awaited us beyond that, has been transferred to the present. To arrive, per fas et nefas, at the terrestial Paradise of luxury and vain enjoyments, to petrify the heart and macerate the body for fleeting possessions, as the martyrs once gave their lives for eternal happiness, is the general thought a thought written everywhere, even in the laws which inquire of the legislator, How much do you pay? instead of, What are your opinions? When these doctrines have passed from the middle classes to the people, what will become of the country?". Eugénie Grandet."

Wo

'Misery engenders equality. man has this in common with the angels, that suffering belongs especially to her."—Ibid.

In every situation woman has more causes of grief than man, and suffers more than he. Man has his strength and the exercise of his power; he is busy, he hurries, he occupies himself, he thinks, he anticipates the future, and finds consolation. But woman remains alone; she stands face to face with her suffering, from which nothing distracts her; she descends into the very depths of the abyss which has opened, sounds it, and often sinks under her wishes and her tears. To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself, will always be the text of the life of woman. With these few extracts we must bid farewell to Balzac; we may also add that his novels are tolerably free from that peculiar form of representing social evils common to many French writers, and once so offensive to la pudeur Britannique, but as phases of French life they do contain some things of which we were once happily ignorant, but which have unfortunately been made familiar to us in the fiction writing of the last few years. Anyone who has passed through the malebolge of vice which has been delineated in our most popular novels, may read the worst of Balzac without fear of taint, although he himself forbade his young nieces to read some of his works.

The novel is one of the problems of modern literature, and its effect upon morals is yet in experiment. It is to the poets and dramatists of bygone

times, that we look for insight into the familiar life of extinct peoples. Old historians deal chiefly with the career of the nations and the march of event; but the poets and dramatists have stereotyped the peculiarities of every-day life, as they developed themselves around them. In these two departments of literature, as concerns ourselves, the present age is especially unfortunate; and time by obliterating much of our poetry and dramatic plagiarism will do a kindness to our national honour, so that posterity will have to turn to those delineations of life and character embodied in our novels for pictures of the habits and customs of the nineteenth century in England. That such a comprehensive representation of life should be false is an error which our natural love of perpetuity ought to rectify; that it should be impure is a stigma which the honour of the age ought to rectify; that it is, as regards us, both false and impure, is the crying calamity of our literature.

There is, interlaced as it were with the very tissues of the human mind, a principle which may be termed the principle of unconscious imitation. No intellect, however strong its calibre, can contemplate for any length of time one particular vein or cast of thought, without becoming as it were saturated with its spirit, permeated with its influence, without finding its own ideas receiving, by some subtle operation of this mysterious principle of imitation, a bias or impetus towards the current of that thought which it has been contemplating, and the velocity of the impetus is in the proportion of the strength of the mind of the operator to the weakness of that of the subject operated upon. It becomes at once obvious that the tainting such a current of literature as that of fiction with impurities, is one of the greatest evils which the intellectual history of a nation can record. The morbid influence is subtle; without perhaps working practical mischief it inflicts moral injury; for though it may be possible for virtue to exist without chastity, yet a healthy, chaste mind is the broad foundation and greatest help to a virtuous life.

VOL. LXX.-NO. CCCCXIX.

36

THERE can be little doubt that in "Old Sir Douglas" the Hon. Mrs. Norton has attained her highest excellence as a writer of fiction-not only has that tale an advantage over Lost and Saved," in not being written, as the phrase is, "for a purpose,' but over all her other prose works in vigour of interest, in profusion of thought and poetry; and, more strikingly still, in variety and singularity of character. If the book contained no other portrait than that of Alice Ross, that one marvellous delineation would suffice to stamp it as a work of the highest order of genius. But this book is characterized by all the brilliant singularities of its celebrated authoress. Mrs. Norton's narrative is impassioned in the sense in which a speech is impassioned. It is a statement of an extraordinary case, by an advocate of startling force, fancy, sarcasm, and pathos. It differs from other stories, not only in the measure of its power, but in the attitude of its narrator. Mrs. Norton handles the story she tells and the persons who figure in it, like an advocate in the forum. She denounces, she applauds she throws her own passionate sympathies undisguisedly into her narrative, and the reader finds himself carried away by a double force-by the extraordinary interest of the tale, and by the enthusiasm of its reciter. It is this predominance of the rhetorical temperament which distinguishes Mrs. Norton essentially from all contemporary story-tellers, and contributes, one powerful element to the general fascination of her fictions.

The generous partialities and antipathies to which her impetuous eloquence is subservient, aid in stimulating the feelings of the reader, who lays down the book with a consciousness of having been wrought upon by something more than the situations, the dialogue, and the characters which enter strictly into a story-of having been pleaded with, harangued, and inflamed by an orator difficult to

resist during the entire movement of the drama.

In her method of treating a story, there are other peculiarities distinguishing her manner in a very marked way from that of most other writers of romance. There is hardly to be found in the entire work a single page of mere narrative. There runs through it a fine essaic vein of illustration drawn from acute observation and often from very profound thought.

The thinking faculty of the reader is thus kept in continual play, while his fancy is charmed by the poetic faculty and brilliant wit which beautify and illuminate without ever disturbing this current of severer thought. The proportion of this delightful and brilliant ingredient is so large as to impart a very singular charm to the work. We have mentioned that sparkling quality which is the natural heritage of Mrs. Norton. There are touches, too, of delicate humour, and playful, feminine irony, to be found in these pages, which to those familiar with the writings of Mrs. Frances Sheridan will recall one of the happiest gifts of that delightful mind.

To support what we have said respecting the "essaic ingredient" of which we have spoken, and which everywhere pervades this powerful book, we reprint, with hardly an attempt at selection, a few examples of the graver discussion which flows concurrently with the story.

"On their way to Glenrossie! Ah, what other rapture, what other fulness of joy, shall compare to the day, when the woman who loves deeply and truly is borne to the home of the man she so loves?

"For ever! The human 'for-ever 'the

for-ever 'till death do us part,' how it stretches out its illimitable future of joy, as other, of existence, of love, of all that makes we sit, hand linked in hand, sure of each other, of existence, of love, of all that makes boundaries that divide lands flee past before a paradise of earth; and the hedges and our dreaming eyes; and the morning sun glows into noon; and the noon burns and fades; and the day sinks again, with a

crimson haze, into sunset-and perhaps the sweet and quiet light—the pale light of the moon-swims up into that sea of blue men call the sky; while still we are journeying on to the one spot on earth where we have cast our anchor of hope; to the trees and lawns, and rocks and hills, and gardens of flowers, and paths of delight, which were till now all HIS: but since the morning are OURS!—the place we have loved without ever seeing it, perhaps,—the place that saw his boyhood; where his people drew breath; where his dear ones have lived and died ;

where we hope to live and die-Home!

The blessed word HOME!"

"If there were not daily examples to familiarize us with the marvel, we might wonder at the strange way in which Nature asserts herself; or rather, at the effects of Nature and accident combined, in the characters of individuals.

“We see children, all brought up in one home, under the same tutelage, as different as night from day. Pious sons and daughters sprung from infidel and profligate parents; unredeemed and incorrigible rascals from honest and religious fathers; fools, that fritter away the vanishing hours they themselves scarcely know how, born where steady conduct and deep knowledge seemed the very life of those around them, and earnest, intelligent, and energetic souls springing up, like palm-trees in the desertsand, where never a thought has been given to mental culture or religious improvement."

"There are persons who talk much and readily of their feelings, and who yet leave you in uncertainty both as to the sincerity and the motive of their confession; and there are others whose rare allusions to themselves and their private joys or sorrows seem to come like gleams of light, showing

their whole inner nature.'

"I wonder if women who are 'first objects' in some large and happy home circle, -or even 'first objects' to the objects they themselves love,-ever ruminate over the condition of one who is nobody's first object. How lone in the midst of company such a one must feel! What silence must lie under all their talking and laughing! What strange disruption from the linked chain that holds all the rest together! What exile, though ever present! What starvation of soul, in the midst of all those great shares of love meted out around her!"

"Woe to the man who is loved with the passion that has neither tenderness nor affection to soften it: who is loved not for his own sake, but for the selfish sake of the woman who has mated with him! The opposite of that love is hate. The serpent

hatched from the Egyptian warmth of that sterile soil, is sterile soil, is vengeance. Pity, and regret, and the sad quiet partings of a humbled heart; the unutterable and fiery sense of wrong quenched and conquered by a flood of better and holier feelings: all these things are unknown to such women. Their impulse is to slay Jason's children to punish Jason. They fulfil the Scriptural malediction which says, 'Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel.""

mystery of the story, reprint here one We may, without violating the of its many pathetic and powerful scenes, because it meets us almost in limine, in the second chapter, and discloses nothing which the reader is not intended to know at the outset.

"Sir Douglas rode to Torrieburn almost as desperately as his brother had done the night before. He found the handsome rider he had fondly watched at his departure, a bruised, shattered, groaning wretch. His horse, overspurred, and bewildered by the drifting rain and howling storm, had swerved on the old-fashioned sharp-angled bridge that crossed the Falls of Torrieburn close to his home, and had dashed with his rider over the low parapet in among the rocks below.

"Close to home; luckily, close to home!

"Near enough for the wild shout he gave as he fell, and even the confused sound of the roll of shaken-down stones, and terrible weight of horse and rider falling on the bed of the torrent, to reach the house, and the quick ear of one who was waiting and watching there. For Kenneth's bachelor home was not a lonely one. Startling was the picture that presented itself in that drear morning's light when Sir Douglas entered. The weariest frightened form he ever beheld in the shape of woman, sat at the foot of the bed. Untidy, dishevelled, beautiful; her great white arms stretched out with clasped hands, shuddering every time that Kenneth groaned; her reddish-golden hair stealing in tangled locks from under the knotted kerchief, which she had never untied or taken off since she had rushed out into the storm and scrambled down to the Falls the night before. The lower part of her dress still soaked and dripping, covered with mud and moss—one of her loose stockings torn at the ankle, and the blood oozing through-her petticoat, too, torn on that side. She had evidently slipped in attempting to reach the horse and rider.

Douglas spoke first to her, and he spoke to her of herself; not of his brother.

"'Och !' she said, and her teeth chattered as she spoke, 'ye'll no mind me, sir! it's naething. I just drappit by one hand frae the brae, in amang the stanes to get at him, and sae gat hurtit. Ou Kenneth! Kenneth! Kenneth! Ou my man! my ain man!' and

rocking wildly to and fro while the rain beat against the window, and the storm seemed to rock the trees in unison with her movements, she ceased to speak.

"The dying man moved his lips with a strange sort of smile, but no sound came. Douglas knelt down by him; and, as he did so, was conscious of the presence of a little nestling child, the most lovely little face that ever looked out of a picture, that was sitting at the bed-head, serene and hopeful in all this trouble, and saying to him with a shy smile, 'Are ye the doctor? and will ye put daddy a' richt? We've been waiting lang for the doctor.'

"No doctor could save Kenneth-no, not if the aching heart of his elder brother had resolved to bring him life at the price of his whole estate. He was fast going-fast! The grief of the ungovernable woman at his bed-foot only vaguely disturbed him. He was beginning to be withdrawn from earthly sights and earthly sounds. But Sir Douglas tried to calm her. He besought her to be still; to go away and wash her wounded limb and tear-swoln face, and arrange herself, and return, and meanwhile he would watch Kenneth till the doctor came. No, she wouldn't-no, she couldn't —no, he might die while she was out of the way-no, she wad see the last o' him, and then dee.' She offered no help; she was capable of no comfort; she kept up her loud lament, so as to bewilder all present; and it was a positive relief to Sir Douglas when, with a sudden shiver through her whole frame, she slid from the bed-foot to the floor in a swoon.

The Doctor and his assistant arrive "bone-setters," from the village of Torrieburn, and the admission soon comes, that beyond some trifling palliatives, their simple skill can their simple skill can devise nothing-Kenneth must die— "When the doctor had arranged that dying bed for the best,-and had attended to the miserable woman who had fainted, and had brought her back, pale, exhausted, but quieter, to the sick chamber,- Kenneth made a feeble effort to raise himself; an exertion which was followed by a dreadful groan. Then he murmured twice the name of 'Maggie!-dear Maggie! and Sir Douglas rose up, and made way for the trembling creature so called upon, to kneel down in his place: adjuring her, for the love of heaven-for the love of Kennethnot to give way, but keep still; getting only from her a burst of sobbing, and the words, 'Kill me, och! kill me! and There then maybe ye'll hush me down.' seemed no hushing her down,' till suddenly Kenneth said, in a sort of dreamy voice, 'Maggie, you'll call to mind the birken trees the birken trees!

"The woman held her breath. There was no need to quiet her now.

"The birken trees by the broomy knowe, repeated he, dreamily; and in a low clear tone he added,—'I'm sorry, Maggie.'

"Then, opening his eyes with a fixed look, he said, 'Dear Douglas!' in a tone of extreme, almost boyish tenderness; and then followed a renewed silence; broken only by the wild gusty winds outside the house, and the distant sound of the fatal Falls of Torrieburn. All at once, with the rallying strength that sometimes precedes death, he spoke clearly and intelligibly. 'Douglas! be kind—I'm going-I'm dying -be kind to my Kenneth, for the sake of days when we were boys together! Don't forsake him! don't deny him! Have pity, too, on Maggie!'

"A little pause after that, and he spoke more restlessly:-'I'm asking others, and and I ought to do it myself. It's I who forsake them: it's I that didn't pity. I say—I say-I say are you all here ? Douglas! the doctor-ah! the doctor-ah! yes, and my father's factor, -Well-I-›

"He struggled for a moment, with blue blanched lips; then, feeling for the little curled head of the child at the further side of his bed, and locking his right hand in the hand of the kneeling woman, he said,'I trust Douglas with these. I declare Margaret Carmichael my WIFE, and I acknowledge Kenneth Carmichael Ross as my lawful son!'

"The woman gave a suppressed shriek; she sprang up from her knees, and flung her arms round the dying man with a wild, 'Och, I thank ye-I thank ye! and mither'll thank ye for ever! Ou! my Kenneth!'

"Ile turned his head towards her with

No

that unutterable smile that often flits over dying faces. Brighter and fonder his smile could not have been in the days of their first love: by the broomy knowe, under the birken trees;' and perhaps his thoughts were there, even in that supreme hour. other word, except a broken ejaculation of prayer, came from him; only the bystanders saw a great change'-the change there is no describing-come over his brow. The anguish of mortal pain seemed to melt into peace. A great sigh escaped him, such

as bursts from the bosom in some sudden relief from suffering, and the handsome man was a handsome corpse.

"He who had been so much to that

wailing woman, had become IT! 'it;' 'the body;' that perishable form which had clothed the eternal soul, and was now to be carried away and hidden under the earth, 'to suffer corruption,' and join the unseen throng of those whose place in this world 'shall know them no more.

Maggie is drawn with the daring skill and utter fidelity which characterize every picture in old Sir Douglas —a skill and a fidelity which remind