tional plan." The riddle is to have a religious solution-" God is the parent of the mother; he is the parent of all, for he created all."

AQUILIUS.-Shut the book! shut the book! or rather put it in the fire, or one of these days one of your own babes will be so spoon-fed. So these are hymns for children! Why, the children brought up on this "rational plan" have set up themselves for teachers, and in a line, too, sometimes quite beyond Mrs Barbauld's intention. I took up a book of prayers off a goody-table the other day, written by a boy of six years old, with a preface by himself, to the purport that his object was to improve the thoughtless world. At the end were some verses

all such cherub children love to "lisp in numbers." As well as I can remember, they ran thus-they are lines on the occasion of its father's breaking his leg, or having some accidental sickness

"O Lord! in mercy do look down, And heal my dear papa ; Or if it please thee not to cure, Do comfort dear mama!" CURATE.-Well, I don't think there is a pin to choose between the hymn in prose and the hymn in verse, excepting that the infant versifier is rather more intelligible. I saw the little book a month or two ago at I must have called after you; for I suspect some lines in pencil at the end were your work. Did you write these?

"Defend me from such wretched stuff As children write and parents puff! Put the small hypocrites to bed, And whip the big ones in their stead!" AQUILIUS.-At least I will write them in Lydia's, to protect the future. The child would have been better employed in reading Jack the Giantkiller. But what think you of Bible stories, adopted for those of somewhat more advanced childhood-a religious novel made out of the history of Joseph, price eighteenpence? I picked it up at the same house, and had permission to put it in my pocket. It is a curious story to choose, as the writer says, "to entertain my young reader without vitiating his mind.' I mean not the genuine story, but such as the writer promises it to be; for he says in his preface, "I am not

at all aware of having at all departed from the spirit of the text, nor from the rules of probability. I have, indeed, ventured upon a few conjectures and fictious possibilities, which some very grave reader may perhaps be offended with." The author professes his object to be, to make the Bible popular; so what the conjectures and fictions possibilities that may offend very grave people may be, we must guess by the object to make it fashionable. But the recommendation to the young on the score of love, and the "letting down" the Bible to the capacities of the young, must be given in the author's own words: "The sacred volume is fertile of subjects calculated both to please and instruct, when let down, by proper elucidation, within the reach of young capacities. And rather than one class of readers should want entertainment, let me tell them, that the Bible contains many histories of love affairs; perhaps this may tend more to recommend it to attention than all besides which I could say." You will not, however, conclude that I object to religious novels. It is a legitimate mode of enforcing doctrines by lives, and showing the pernicious effects of what is false, and the natural result of the good.

CURATE. And will not the authority of parables justify the adoption? There may, it is true, be mischievous novels of the kind; but what is there that may not be perverted to a bad use? We had at one time irreligious and basely immoral novels; and there have been too many such recently from the Parisian pressblasphemous, immoral, seditions. The existence of such demands the antidote. You have, of course, read Miss Hamilton's "Modern Philosophers?" That work was well timed, and did its work well, so cleverly were the very passages from Godwin and others of that school brought in juxtaposition with their necessary results. It is a melancholy tale.

AQUILIUS.-Yes; but this quiet woman, whom, as I am told, if you had met her in society, you would never have suspected of power and shrewd observation, by her little pen scattered the philosophers right and left, and their works with them. I

read the other day Godwin's "St Leon"-a most tiresome, objectless novel; the repetitions, varying with no little ingenuity of language, of the expression of the feelings of St Leon, are tiresome to a degree. In his Caleb Williams the same thing is done; but there it agrees well with the nature of the tale, and well represents the movements of the persecuting Erinnys in the mind of the victim. I read it at a great disadvantage, it must be owned, for I had just laid down that tale of singular interest, the "Kreutzner" of Mrs H. Lee. There is a slight resemblance in some points to Godwin's style, especially to this expression of the feelings of the victim; but they are exactly timed to suspend the narrative just where it ought to stay. Too rapid a succession of events would have been out of keeping with that incessant persecution, which tracks more perfectly, because more surely and slowly. The true bloodhound is not fleet. Cassandra stayed her prophetic speech; but the pause was the scent of blood, and awful was the burst that followed. Know you the Canterbury Tales?

CURATE.-Oh yes; and well remember that strangely interesting and most powerful one of "Kreutzner." I have admired how, in every tale, the style is various and characteristic. I see, then, that you have taken to "light reading" of late.

AQUILIUS.-It is not very easy to say what light-reading is. I once heard a very grave person accused of light-reading, because he was detected with the "History of a Foundling" in his hand. He replied, "You may call it light-reading, but to me there is more solid matter in it than in most books. I find it all substance,-full weight in the scale of sense, common or uncommon, and will weigh down a library of heavy works. And yet you may pleasantly enough handle it-it fits so well, and the pressure is so convenient. You may even fancy it light too, for it imparts a vigour as you hold it. And so you can play with it for your health, as did the Greek king, in the Arabian tale, with the mallet and medicinal balls which the physician Douban gave him, with which he was lustily to exercise himself. It was all play, but the drugs

worked through it. There may be something sanatory even in the 'History of the Foundling." There is a light-reading which is the heaviest of all reading: it comes with a deadly weight upon the eyelids, and then drops like lead from your fingers, — but then, indeed, it proves light enough in escaping." Fielding's novel is not of this kind: my grave friend always read it once a-year, and said he as often found new matter in it. Did you ever-indeed I ought not to ask the question-notice Fielding's admirable English? Our best writers have had a short vocabulary, and such was the case with Fielding; but he is the perfect master of it. The manners he portrays are gone by. Some of the characters it would be impossible now to reproduce, and yet we know at a glance that they were drawn from life.

CURATE.-Comparing that novel, and indeed those of that day, with our more modern, may we not say, that this our England is improved?

AQUILIUS.-I hope so it is at least more refined. But there is a question, Is not the taste above the honesty? Some say, it is a better hypocrite. I do not venture an opinion, but take Dr Primrose's ingenious mode of prophecy, who, in ambiguous cases, always wished it might turn out well six months hence.

CURATE.-Now, indeed, you speak of a novel sui generis-that had no prototype. It stands now unapproachable and original as the Iliad. Yet I have often wondered by what art Goldsmith invested such characters with so great interest. That in every one he put something of himself, it has been well observed;, hence the strong vitality, the flesh and blood life of all. I believe the great charm lies in its sirapletonianism-I coin a word; admit it. There is scarcely a character that is not more or less of the simpleton; and the more this simpletonianism is conspicuous, the more are we delighted. Perhaps the reader, whether justified or not, is all along under the conviction that he has himself more common sense than any of the company to whom he is introduced, and with whom he becomes familiar. Simplicity runs through the whole.

tale-a fascinating simplicity, distinct from, and yet in happy relation with, this simpletonianism. The vicar is a simpleton in more things than his controversy, and is the worthy parent of Moses of the spectacles. The eccentricity of the baronet, the overtrust and the mis-trust of mankind, at the different periods of his life, are of the simpletonian school; and not the least so that act of injurious folly, the giving up his estate to a nephew, of whom he could have known no good. Mrs Primrose is a simpleton born and bred, and in any other hands but those of charitable Goldsmith must have turned out an odious character, for she has scarcely feeling, and certainly no sense. Simpletonianism reigns, whether at the vicarage or at Farmer Flamborough's. Yet is there not a single character in this exquisitely perfect novel that you would in any one respect wish other than as put before you. There is a great charm in this simpletonianism : the reader is in perfect sympathy with the common feelings of all, yet cognisant of a simpletonianism of which none of the dramatis persona are conscious. He thus sits, as it were, in the conclave of nature's administrators, knows the secret that fixes characters in their lines; and is pleased to see the strings pulled, and the figures move according to their kind; is delighted with their perfect harmony, and looks on with complacency and self-satisfaction, believing himself all the while, though he may in reality be something of a simpleton, a person of very superior sagacity. Follies that do not offend, amuse-they are not neutral: we cheat ourselves into an idea that we are exempt from, and are so much above them, that we can afford to look down and laugh: we say to our selves we are wiser. May not this in some measure be the cause that all, whether children of small or of bigger growth, of three feet or six, take pleasure in the jokes, verbal and practical, of the clown Mr Merryman, and pardon the wickedness of Punch when he so adroitly slips the rope round the neck of the simpleton chief-justice, who trusted himself within reach of the knave's fingers.

AQUILIUS.-Your theory is plausible; be the cause what it may, our

VOL. LXIV. -NO. CCCXCVI.

best authors seem to have been aware of the charm of simpletonianism. Never was there a more perfect master of it than Shakspeare. And how various the characters what differences between Shallow, Slender, Malvolio, and indeed all his troop of simpletons! None but he would have thought of putting Falstaff in the category. But let no man boast of his wisdom; we had laughed with him, but laugh too at him when simpletonianised in the buck basket. The inimitable Sterne, did he not know the value of simpletonianism, and make us love it, in the weak and in the wise, in the Shandean philosophy and the no-philosophy of the misapprehending gentle Uncle Toby, and the faithful Trim, taking to himself a portion of both masters' simpletonianism? Did not Le Sage know the value of this art?-Gil Blas retaining to the last somewhat of the simpleton, and, as if himself unconscious, so naïvely relating his failure with the Archbishop of Grenada. And have we not perfect examples in the delicious pages of Cervantes?—the grave, the wise, the high-minded simpletonianism of Don Quixotte; and that contrastingly low and mother-wit kind in the credulous Sancho Panzaignorance made mad by contact with madness engendered of reading? The very Rosinante that carried madness partakes of the sweet and insane simpletonianism, and Sancho and his ass are fellows well met, well matched.

CURATE. As he is the cleverest actor that plays the fool, so is he the wisest and ablest writer that portrays simpletonianism. I suppose it is an ingredient in human nature, and that we are none of us really exempt, but that it is kept out of sight, for the most part, and covered by the cloak of artificial manners; and so, when it does break out, the touch of human nature is irresistible; we in fact acknowledge the kinship. But the nicest painting is required; the least exaggeration turns all to caricature. Even Fielding's hand, though under the direction of consummate genius, was occasionally too unrestrained. His Parson Adams might have been a trifle more happily delineated; we see its error in the after-type, Pangloss. What a field

2 н

was there for extravagance in Don Quixotte! but Cervantes had a forbearing as well as free hand. How could people mistake the aim of Cervantes, and pronounce him to be the Satirist of Romance? He was himself the most exquisite romancer. His episodes are romantic in the extreme, whether of the pastoral or more real life. Though it was not right in Avelanda to take up his tale, it must be regretted that Cervantes changed the plan of his story. What would the tournament have been? Some critics have thought all the after-part inferior without admitting so much, he certainly wrote it in pique, and possibly might not have concluded the tale at all, if it had not been thus forced upon him.

AQUILIUS.-We must not omit to mention our own Addison. There is an air of simpletonianism running through all his papers, as one unconscious of his own wit, so perfect was he in his art; and as to character, the simpletonianism of Sir Roger de Coverley must ever immortalise the author for the good eccentric Sir Roger is one of the world's characters, that can never be put by and forgotten. What nice touches constitute it!

CURATE.-Yes, great nicety; and how often the little too far injures! I confess I was never so charmed with some of the characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, from this carrying too far.

Even simpletonianism must not intrude, as did sometimes Monkbarns and the Dominie: the "prodigious !" and absence of mind were beyond nature. Character should never become the author's puppets: mere eccentricity and catch phraseology do not make simpletonianism. Smollet, too, fell into the caricature. He sometimes told too much, and let his figures play antics. The fool would thereby spoil his part. There must be some repose every where, into which, as into an obscure, the mind of the reader or spectator may look, and make conjecture-some quiet, in which imagination may work. The reader is never satisfied, unless he too in a certain sense is a creator; the art is, to make all his conjectures, though seemingly his own, the actual result of the writing before him. "Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds." How much

does the mind accumulate at once, to fill up the history of those few words! There is no need of more-all is told; while the spectator thinks he is making out the history himself.

AQUILIUS.-It is a great fault in a very popular novel writer of the day, that he will not give his readers credit for any imagination at all; every character is in extreme. To one ignorant of the world, but through books, it would appear that there is not a common middle character in life: we are to be acquainted with the minutest particulars, or rather peculiarities, of dress and manners. It is as if a painter should colour each individual in his grouping, in the most searching light. The inanimate nature must be made equally conspicuous, and every thing exaggerated. And it is often as forced in the expression as it is exaggerated in character. He has great powers, great genius, overflowing with matter, yet as a writer he wants agreeability: his satire is bitter, unnecessarily accumulated, and his choice of odious characters offers too frequently a disgusting picture of life.

CURATE.-The worst is, that, with a genius for investing his characters with interest, by the events with which he links them together, in which he has so much art, that he compels persons of most adverse tastes to read him, he is not a good-natured writer, and he evidently, it might be almost said professedly, writes with a purpose-and that I think a very mischievous one, and one in which he is to a certain extent joined by some other writers of the day-to decry, and bring into contempt as unfeeling, the higher classes. This is a very vulgar as well as evil taste, and is quite unworthy the genius of Mr Dickens. And, what is a great error in a novelist, he gives a very false view of life as it is. There is too much of the police-office reporter in all his works. Dombey and Son is, however, his greatest failure, as a whole. You give him credit for a deep plot and mystery, ere you have gone far; but it turns out-nothing. Admirable, indeed, are some things, parts and passages of wonderful power; but the spring that should have attached them has snapped, and they are, and ever

will be, admired, only as scenes. The termination is miserable-a poor conclusion, indeed, of such a beginning; every thing is promised, nothing given, in conclusion. Some things are quite out of possibility. The whole conduct of the wife is out of nature. Such a character should have a deep cause for her conduct she has none but the having married a disagreeable man, out of pique, from whom she runs away with one still more odious to herself and every one, and assumes, not a virtue which she has not, but a vice which she scorns, and glories in the stigma, because it wounds her husband. Such a high and daring mind, and from the commencement so scorning contamination, could not so degrade itself without having stronger purpose than the given one. The entire change of character in Dombey is out of all nature-it is impossible; nor does the extraordinary affection of the daughter spring from any known principle of humanity. The very goodness of some of the accessory characters becomes wearisome, as the vice of others is disgusting.

a

AQUILIUS.-After all, he is an uncomfortable writer: he puts you out of humour with the world, perhaps with yourself, and certainly with him as a writer. Yet let us acknowledge that he has done much good. He should be immortalised, if only for the putting down the school tyrannies, exposing and crushing school pretensions, and doubtless saving many a fair intellect from withering blight and perversion. He takes in hand fools, dolts, and knaves; but Dickens wants simpletonianism.

He gave some promise that way in his Pickwick Papers, but it was not fulfilled. Turn we now to Mrs Trollope. What say you to her Vicar of Wrexhill? let it have a text, and what is it? I will not suggest a text-that is your province. I dare to say you would easily find one.

CURATE.-Why, I think Mrs Trollope was very unfairly dealt with. The narrative in that novel was a fair deduction from the creed of a sect; and if it does not always produce similar consequences, it is because men will be often better than their creeds. But that fact does not make her com

ment unfit for the text, that it told; I should judge from the abuse that has been heaped upon it-no, not upon it, but upon the authoress. Why was it not open to her to make this answer to other works of fiction, as she thought, inculcating evil? What Miss Hamilton did with the philosophers, she did with the Antinomians.

AQUILIUS.-It has been the fashion to call her a coarse writer- a vulgar writer. I see nothing of it in her best works. She takes vulgar and coarse people to expose them as warnings, and, if possible, to amend them. We cannot spare Mrs Trollope from our literature. I have been told by an eye-witness that her American " camp scene" is very far short of the truth, and that she could not give the details. He must surely be a bit of a bigot, who would hastily pronounce that even Greave's Spiritual Quixotte is an irreligious work. There are too many people interested in decrying the novel of so powerful a writer as Mrs Trollope, to suffer her to be without reproach both for style and object. I should rather object to her that she writes too muchfor she is capable, were she to bestow due time upon it, to write something better than has yet dropped from her pen; let her give up her fashionable novels. When I say better, yet would I except the Vicar of Wrexhill: for, however unpopular with some, it places her, as a writer, very high.

CURATE. They who oppose themselves to any set of opinions must make up their minds, during the present generation at least, to receive but half their meed of praise. Was this ever proved more remarkably than in the publication of that singular novel, Ten Thousand a- Year? It is a political satire, certainly; but not only that -it has a far wider scope; but it was sufficiently so to set all the Whigs against it. And sore enough they were. But has there been any such novel since the days of Fielding? And it exhibits a pathos, and tone of high principle and personal dignity, that were out of the reach even of Fielding. This novel, and its precursor, the Diary of a Physician will — must — ever live in the standard literature of the country.

AQUILIUS.-And why not add Now