hot heads of angry unionists by granting impunity to murder.

The sacrifice of what is eternally right to what is temporarily agreeable is liable to be often demanded by the exigencies of romance, and therefore is it that so many critics set their faces against moral aims in novels, and declare that it is their sole mission to be entertaining. In her earlier works Mrs. Gaskell never consented to this, and " NORTH AND SOUTH" is a second illustration of the quarrel between Manchester masters and operatives as it was in the times that are past. But here the quarrel is incidental to another story, designed to set forth the different fibre of Hampshire and Lancashire men-to the distinct advantage of the latter. It is easy to see where Mrs. Gaskell's heart is, and where also was her truer and fuller knowledge at this period of her career.

The scene opens on the eve of a wedding in London, and we are introduced first to the bride elect, a pretty young lady afraid of anybody who does any thing for conscience' sake, and her cousin, the heroine, Margaret Hale, who has been brought up with her in Harley Street. We make a passing acquaintance with the bridegroom, a brave, handsome noodle; with his brother, a clever, ambitions barrister; and with the bride's mother, Mrs. Shaw, who, having married for position, has all her life since professed regret for what she missed in not marrying for love like her sister, Margaret's mother, who having accepted an amiable clergyman, has moped with him in affectionate discontent and obscurity ever since at Helstone, a parish in the New Forest, and in such straightened circumstances that she cannot attend her niece's marriage, because it would not be prudent to buy new clothes for the occasion, and she will not disgrace it by going shabby. After the wedding, we are taken down to Helstone, with Margaret Hale and her father, not greater strangers to the heroine's home than she is herself; and here occur some of those sweet descriptive bits of country which betray that if Mrs. Gaskell's lot was cast in murky Manchester, her immagination made it one of the brightest holidays in the woods and fields.

"It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were all one dark, full, dusky green; the fern below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the Margaret used to tramp along by her father's weather was sultry and broodingly still. side, crushing down the fern with a cruel glee, as she felt it yield under her light foot, and send up the fragrance peculiar to it,out on the broad commons into the warmscented light, seeing multitudes of wild, free, living creatures, revelling in the sunshine, This life- at least, these walks-realized all Margaret's anticipations. . . Her out-of-doors life was perfect. Her in-doors life had its drawbacks."

and the herbs and flowers it called forth.

And very serious drawbacks they were ;-the shadow of a dear son, lost to home and country, an exile and fugitive under sentence of death, for the leading part he had taken in a mutiny on board a king's ship; failing health and broken spirits for the bereaved mother, and sad doubts and unrest on the part of Mr. Hale, which brings him to a resolution to give up Helstone and his office as a minister of the Church of England. And here we think there is some haziness and exaggerated sentiment. As a man of honor and conscience, Mr. Hale could certainly not any longer hold a cure under a religious system that he believed contrary to right (what his special difficulties were we are not told), but it is a curious misconception of Anglicanism to set forth as one of its principles that to leave the Church of England is to be severed from the Church of God. We had hitherto rested in peace under the belief that all the reformed congregations, at home and abroad, whatever their government, were of the same household of faith as ourselves. To be sure it is by the lips of Margaret Hale that the new notion is promulgated, and that may account for its eccentricity; heroines are commonly nice girls and good practical Christians, but they are not often strong in doctrine or ecclesiasticism.

From the sunny parsonage in the New Forest to a dreary little house in a dull suburb of Milton - Northern, Darkshire, is a long step, but Mr. Hale takes it, with delicate wife and reluctant daughter, and one faithful tyrannical servant, Dixon, Mrs. Hale's confidant, and her maid before her marriage. Mr. Hale proposes

to eke out his slender private income by giving lessons in the classics to any manufacturers or sons of manufacturers who can be induced to spare an hour now and then from the universal business of money-making. Through an old college friend, Mr. Bell, Margaret's godfather, he gains his first and best pupil, Mr. Thornton, of Marlborough Mills, the representative granite man of the North, of whom his mother-more gra nite than himself says with honest pride: "Go where you will-I don't say in England only, but in Europe, the name of John Thornton, of Milton, is known and respected by all business men. Of course it is unknown in the fashionable circles," she continued, scornfully. "Idle ladies and gentlemen are not likely to know much of a Milton Manufacturer, unless he gets into Parliament, or marries a lord's daughter."

This John Thornton plays hero admirably to Margaret Hale's heroine, and they begin in the most promising way with a little aversion. How this aversion be-. comes interest, admiration, and something more, is the substance of the story; and a perfectly charming story it would be, but for what strikes us as a wanton degradation of Margaret by putting her into circumstances where she is driven to think a lie better policy than the truth-necessary, indeed, to save her brother's life-a tricky expedient for raising interest which blemishes more than one of Mrs. Gaskell's works. We

know how Sir Walter Scott dealt with a similar difficulty in "The Heart of MidLothian," and what a profound effect he creates by making Jenny Deans tell the truth, and trust God for the conseqences.

The subordinate characters in "NORTH AND SOUTH," chiefly factory - folk, are touched in with force and distinctness, and this remark applies no less to "MARY BARTON," than to all the later productions of our author. As a pathetic example of the home-life of the "hands," in whose joys and sorrows she had so keen a sympathy, we will quote a scene between a weaver on strike and his daughter, whom Margaret Hale has gone to visit as she lies sick, and slowly wearing away to the "Land o' the leal."

"A great slatternly girl, not so old as

Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub, knocking about the furniture in a rough, capable way, but altogether making so much noise that Margaret shrunk, out of sympathy with poor Bessy. .

"Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?' gasped Bessy, at last. Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips. Bessy took a long, feverish draught, and then fell back and shut her eyes. Margaret heard her murmur to herself: They shall hunger the sun light on them, nor any heat.' no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall

"Margaret bent over and said: 'Bessy, dont be impatient with your life, whatever it is, or may have been. Remember who gave it you, and made it what it is.'

"She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in without her noticing him.

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"Now, I'll not have my wench preached to. She's bad enough as it is, with her dreams and her methodie fancies, and her visions of cities with golden gates and precious stones. And if it amuses her I let a' be, but I'm none

going to have more stuff poured into her.'

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you believe in what I said, that God gave

'But surely,' said Margaret, facing round,

her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be.'

"I believe what I see and no more. That's what I believe, young woman. I don't believe all I hear-no! not by a big deal.'

"Bessy had been watching Margaret's face; she half sat up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret's arm with a gesture of entreaty. 'Dont be vexed wi' him-there's many a one thinks like him; many and many a one here. If yo' could hear them speak, yo'd not be shocked at him; he's a rare good man, is father-but oh!' said she, falling back in despair, what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi' wonder.'

"Poor wench-poor old wench-I'm loth to vex yo', I am; but a man mun speak out for the truth; and when I see the world going all wrong at this time o' day, bothering itself wi' things it knows naught about, and leavclose at its hand-why, I say, leave a' this talk ing undone all the things that lie in disorder about religion alone, and set to work on what yo' see and know. That's my creed. It's simple, and not far to fetch nor hard to work.'

"But the girl only pleaded the more with Margaret. 'Don't think hardly on him,—he's be moved wi' sorrow even in the City of God, a good man, he is. I sometimes think I shall if father is not there.' The feverish color came into her cheek, and the feverish flame into her eye. But you will be there, father! You shall! Oh! my heart!' She put her hand to it and became ghastly pale.

“Margaret held her in her arms, and put

the weary head to rest upon her bosom. She lifted the thin soft hair from off the temples, and bathed them with water. Nicholas understood all her signs for different articles with the quickness of love, and even the round-eyed sister moved with laborious gentleness at Margaret's 'hush.' Presently the spasm that foreshadowed death had passed away, and Bessy raised herself and said,"I'll go to bed-it's best place; but,' catching at Margaret's gown, yo'll come again, I know yo' will-but just say it.'

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"I will come to-morrow,' said Margaret.

Bessy leant back against her father, who prepared to carry her up stairs; but as Margaret rose to go he struggled to say something. I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask him to bless thee.'"

One more quotation from "NORTH AND SOUTH," and we will pass on from the familiar ground where Mrs. Gaskell earned her first fame to the novels of her middle manner-for she had three, alike yet distinct, and the latest was the best that by which her name will be kept fragrant beyond this generation. The passage tells its own story.

"It was not a favorable moment for Higgins to make his request. But he had promised Margaret to do it at any cost. So, though every moment added to his repugnance, his pride and his sullenness of temper, he stood leaning against the dead wall, hour after hour, first on one leg and then on the other. At last the latch was sharply lifted, and out came Mr. Thornton.

"I want for to speak to yo', sir.'

"Can't stay now, my man, I'm too late as it is.'

"Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo' come back.' At last Mr. Thornton returned.

"What! you there still!' "Ay, sir, I mun speak to yo'. "Come in here, then. Stay! we'll go across the yard.' 'It is such men as this,' thought he, 'who interrupt commerce, and injure the very town they live in; mere demagogues, lovers of power, at whatever cost to others.' ... 'Well, sir, what do you want with me?' said Mr. Thornton, facing round at him as soon as they were in the counting-house.

"I want work.'

"Work! You're a pretty chap to come asking me for work. You don't want impudence, that's clear.'

"Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table. He took it up and read it through. At the end, he looked up and said, 'What are you waiting for?'

"An answer to th' question I axed.' "I gave it you before. Don't waste any

off upwards of a hundred of my best hands for no other fault than following you, and such as you; and d'ye think I'll take you on? I might as well put a fire-brand into the midst of the cotton-waste.'

"Higgins turned away; then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to make. 'I'd promise yo', measter, I'd not speak a word as could do harm, if so be yo' did right by us; and I'd promise more; I'd promise that when I see'd yo' going wrong, and acting unfair, I'd speak to yo' in private first; and that would be a fair warning. If yo' and I did na agree in our opinion o' your conduct, yo' might turn me off at an hour's notice.'

"Upon my word, you don't think small beer of yourself; Hamper has had a loss of you. How came he to let you and your wisdom go?'

“Well, we parted wi' mutual dissatisfaction. I would not gi'e the pledge they were asking; and they would not have me at no rate. So I'm free to make another engagement.'

"That you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose?'

"No, I'd be thankful if I was free to do that; it's for to keep th' widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o' yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weff fra warp.'

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Well, you'd better turn to something else if you've any such good intention in your head. I should not advise you to stay in Milton; you're too well known here.'

"If it were summer,' said Higgins, 'I'd take to Paddy's work, and go as a navvy, or haymaking, or summut, and ne'er see Milton again. But it's winter, and the childer will clem.'

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"A pretty navvy you'd make ! Why, you could not do half a day's work at digging against an Irishman.'

"I'd only charge half a day for the twelve hours, if I could only do half a day's work in the time. Yo're not knowing of any place, where they could gi' me a trial away fra' the mills, if I'm such a firebrand? I'd take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those childer.'

"Don't you see what you would be? You'd be a knobstick. You'd be taking less wages than the other laborers-all for the sake of another man's children. Think how you'd abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get to keep his own children. You and your union would soon be down upon him. No, no! if it's only for the recollection of the way in which you've used the poor knobsticks before now, I say, No, to your question. I will not give you work. There's your answer.'

"I hear, sir. I would na ha' troubled yo' but that I were bid to come, by one as seemed to think yo'd getten some soft place in yo'r heart. She were mistook, and I were misled. But I'm not the first man as is misled by a woman.'

"Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you.'

"I'm obleeged to yo' for a' yo'r kindness, measter, and most of a' for yo'r civil way

o' saying good-bye.'

"Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply. But looking out of the window a minute after, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard; the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter's lodge.

"How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?'

"He was outside the gate before eight o'clock, sir. I think he's been there ever since.'

"And it is now-?' "Just one, sir.'

"Five hours,' thought Mr. Thornton; 'it's certainly a long time for a man to wait doing nothing, but first hoping and then fearing.""

For the credit's sake of the granite men of the north, we must add that Mr. Thornton repented before the day was over, and did give Higgins work-which the man did not take without telling the master" a bit of his mind."

"North and South" was originally published in Household Words, as were also the delicious pictures of countrytown life, grouped together under the name of "CRANFORD." Mrs. Gaskell has written many things of greater power and more vivid interest than these stories, but nothing that will better bear to be read over and over again. They are rich in her peculiar humor, her sense of fun, and warm throughout with her genuine womanly kindness. Akin to these are numerous short tales, contributed to various periodicals, amongst which we may instance, as most striking, "Lizzie Leigh," "The Grey Woman," and "Mr. Harrison's Confessions," which have been since collected into volumes. In another line, under the title of "Company Manners," she gives us her notions of how society is made agreeable, or the reverse: her pet illustration of a perfect

entertainer being the charming Madame de Sablé.

We shall now pass forward to "RUTH;" in order of publication, Mrs. Gaskell's second great work, written in what we have styled her second manner, and, of all her novels, perhaps, least our favorite. It is the story of a life full of tears; of a girl left fatherless and motherless, and apprenticed at fifteen, by a her, to the head milliner of a country guardian who has no personal interest in town. Pretty, graceful, timid, untaught, a little indolent, a little refined; without protection, without counsel, save that voice of God in the soul of her which we admiration of a self-indulgent young gencall conscience, she attracts the dangerous tleman of three and twenty, and with as little pre-meditation as may be in such a case, they go astray together. Ruth hears a whisper within, warning her that it is not good for her to meet Mr. Bellingham, to walk with him when she should be at church; but her pleasures are so few, and this pleasure is so great. Thoughts of her mother, dead and gone, hold her a little while, but a threat from her mistress opens the door of opportunity to her lover, and he entices her easily over the threshold of temptation, soon to abandon her in that wilderness of sorrow and suf

fering, where society has decreed that women who have once left the straight paths of virtue shall wander all their days outcast, branded, apart. Whether this decree of society is Christian, wise, fair, is the hard problem Mrs. Gaskell sets us to consider and to solve in the sad story of "Ruth." And first she shows us the girl while she was yet

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snow pure," wearying in the milliner's work-room, at two o'clock on a January morning, during a brief interval for rest, in the labor of preparation for a country ball.

"Ruth pressed her hot forehead against the cold glass, and strained her aching eyes in gazing out on the lovely sky of a winter's night. The impulse was strong upon her to snatch up a shawl, and wrapping it round her head, to sally forth and enjoy the glory; and time was, when that impulse would have filled with tears, and she stood quite still, been instantly followed; but now, Ruth's eyes dreaming of the days that were gone.

Some

one touched her shoulder while her thoughts were far away, remembering past January

nights, which had resembled this, and were yet so different.

"Ruth, love,' whispered a girl who had distinguished herself by a long and hard fit of coughing, come and have some supper. You don't know how it helps one through the night.'

"One run-one blow of the fresh air would do me more good,' said Ruth.

"Not such a night as this,' replied the other.

"And why not such a night as this, Jenny?' answered Ruth. 'Oh! at home I have many a time run up the lawn all the way to the mill, just to see the isicles hang on the great wheel, and when I was once out, I could hardly find in my heart to come in, even to mother sitting by the fire-even to mother,' she added, in a low melancholy tone, which had something of inexpressible sadness in it."

An interlude of bitter-sweet delight follows Ruth's fall from her pure estate. Mr. Bellingham carries her to Wales, and the landlady of the inn where they lodge, though she promptly discerns her position, finds it "hard to show the proper contempt," so gentle is she, so humble and meek. Already on a dull day, the hours begin to lag with the lover, already, now and then, a shadow droops over Ruth's beautiful face. But when the weather is bright, and they can ramble abroad, they are happy as children at play. Here is one sunny scene of their love, close on which come clouds and tears, and the natural end of such love's beginning.

"There was a path leading sharp down, and they followed it; the ledge of rock made it almost like going down steps, and their walk grew into a bounding, and their bounding into a run, before they reached the lowest plane. A green gloom reigned there; it was the still hour of noon; the little birds were quiet in some leafy shade. They went on a few yards, and then they came to a circular pool over. shadowed by trees, whose highest boughs had been beneath their feet a few minutes before. The pond was hardly below the surface of the ground, and there was nothing like a bank on any side. A heron was standing there motionless, but when he saw them he flapped his wings and slowly rose, and soared above the green heights of the wood up into the very sky itself; for at that depth the trees appeared to touch the round white clouds that brooded over the earth. The speedwell grew in the shallowest water of the pool, and all around its margin, but the flowers were hardly seen at first, so deep was the green

shadow cast by the trees. In the very midIdle of the pond the sky was mirrored clear and dark, a blue which looked as if a black void had laid behind.

"Oh! there are water-lilies,' said Ruth, her eye catching on the farther side. 'I must go and get some.'

"No, I will get them for you. The ground is spongy all round there. Sit still, Ruth; this heap of grass will make a capital seat.'

"He went round, and she waited quietly for his return. When he came back, he took off her bonnet, without speaking, and began to place his flowers in her hair. She was quite still while he arranged her coronet, looking up in his face with loving eyes, with peaceful composure. She knew that he was pleased, from his manner, which had the joyousness of a child playing with a new toy, and she did not think of his occupation. It was pleasant to forget everything except his pleasure. When he had decked her out, he said:

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"There, Ruth, now you'll do. Come and look at yourself in the pond. Here, where there are no weeds, come.'

"She obeyed, and could not help seeing her own loveliness: it gave her a new sense of satisfaction for an instant, as the sight of any other beautiful object would have done, but she never thought of associating it with herself. Her existence was in feeling and thinking and loving.

"Down in that green hollow they were quite in harmony. Her beauty was all that Mr. Bellingham cared for, and that was supreme. It was all he recognized in her, and he was proud of it. She stood in her white dress against the trees that grew around; her face was flushed into a brilliancy of color, which resembled that of a rose in June; the great heavy white flowers drooped on either side of her beautiful head, and if her brown hair was a little disordered, the very disorder seemed only to add a grace. She pleased him more by looking so lovely than by all her tender endeavors to fall in with his varying humors."

On the evening of this very day, Mr. Bellingham is smitten with fever, his mother comes to nurse him, and Ruth is excluded from his room. No sooner is he convalescent than he prepares to abandon her,-if it can be arranged handsomely, he does not "wish to see her again." His mother regards his selfish heartlessness as a return to virtue, and leaving a letter of severe counsel and a fifty pound note for Ruth, she carries him away from the inn at once, to avoid the possibility of meeting with the unhappy girl. When Ruth finds herself