POETRY.- W. S. Landor to the Author of Festus, 399; New Year's Eve, 429; The Soul's Passing; Today and Tomorrow; The Heart answereth to the Heart, 430.

SHORT ARTICLES. Body of Gustavus Vasa, 396; Imitative Galvanism; How Chronome ters are tried at Greenwich, 401; Dr. Bethune in Holland 418; Great African Lake; Lon don Mortality, 421; All the Universe in motion; Accumulation of Ice; Scientific Cookery, 428; New Books, 431.

Or all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS.

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 303.-9 MARCH, 1850.

Scoundrel savagery, was a little startling-almost
Judicrous. And the low scenes were coarsely
sketched the butcherly details of one chapter
side by side with the essenced flunkeydom of the
next, put one somewhat in mind of the unrivalled
bathos of a certain popular ballad of the time :

His throat they cut from ear to ear;
His brains they battered in!
His name was Mr. William Wearc;
He lived at Lincoln's Inn!

Still, we do sympathize with Mrs. G.'s horror. When Pelham was followed by all manner of objectionable seraphic villains, Paul Clifford and Eugene Aram-copies, as we said, of the French romantic school-yet, after all, infinitely less brutal and more manly, Mrs. Grundy became frantic. "Vice made attractive!" Villany excused by the highest virtues!" Pray, how do you know, madthat they were virtues in any true sense of the word, these lofty aspirations of Eugene Aram and his fellow-rascals? The true answer to Bulwer would have been-" These fellows are villains still, for all their dreams and their blague.

am,

It was horrible! and Mr. Bulwer's succeeding novels were horrible too. He seemed desirous of beating the French romanticists on their own ground, as he certainly had done the Minerva- Aspirations after intellect, learning, power, the press folks on theirs.

After all, was Mr. Bulwer utterly wrong? horrible exists; and honor to it.

The

A

beautiful-nay, after holiness itself, are just good for nothing as long as their object is only self. Self-glorification is the path to sham saintship, and Yes, honor to the horrible; and to the man to true rascality also; and that, too, in the very who has courage to give us a glimpse of it now same individual, wherever the passions and daring and then. It is good for us to read horrible sto- are strong enough, the intellect large enough. If ries, just as we look at monkeys, to see what we self be a man's end and aim, the greatness of his too might become-what we are potentially even powers only increases his capability of devilishnow, if the higher power should desert us. "" ness. But Mrs. Grundy could not see that; in late writer in this Magazine gave it as his opinion fact, she was worshipping" intellect" just as much that horrors were good to keep alive the minds of as Mr. Bulwer did;-she, in the mouths of her the drudging classes; we consider them on the popular preachers-he, in his Eugene Arams. whole as equally good for the idle ones. Who And so she took Bulwer at his word, when hewould wish Oliver Twist unwritten, except Mrs. if indeed he did-set up the learned murderer as Grundy? Reigns of terror, Lyons glacières, Span- a fallen angel. Besides, "How," thought Mrs. ish autos-da-fé-there is a lesson in them all. Grundy, "could a man believe in heaven and They show us what stuff most of us are made of hell-have any spark of higher things in him at -when the paint is rubbed off. As the Yankee all, and yet be a bad man? The fact is that the apologist for drunkenness said, "There's a deal good lady believes so very little herself, that it is of human natur' in man." Honor to the man quite as saintly as miraculous in her eyes to have who will tell us so. Mr. Grundy himself-mon- any belief at all. A man to know that he has an ey-maker in ordinary to himself and family-immortal soul, and hope to get to heaven, and yet shall he "girn" at cannibals and Dyaks? Has not be good! Certainly not, madam. If you not Mr. Carlyle told him that he too is a "Chac- knew anything of history, which you do not, you taw" and buccaneer of industry?-that his grand would find that every age and country, since the wigwam in Belgravia, or the Manchester suburb, times of the Pharisees, has seen the highest is hung with human scalps just as much as any religiousness associated with the lowest villany. red Indian one? Had he been only born in the Do you think the Pharisees knew that they were right place, and handled tomahawk instead of hypocrites and scoundrels? Not they. They ledger, he too had been a cannibal and physiwere righteous in their own eyes," just like cal eater of men; and Mrs. Grundy-delicious Eugene Aram-or Mrs. Grundy. Your brigand, thought!-guiltless of crinoline and polka-had with a leaden St. Januarius in his hat, is he not squatted over a wood fire, drying slain Dyaks' most religious? Does he not go to confession heads! There is devil enough in you both for it, and mass, and believe with his whole heart in my sleek friends. Are you not, too, now man- such Christianity as is taught him, not without eaters according to your articles of war? Not by good hope of heaven? Rush, fresh from forgery wooden sword and hole full of hot stones, accord- and murder, prays fervently by his mistress' side. ing to the sacred traditions of Dyaks; but by buy"The hypocrite!" cries Mrs. Grundy. ing cheap and selling dear, Benthamism, Absentee- Men at such moments are not hypocrites, except ism, New Poor-laws, and exploitation de l'indus- to themselves and God. The man was sincere; trie, according to the sacred traditions of Mam- he believed that he had a soul to be saved; and mon? believed in the "scheme of redemption" just as firmly as the best; and so he prayed-to get his soul saved.

Come down from that tribune,
Thou shameless and unjust!

as the immortal Pleaceman X. has it, and girn no
more at Paul Cliffords and Lucretia Claverings,
for thou, too, art of the same stuff as they, "bar-
ring the pluck;"-that same sneaking fear of
public opinion, gaol, hell-fire, and such-like, is all
that keeps thee respectable.

"What do you mean, sir? Are you laughing at Christianity?"

66

No, madam; but at your notion that a man must be either an atheist or perfection-at the notion that a man is good and righteous, because, forsooth, he would be very glad to be in a happy

lies below it. The tone of all parties on such subjects has undergone a wonderful change during the last twenty years, and Sir E. B. Lytton has had something to do with bringing it about; and in the face of all the blague and sentimentalism, and cruel, cowardly indulgence, which is mixed up with it, who dare deny it to be a divine and blessed change?

place after death. Is not that just as absurd as feel that ethics, if they are to be Christian, must the doctrine which you impute to Bulwer-that look not merely at the act, but at the heart which he considered Eugene Aram good and righteous because he wished to be a very fine fellow before death? The truth is-and we ought to thank Bulwer for having preached it, however coarsely, confusedly that there is an awful duality in every man, a capability at once of infinite good and evil, according as its aim is self or God; that the largeness and power of the nature may increase its wickedness just as easily as its goodness. The truth is, too, that no one is utterly diabolic; we are not talking "theology," as certain anthropological doctrines are now called, by a strange but most significant misnomer—we are simply stating a fact. There is honor among thieves. Did Mrs. Grundy read that most affecting account of their conference with Lord Ashley the other day? There is womanhood, affection, self-sacrifice, even in the most fallen. Boz's Nancy in Oliver Twist is real, true; she finds her place on God's earth, and in God's mercies, too, though not in Mrs. Grundy's "Christian system." Bulwer has said that, and then asks, in a clumsy, passionate way enough, seeing that there was a lie and an injustice somewhere, but not seeing in what it consisted-" These people, bad as they are, are no more devils than you respectable ones; why will you treat them as such? Why will you judge the act merely, never the moral sin, which must be decided by weighing the will, the motive, the temptation, the education? Why will you bring the letter of the law, and not the spirit of the gospel, to bear on these beings? Why will you tell them that they are hopeless fiends, and then curse them because they take you at your word? Why not appeal to the spark of light, the one vein of human feeling left in them? Why confirm them in their rebellion against society, embitter their already utter misery, by adding to it the sense of injustice?"

We were not aware, till we read Lucretia for the first time the other day, that the improvement in Sir E. B. Lytton's morality had been a gradual one. We had taken for granted too hastily, from the yells of Mrs. Grundy's father-confessors, the reviewers, that Lucretia was the culminating abomination of Sir E. B. Lytton's morbidity, and that he was, as they triumphantly intimated, given over henceforth irrecoverably to the dominion of sentimentalism, horrors, and nastiness. It is, indeed, very difficult to see what the man who could write Night and Morning wanted with such a subject as Lucretia. It may have been the lust of book-making, not confined to Sir E. B. Lytton; it may have been the desire of beating Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, as he has beaten others, on his own ground. But still the book ought not to have been written. It is a useless and unpleasing subject, to say the best; and, indeed, the worst too. As for the model-scene, whereat Mrs. Grundy's propriety was so scandalized, if it were not for the accidental additions of porter and gin, it is no more disgusting than what takes place in the studios of respectable artists. It was very disgusting, no doubt; but perhaps it may do Mrs. Grundy good now and then to know how the pictures which she admires at the Exhibition get painted, just as it may to know how the cheap clothes which she prides herself on buying get made, and the cheap "Society" Bibles which she This is what Sir E. B. Lytton, we do believe, distributes get bound, at the price-we assert it has been trying to say all along-badly enough at solemnly as a fact—of the starvation and prostifirst, and then, we think, more and more rationally tution of the workwomen. Oh, Mrs. Grundy! and clearly, through Ernest Maltravers, Night "What the eye seeth not, that the heart grieveth and Morning, and Lucretia, up to The Cartons. not!" As far as we have yet heard, truth never He has been insulted for it-and read. People was very pleasant news. felt that, abominable as his morality was at first But we were, in spite of all, surprised and sight, there was more in it than could be answered pleased with the healthy morality with which Luby an execration. He has been read, and we are cretia was drawn. She is a true woman, a sinful glad of it. If he had ended, like a Sue or Du- and accursed woman, but no monster; consistent mas, in the mood wherein he began, even then we throughout, redeemable, though unredeemed. should not have joined the cry against him; but Have we, too, never met a fallen angel, or besotted since he has worked himself, in this his last book, Titan, once at least in our lives? And the villain out into something of light and clearness, we have of The Caxtons betokens a still further improvea right to say that he has been all along fighting, ment. Vivian, alias Herbert Caxton, is a real son or, at least, trying to fight, in the good cause— of Adam, such as we here assert ourselves to the cause of the lost and despised, the publican have personally seen and known more than once and the harlot-whom, after all, the "Son of or twice either. Of fierce passions, strong selfman came to seek and to save❞—a fellow-worker will and self-conceit, defective in the gentler and with Elizabeth Fry and Lord Ashley; inferior, more imaginative faculties, (a want which is most as talk is always inferior to deeds, but still a fel- artistically denoted in the description of his physlow-worker. And we believe, from our own ex-iognomy and brain,) neglected, ill-educated, cast perience, that this very point whereon most outcry upon the worst of society to fight his way, he has been raised is just the one whereon, if on any, becomes a civilized savage and a blackguard. his writings have been beneficial, by making us "What!" cries Mrs. Grundy, "the old story

out-Heroded? A villain, not as of old, merely the breeze, straw on the river, their course is by the force of circumstance, but also by the de- shaped for them by the currents and eddies of the velopment of his bumps? Combeism superadded stream of life. to Bulwerism!"

ject beyond himself for which to live, that he rises, slowly but steadily-not to the highest point, indeed, but to something like a manhood and a vocation.

But only in proportion as they are things, not Nay, Grundy, who said that either circum- men and women. Man was meant to be, not the stance or his bumps made him a villain? Sir E. slave, but the master of circumstance; and in proB. Lytton, whatever he may have said in old portion as he recovers his humanity, in every times, has certainly said no such thing in The sense of that great obsolete word-in proportion Caxtons. Come, let us argue a little. In the as he gets back the spirit of manliness, which is first place, even allowing bumpology to be true, self-sacrifice, affection; loyalty to an idea beyond (and it is not all false,) that does not prove that himself, so far will he rise above circumstances, the bumps make the rogue. The rogue may just and mould and wield them at his will. Thus, in as well make the bumps, my dear madain, and a Vivian's case, it is when he casts away the heart man's being "like ape, with forehead vallanous of stone and gets back the heart of flesh-of noble low," be more or less his own fault. Why shame, confest weakness, human affection, an obshould not a man's physiognomy, as you would expect a spirit's body to be, (if you ever expected anything reasonable,) be "the sacrament of his soul," "the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace," or dis-grace of his char- Read this extract, Mrs. Grundy, and say whethacter? You yourself confess as much. When er it is not, in addition to its other excellencies, you call So-and-so an ill-looking fellow," he the healthiest word of Sir E. B. Lytton's you looks a brute or a rogue, because he is one; have yet read, and better doctrine than many a soand you know it-so just be quiet. Sir E. B. called orthodox sermon ? Lytton has said no more than that, only he has said it openly and boldly; while you, madam, are always afraid of facing your own convictions, however stubbornly you may act on them under the rose, just because they are not rational convictions, but only fancies and prejudices, which, right or wrong, will not stand the slightest shock of argument.

"And I need not ask," said I, trying in vain to conceal ceived your monstrous proposition!" my indignation, "how Miss Trevanion re

Vivian's cheek grew paler, but he made no reply. "And if we had not arrived, what would you have done? Ah, dare you look into the gulf of infamy you have escaped?"

before

"I cannot and will not bear this!" exclaimed Vivian, starting up. "I have laid my heart bare you, and it is ungenerous and unmanly thus to press upon its wounds. You can moralize, you can speak coldly-but I-I loved!"

"And do you think," I burst forth-"do you think that I did not love too?-love longer than you have done; better than you have done; gone through sharper struggles, darker days, more sleepless nights than you?-and yet

Vivian caught hold of me.

Neither is Vivian the victim of circumstance any more than any other man, for whom you, in those too rare softer moments of yours, 66 make allowances because he has been so ill-brought up." If any one calls George the Fourth hard names, you sigh soft extenuations. "Ah, but, you know he was a prince, and rank has such temptations! And so handsome, too! All the fine ladies in England at his feet-what could you expect? It "Hush!" he cried; "is this, indeed, true? I is only a wonder he was no worse, poor dear thought you might have had some faint and fleetman! And he had such a charming manner- ing fancy for Miss Trevanion, but that you curbed spoke to me so sweetly once at a ball! Ah, and conquered it at once. Oh, no! it was impossigood-nature was his bane," &c. &c. Mrs. Grun-ble to have loved really, and to have surrendered dy! Mrs. Grundy! to swallow such a camel as all chance as you did!-have left the house, have that, and to strain at such gnats as Bulwer's fled from her presence! No, no, that was not heroes, because they too, like their august prince, are the victims of circumstance!"

Open your eyes, my dear madam, if you have any, which is sometimes doubtful, and walk anywhere you like-into Almack's, or Moses and Sons, into the alleys of St. Giles, or a fashionable church, or a Dorsetshire village, and then confess, in spite of all your theories and systems, that the many are everywhere the tools of circumstance, for good and evil-churchmen, fops, thieves, savages because they have been born in that station of life and no other. If you had been born in Turkey, Mrs. Grundy, you would have been a Mahametan, with one fourth of a husband, instead of having Mr. Grundy all to yourself. It is a painful fact, but there is no denying it-the mass are the tools of circumstance; thistle-down on

love!"

"It was love! and I pray Heaven to grant that, one day, you may know how little your affection sprang from those feelings which make true love sublime as honor, and meek as is religion! cousin, cousin, with those rare gifts what you might have been! what, if you will pass through repentance and cling to atonement; what, I dare Talk not now of your love; I talk not of mine! Love is a thing gone hope, you may yet be! from the lives of both. Go back to earlier thoughts, to heavier wrongs-your father!-that noble heart which you have so wantonly lacerated, that muchenduring love which you have so little comprehended !"

Then, with all the warmth of emotion, I hurried on, showed him the true nature of honor and of

Roland (for the names are one); showed him the watch, the hope, the manly anguish I had witnessed, and wept-I, not his son-to see; showed