie, his enemy, D'Aulnay de Charnisé, the Governor, his wife, and her early lover (if this be historical), William Alexander, for one month Earl of Stirling, really lived and moved in the first half of the seventeenth century. We know too that Victoire de la Tour defended her husband's Fort of St. John against De Charnisé, and that when he had, by means of treachery, overcome her resistance, she was compelled to "assister," as one historian says, at the execution of her little garrison. The shock soon after cost her her life. We know, lastly, that De la Tour ended by marrying De Charnisé's widow, though, whether he had as good reason for being grateful to her as the story says, or whether he had really been the love of her early youth, we know not. Nor do we know how many of the minor characters are historical; but, considering the fullness of the information which the chroniclers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often give us about matters which have interested them, we can conceive that Mr. Knight had to draw very little on his imagination. The story in its barest outline is a romance; and though a writer of the school of Mr. Ainsworth might have contrived to render it vulgarly sensational, and to overlay its simplicity with "properties" worthy of Wardour Street, an average amount of taste was all that was needed to spread it over three volumes, and maintain the interest to the end. This the authors have had; and, therefore, while we warn our readers not to expect any great work of literary art, nor any vivid picture of NovaScotian life in the seventeenth century (except in one or two letters, the authors have wisely enough made their characters talk much as ladies and gentlemen do at the present day), we can recommend this 'Romance of Acadia' to them as more than satisfactory reading in itself, and possessing the special excellence of the historical novel, a power of awakening sufficient interest in the events which it recounts, to send those who have read it for more complete information to the original authorities. One bit of history acquired in this way is worth volumes of knowledge arranged and commented on by historians, and thus served up ready dressed, as it were, for the indolent reader. The author of 'Auld Robin Gray' has given us another excellent Scotch story. Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Black, and the author of 'Quixstar,' are a trio who form an exception to the prolific brotherhood of novelists, now principally engaged in the reproduction, in different degrees of demerit, of the commonplace figures of silly women and would-be fashionable men. Though we should not place them on the same level of excellence, they fall naturally into a class by themselves, inasmuch as they deal with the same nationality, and are alike gifted with a thorough appreciation of their countrymen, both on the pathetic and humorous side. Mr. Gibbon, without the range of Mr. Black, has a special gift of grasping the odd compound of stiffness and humour, tenderness and hardness, coarseness and reverence, which goes to make up a Lowland Scotchman, and makes him, for the most part, so thoroughly incomprehensible to his less angular neighbours of the South. The language, too, which is at once the roughest and the most rich in endearing diminutives spoken in these islands, is a ver satile instrument in his hands. So idiomatic, indeed, is the author's narrative, that we fear it will scarcely meet with its deserts at the hands of most English readers. Those to the manner born, however, and those whose literary tastes are sufficiently wide to render them appreciative, will not regret the leisure they may expend upon this novel. Christina, or Teenie Thorston, the heroine, is a daughter of the fisher-folk on the eastern coast, not a hundred miles, we suspect, from the counties of Aberdeen or Kincardine. Old Dan, her father, is a rough fisherman and whaler, with a spot about his heart very soft towards his only child. Great is his chagrin when he finds his daughter's heart has been beguiled by young Walter Burnet, of Dalmahoy, who, being about to take a charge" in a neighbouring parish, thinks the fresh face and form of fair-haired Teenie would light up the sobriety of his manse. However, having consulted with Walter's father, the laird, who, for reasons of his own, has no objection to offer, he gives his consent, and the somewhat unequal pair are united in marriage. On the results of the union hinges the plot of the story. Teenie, a simple, loving, ignorant maiden, yet proud withal, soon finds her happiness overcast, not only by the inevitable disparity between herself and her educated husband, but by the fact of which the laird takes care to inform her, that his consent was given under the idea that she had unexpectedly succeeded to a fortune, and the suspicion that the same motive influenced her husband in resigning, for her sake, the |