be sweeter than heaven; and the wild hope which came and went like a meteor about his path, sprang up with sudden intensity, and took the breath from his lips, and the color from his cheek, as he entered at that green garden door. it is. Hush! she is ringing her bell. She Lady Western was by herself in the drawing-room-that room divided in half by the closed doors which Vincent remembered so well. She rose up out of the low chair in which she reposed, like some lovely swan amid billows of dark silken drapery, and held out her beautiful hand to him-both her beautiful hands - with an effusion of kindness and sympathy. The poor young Nonconformist took them into his own, and forgot the very existence of Salem. The sweetness of the moment took all the sting out of his fate. He looked at her without saying anything, with his heart in his eyes. Consolation! It was all he had come for. He could have gone away thereafter and met all the Pigeons in existence; but more happiness still was in store for him-she pointed to a chair on the other side of her work-table. There was nobody else near to break the charm. The silken rustle of her dress, and that faint perfume which she always had about her pervaded the rosy atmosphere. Out of purgatory, out of bitter life beset with trouble, the young man had leaped for one moment into paradise; and who could wonder that he resigned himself to the spell? "I am so glad you have come," said Lady Western. I am sure you must have hated me, and everything that recalled my name; but it was impossible for any one to be more grieved than I was, Mr. Vincent. Now, will you tell me about Rachel? She sits by herself in her own room. When I go in she gives me a look of fright which I cannot un-again open, and somebody else was going derstand. Fright! Can you imagine Ra- into the enchanted house. Somebody else chel frightened, Mr. Vincent-and of me?" -a tall, slight figure, in a loose, light-col"Ah, yes. I would not venture to come ored dress, which he recognized instinctively into the presence of the angels if I had guilt with an agony of jealous rage. A minute on my hands," said Vincent, not very well before he had allowed to himself, in an exknowing what he said. quisite despair, that to hope was madness; "Mr. Vincent! what can you mean? You but the sight of his rival awoke other alarm me very much," said the young Dow-thoughts in the mind of the minister. With ager; "but perhaps it is about her little quick eyes he identified the companion of his girl. I don't think she knows where her midnight journey-he in whose name all daughter is. Indeed," said Lady Western, Susan's wretchedness had been wroughtwith a cloud on her beautiful face, " you he whom Lady Western could trust with must not think I ever approved of my broth-life-to death." Vincent went back at the er's conduct; but when he was so anxious sight of him, and found the door now close to have his child, I think she might have given in to him a little-don't you think so? The child might have done him good perhaps. She is very lovely, I hear. Did you see her? O Mr. Vincent, tell me about it. I cannot understand how you are connected with it all. She trusted in you so much, and now she is afraid of you. Tell me how shut, through which his steps had passed. Close shut-enclosing the other-shutting him out in the cold external gloom. He forgot all he had to do for himself and his friends-he forgot his duty, his family, everything in the world but hopeless love and passionate jealousy, as he paced up and down before Lady Western's door. From The North British Review. shadow of the hills; but the water is flow- 1. Essays from "The Quarterly Review." 5. Essays in History and Art. By R. H. Patterson. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1862. 6. Essays, Historical and Critical. By Hugh Miller. A. and C. Black, Edinburgh. 1862. EVERY now and again it is asserted that our literature is being destroyed by the periodicals. Some hold that, under their baneful influence, we are losing all concision and polish of style, as well as all capacity for serious thought. Others, admitting that there may be as much intellectual wealth current now as there was forty or a hundred years ago, contend that as the intellectual wealth of the former time was represented by a thousand gold coins, and the wealth of the present day by a million copper ones, the unprecedented distribution of pieces, the sordid material of which they are composed, the excess of bulk and weight, form serious deductions from the value actually in possession. The assertion that magazines and reviews are at present hurting literature, is one which, in virtue of being half truth and half falsehood, is likely to enjoy a long life. You cannot trample it quite out, on account of the truth resident in it; you have an uneasy suspicion of its falsehood even while asserting it most loudly. Every household in the country has its periodical. Henry of Navarre longed for the time when every Frenchman should have a hen in his pot. That he conceived a better sign of the prosperity of a country than certain big feasts in certain big castles. The magazines bring literature into every home, just as aqueduct and pipe bring the water of Loch Katrine into the homes of the Glasgow citizens. It is quite true, that the water occasionally tastes of iron, and wears a rusty stain; quite true that a perfectly pure draught may always be had at the legendary lake in the And, to carry out the illustration, the water is often as pure in the basin of the citizen as beneath the trembling sedges that the wild duck loves. The fact that so many of our books, and so many of our best books too, are reprints from periodicals, proves that not only are periodicals extensively read, but that they absorb much of our best thinking and writing. The best-written magazine naturally attracts the largest num ber of readers; and this number of readers enables it to maintain its level of excellence, and to draw to its service the best men who may from time to time arise. When we say that our best periodicals are extensively read, we are simply saying that our best periodicals are attractive. No man who wishes to be amused will pay his money for dulness. No man who appreciates style will habitually peruse what cannot minister to his literary delight. The people who purchase the Cornhill may be presumed to be tolerably contented with the literature of the Cornhill. Their ordinary thinking is not quite up to the level of the thinking of the writers in that serial; the articles it contains occasionally present them with a new fact, or with a new view of a fact already known; and their ordinary conversation or correspondence does not exhibit the play of fancy and aptness of illustration which distinguish the writings of Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Lewes. So long as periodicals are read, we assume that they serve a very important purpose-that they amuse, instruct, and refine. Whenever they cease to do so, they will die as the annuals did. Nor does this same literature affect writers in any very disastrous way. It is frequently said that periodical writing fritters away a man's intellectual energy-that, instead of concentrating himself on some congenial task, devoting a whole lifetime to it, and leaving it as a permanent possession of the race, a man is tempted to write hastily and without sufficient meditation; that in fact we have articles now, more or less brilliant, whereas, under different circumstances, we might have had books. All this kind of conjecture is exceedingly unprofitable. Doubtless, under different circumstances, the results of a man's working would have been different 66 tragic subject which his serious fancy loved, emits like the glowworm a melancholy ray. But they could not shine for any continuous period, and had the wisdom not to attempt it. Are they to blame that they did not write long books to prove themselves dull fellows? It is of no use to cry out against the present state of things in literature. The magazines are here, and they have been produced by a great variety of causes. They demand certain kinds of literary wares; but whether the wares are valuable or the reverse, depends entirely upon the various workmen. It is to be hoped, if magazine writers possess a specialty, that they will stick to their specialty, and work it out faithfully-that no one will go out of his way, like Mr. Dickens, when he wrote "The Child's History of England," or Mr. Ruskin, when he addressed himself to the discussion of questions in political economy. more or less; but it does not of necessity | pit the actor. Jerrold sparkles like a firefollow that the results would have been fly through the tropic night; Hood, in that more valuable. A man's power in literature, as in everything else, is best measured by his accomplishment, just as his stature is best measured by his coffin. The man who can beat his fellows in a ten-mile race, is likely to maintain his superiority in a race for a shorter distance. It is a mistake to suppose that a man's largest work, or the work on which he has expended the greatest labor, is on that account his best. Literary history is full of instances to the contrary. When mental power is equal, that is surest of immortality which occupies the least space; scattered forces are then concentrated, like garden roses gathered into one bouquet, or English beauty in the boxes at the opera. Leisure and life-long devotion to a task have often resulted in tediousness. Large works are often too heavy for posterity to carry. We have too many Canterbury Tales.” The "Faery Queen" would be more frequently read if it consisted of only one book, and Spenser's fame would stand quite as high. Milton's poetical genius is as apparent in "Comus " and "Lycidas" as in his great Epic, which most people have thought too long. Addison's "Essay in Westminster Abbey" is more valuable than his tragedy. Macaulay's Essays on Clive and Warren Hastings are as brilliant, powerful, and instructive as any single chapter of his "History"-with the additional advantage that they can be read at a sitting. Certain readers have been found to admire Wordsworth's "We are Seven" more than the " "Excursion." Coleridge talked of spending fifteen years on the construction of a great poem; had he done so, it is doubtful whether his reader would have preferred it to the "Ancient Mariner." From all this it may be inferred that if writers, instead of "frittering themselves away "in periodicals, had devoted themselves to the production of important works, the world would not have been much the wiser, and their reputations not one whit higher. Besides, there are many men more brilliant than profound, who have more élan than persistence, who gain their victories, like the Zouaves, by a rapid dash; and these do their best in periodicals. These the immediate presence of the reader excites, as the audience the orator, the crowded To the young writer, the magazine or review has many advantages. In many instances he can serve in the house of a literary noble, as the squire in the fourteenth century served in the house and under the eye of the territorial noble. He may model himself on an excellent pattern, and receive knighthood from his master as the reward of good conduct. If otherwise circumstanced, if, following no special banner, he writes under the cover of the anonymous, and if unsuccessful, he may retire without being put to public shame. In the arena of the magazines he can try his strength, pit himself against his fellows, find out his intellectual weight and power, gradually beget confidence in himself or arrive at the knowledge of his weakness,-a result not less valuable if more rarely acquired. If he is overthrown in the lists, no one but himself is the worse; if he distinguishes himself, it is a little unreasonable to expect him to keep his visor down when roses are showering upon him from applauding balconies. A man eminently successful in the magazines may fairly be forgiven for rushing to a reprint. Actors who make a hit at Drury Lane, almost immediately make a tour of the provinces. A reprint is to the author what a provincial tour is to the actor. If he is an amusing writer, people welcome him in his new shape with the gratitude which people always entertain for those who have amused them; if he is a great writer, people desire to shake hands with him, as the elector is proud to shake hands with the candidate whom he has elected as his representative. And, indeed, the magazinists may fairly be compared to the House of Commons, a mixed audience, representing every class, stormy, tumultuous, where great questions are being continually discussed; an assembly wherein men rise to be leaders of parties; out of which men are selected to rule distant provinces ;-out of which also, every now and again, a member is translated to the Upper House, where he takes his seat among his peers, in a serener atmosphere, and among loftier traditions. whim, as emotion shapes the lyric. Montaigne wanders about at his own will, and has as many jerks and turnings as a swallow on the wing. He seems to have the strangest notions of continuity, and sometimes his titles have no relation to his subjectmatter, and look as oddly at the top of his page as the sign-board of the Bible-merchant over the door of a lottery office. He assails miracles in his "Essay on Cripples," and he wanders into the strangest regions in his essay "Upon some Verses of Virgil." In his most serious moods he brings illustrations from the oddest quarters, and tells such stories as we might suppose Squire Western to have delighted in, sitting with a neighboring squire over wine, after his sisDuring the last year or two, there has ter and Sophia had withdrawn. These been a large number of reprints from the essays, full of the keenest insight, the promagazines, consisting chiefly of essays and foundest melancholy, continually playing novels. With the latter at present we have with death as Hamlet plays with Yorick's no concern. The essay has always been a skull, whimsical, humorous, full of the flafavorite literary form with magazine writ-vor of a special character,-philosopher and ers; and in the volumes before us we have eccentric Gascon gentleman in one,-are, in specimens of various kinds. Of the most the best sense of the term, artistic. There delightful kind of essay-writing, that of per- is a meaning in the trifling, wisdom in the sonal delineation, which chronicles moods, seeming folly, a charm in the swallow-like which pursues vagrant lines of thought, gyrations. All the incongruous elements,Montaigne is the earliest, and as yet the the whimsicality and the worldly wisdom, greatest example. Montaigne is as egotis- the melancholy, the humor and sense of tical in his essays as a poet is in his lyrics. enjoyment, the trifling over articles of attire His subject is himself, his thinkings, his sur- and details of personal habit, the scepticism roundings of every kind. He did not write which questioned everything, the piety and to inform us about the events of his own the coarseness,-mix and mingle somehow, time, though it was stirring enough; about and become reconciled in the alembic of perhis contemporaries, although he mingled sonal character. Oppositions, incongruities, much in society, and knew the best men of contradictions, taken separately, are mere his day; about the questions which stirred lines and scratches; when brought together, the hearts and perplexed the intellects of by some mysterious attraction they unite to the sixteenth-century Frenchmen, although produce a grave and thoughtful countenance he was familiar with them all, and had formed opinions ;-these he puts aside, to discourse of his chateau, his page, his perfumed gloves;-to discuss love, friendship, experience, and the like, in his own way, half in banter, half in earnest. Consequently we have the fullest information regarding himself, if we have but little regarding anything else. Of course essays written after this fashion cannot, from the very nature of them, be expected to shape themselves on any established literary form. They do not require to have a middle, beginning, or end. They are a law unto themselves. They are shaped by impulse and that of Montaigne. He explains the essays, the essays explain him. Of course the writer's remoteness from the great French world, his freedom from the modern conditions of publication and criticism, his sense of distance from his reader-if ever he should possess one-contributed, to a large extent, to make himself his own audience. He wrote as freely in his chateau at Montaigne, as Alexander Selkirk could have done in his solitary island. Had there been upon him the sense of a reading public and of critical eyes, he could not have delivered himself up so completely into the guidance of whim. As it is, the essays remain among the masterpieces of the world. He is the to interfere with him. He was actor and first of egotists, because, while continually audience in one. The English essayists, on writing about himself, he was writing about what was noble and peculiar. No other literary egotist had ever so good a subject, and then his style is peculiar as himself. In his essays he continually piques the reader; every now and then more is meant than meets the eye; every now and then a great deal less. He plays at hide-and-seek with his reader round his images and illustrations. In reading Montaigne, we are always thinking we are finding him out. When the essay became a popular literary form in England, the conditions of things had altogether changed since Montaigne's day. The Frenchman was a solitary man, with but few books except the classics, given to self-communion, constantly writing to please himself, constantly mastered by whim, constantly, as it were, throwing the reins upon the neck of impulse. He had no public, and consequently he did not stand in awe of one. The country was convulsed, martyrs were consumed at the stake, country houses were sacked, the blood of St. Bartholomew had been spilt, the white plume of Navarre was shining in the front of battle. Amid all this strife and turmoil, the melancholy and middle-aged gentleman sat in his chateau at Montaigne, alone with his dreams. No one disturbed him; he disturbed no one. He lived for himself and for thought. When Steele and Addison appeared as English essayists, they appeared under totally different circumstances. The four great English poets had lived and died. The Elizabethan drama, which had arisen in Marlow, had set in Shirley. The comedy of Wicherley and Congreve, in which pruriency had become phosphorescent, was in possession of the stage. Dryden had taken immortal vengeance on his foes. Fragments of Butler's wit sparkled like grains of salt in the conversation of men of fashion. English literature was already rich; there was a whole world of books and of accumulated ideas to work upon. Then a public had arisen; there was the " town," idle, rich, eagerly inquiring after every new thing, most anxious to be amused. Montaigne was an egotist, because he had little but himself to write about; certainly he had nothing nearly so interesting. He pursued his speculations as he liked, because he had no one the other hand, had the English world to act upon. They had its leisure to amuse, its follies to satirize; its books, music, and pictures, its public amusements, its whole social arrangements, to comment upon, to laugh at, to praise. As a consequence their essays are not nearly so instructive as Montaigne's, although they are equally sparkling and amusing. We are introduced into a fashionable world, to beaux with rapiers and lace ruffles, and belles with patches on their cheeks; there are drums and card-tables, and sedan chairs and links. The satire in the Spectator is conventional; it concerns itself with the circumference of a lady's hoops, or the air with which a coxcomb carries his cocked hat beneath his arm. The essayists of the eighteenth century were satirists of society, and of that portion of society alone which sneered in the coffee-houses and buzzed round the card-tables of the metropolis. They did not deal with crimes, but with social foibles; they did not recognize passions in that fashionable world; they did not reverence women, they took off their hats and uttered sparkling compliments to the "fair." Theirs was a well-dressed world, and they liked it best when seen by candle-light. They were fine gentlemen, and they carried into literature the fine-gentleman airs. They dressed carefully, and they were as careful of the dress of their thoughts as of their persons. Their epigram was sharp and polished as their rapiers; they said the bitterest things in the most smiling way; their badinage was gentlemanly. Satire went about with a colored plume of fancy in his cap. They brought style to perfection. But even then one could see that a change was setting in. A poor gentleman down at Olney, under the strong power of the world to come, was feeding his hares, and writing poems of a religious cast, yet with a wonderful fascination, as of some long-forgotten melody, haunting their theological peculiarities, which drew many to listen. Up from Ayrshire to Edinburgh came Burns, with black piercing eyes, with all his songs about him, as if he had reft a county of the music of its groves; in due time a whole wild Paris was yelling round the guillotine where noble heads were falling. Europe became a battle-field; a |